Yan has more than 15 years of experience in teaching and researching second/foreign languages. Yan has a profound understanding of second language acquisition and its application to classroom pedagogy. For the past 15 years, she has been working as a lecturer at Xi’an International Studies University in China, and a research assistant and doctoral candidate at The University of Auckland. 

Her Ph.D. research conducted at The University of Auckland focused on ‘Effects of the Second Language on the First Language’, which has enhanced her understanding of the intricacies of language learning, especially written language acquisition and its related pedagogies.  

She has a good range of experience in teaching Chinese as a second language in New Zealand schools, having worked at the Confucius Institute of The University of Auckland and Auckland secondary schools as a teacher of Chinese language and culture. In addition to studying the languages she taught, Yan has studied French for five years. She has published research papers, textbooks, and Chinese translations of western culture studies, reviewed manuscripts for SSCI-indexed journals, presented her research in academic conferences, and undertaken various national and international research projects to sustain her teaching and to enrich her as a young, upcoming scholar.

Yan has a wide variety of professional interests including second language pedagogy, teaching Chinese as a second/foreign language, assessment for learning, translanguaging, student engagement and agency, curriculum design, development, and delivery, and language teaching materials development. Yan is looking forward to working with teachers across all sectors of the language teaching community. She is based in Auckland.