Before joining Shipley, Mengqiao was a Mandarin teacher for the last three years at the first Chinese immersion school in South Carolina. As she says herself, her name might be hard to pronounce but she always strives to make sure that each Mandarin lesson is easy to understand, as well as engaging and inspiring for her students. She is passionate about her subject and loves to share her knowledge and experiences with her students. Mengqiao has a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Announcing and Anchoring from China and a Master’s degree in Teaching Additional Languages from the University of Georgia. Mengqiao’s husband earned his doctoral degree from Drexel and is now a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mengqiao chose Shipley because of the small class sizes and individualized attention. “I grew up having more than 50 classmates every day and I used to teach classes with more than 20 students. It was hard to even get to know everyone. So I always believed that personalized teaching enables teachers to better connect with their students and in turn delivers superior learning experience. Now with Shipley’s smaller classes, I’m able to focus more on how to better scaffold my students and how to better tailor my teaching strategy according to each student’s needs so they can enjoy and benefit more through their journey of learning.”