Денис Д.

I lived abroad in China for 2 years studying Mandarin Chinese at Xiamen University while teaching English professionally across many private schools throughout China. As a regular member of the Toastmasters community, I would improvise intricate speeches on the spot, entirely in either English or Chinese. I consistently adopted the responsibilities of Grammarian, General Evaluator, and "Toastmaster" within my club; and eventually represented my international community as Demo-Speaker at The Toastmaster's International Competition. Upon my return to Ukraine, I found administrational work in a private international ballet school, Kyiv Choreographic College; where I worked to bridge the gap between a mute and incomprehensible administration, and the foreign students alienated by the total loss of communication and translation. The diverse division of foreign students included Chinese, Japanese, American, and Italian expats; few of whom spoke a common language. They consistently depended on me to reach out and represent their best interests across at least 5 different languages, and to do so competently.

I met my wife, a half-Chinese American ballerina, at this international college, and my linguistic life changed. I now spend nearly all of my time totally immersed in American English and Culture with a highly academic and perfectionist native speaker. The rest of my time is spent translating back and forth from Ukrainian and Russian to English and Chinese, and communicating with my Father-in-law from Sichuan (who has lived in America over 50 years now) totally in Chinese. My half-Chinese wife, who does not speak Chinese at all, now relies on me for proper communication with her Chinese side of the family, and has become my new personal student for Chinese (in addition to Ukrainian and Russian). My mother-in-law, a master and legacy of higher academic English, having been privately trained by a world-renowned international journalist in writing;has also invested in my own language mastery, which has become effortless to impart to my students.

Thus, taking on private students in these languages is merely an extension of my everyday life. To academically tutor students of English and Chinese takes only the casual application of the skills that have become totally and casually mundane to me after my experiences. Everything that has been taught to me would be an absolute pleasure to pass on to you.