Dear Parents,

I would like to introduce a new initiative of online tutoring to help our kids learning Chinese, specifically focusing on speaking and listening. Many parents approached me with their frustration not being able to help their children with their homework or recording during the weekdays. I also appreciate and agree that two hours of language class on Saturdays are not enough to get kids memorizing every pronunciation and dialog.

I would like to solicit 10 families to test out online tutoring before opening up to the entire school. The basic idea is to connect to a pool of NWCS teachers via messaging group. During the week, a parent may message the teacher group to see if any teacher is available in the next 30 mins. The parent then initiates a video or phone call to an available teacher and supervises his or her child to go over the textbook, homework, and dialogs. At the end of the 30 min call, the parent briefly discusses progress with the teacher before disconnecting. The emphasis is speaking and listening and getting immediate feedback to correct the pronuncation.

I recommend a charge of nominal fee for $15 per 30 min session for teacher’s time. Given our teachers are also moms and dads running around with their own kids, it is quite unlikely that your kids’ teachers are always available. But by forming a pool of teachers, I am hoping at least one can respond to a tutoring request in a timely manner.

For the past 3,000 years, myself and many generations before me learned Chinese in classrooms. We will continue classroom learning but with smartphones and high speed Internet, we ought to adapt our teaching to take advantage of interactive, online tools to make parents’, children’s and teachers’ time more effective. To those families who are willing to try out the initiative with us, please join me at 11:00 am at the theater this Saturday, October 3. I would love to hear your feedback and discuss logistics to make this happen.

Your Principal,
Yuan-Chi Chang 張元極