This is where we remember that we love to learn, too - not just teach.

The Mandarin

Hobby

Course

Picking up a hobby: a key part of wellbeing for teachers.

When you’re busy teacher-ing, how do you create the time, energy or capacity to do things outside of work?

A hobby can seem the last possible thing to add to your schedule.

Introducing:

The Mandarin Hobby Course

Taking some lessons in Mandarin in a small, supportive group isn’t just about learning a new skill.

It’s about creating opportunities to meet like-minded people who might even become friends.

After all, they say if you overcome hard things with a buddy you often become friends.

For teachers in particular, taking a hobby course in something like Mandarin also puts you back in the learner seat - which can help enrich your teaching practice, too.

3 key elements of this Hobby Course:

Creativity, Literacy, Joy.

Creativity

Chinese characters are considered an art form, and learning how to write in Chinese opens a pathway to exploring Chinese calligraphy. In this hobby course we spend a portion of our time simply drawing along to music in a relaxing way before our class begins.

Literacy

In many Mandarin courses, characters (reading and writing skills) are not taught until much later. In this cohort, we start learning to read, write, identify and memorise characters from the first lesson. So you will leave this hobby course having mastery of the four skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Joy

The point of this course is not to tie you into a lifelong pursuit of studying Mandarin, nor to pass an exam - but to give you a chance to try out learning a new skill. For this reason, it’s less pressure, less intimidating, and much more fun. And if you want to continue with Mandarin afterwards, this is a solid foundation to build on.

The Mandarin Hobby Course Outline & Lessons

In this course, you’ll learn to master writing and reading a curated selection Chinese characters perfect for beginners.

Note the emphasis is on the word ‘hobby’ here:

This course is fundamentally about relaxing, having fun, and nurturing a new skill for the sake of your own sheer joy of having a new learning experience

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Course Info

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  • No.

    The curriculum is designed for complete beginners & newbies.

    You do not need to (and ideally should not have learned) much Chinese before joining this course.

    If you’ve learned a lot of Chinese in the past and already have the hang of characters, this course may not be right for you.

    If you’ve learned some Chinese but NEVER learned a chinese character, this course may be suitable for you. Ask me about this: sumbella@wellteachers.org.

  • There are certain parts that are a ‘staple’ ingredient of the lessons:

    1. The first 30 minutes is creative & artistic: we play Chinese music and practice drawing and writing the characters for the lesson

    2. A tingxie (an informal written character test - like a dictation - to build competency and muscle memory with writing the characters for that lesson) 

    3. A range of guided group games, speaking & role play practice with the group, facilitated by the teacher

    4. Lots of literacy building and reading practice in Chinese - you'll be reading all slides in characters

  • No.

    While there is no homework as such for this cohort, many find that they naturally enjoy practicing the characters and chatting in between the lessons.

  • The lessons are 1.5 hours each.

  • The full course of 6 lessons and a bonus 1-1 session is 100GBP / approx. 500AED.

    Payment is made in full 1 week prior to the course starting.

  • It’s not! It’s small. We will have a maximum of around 5-6 students for this cohort.

  • Members of our Well Teachers membership, The Well, receive first access.

    Remaining places are then offered to those on the waitlist. And then on the newsletter list.

    After that, spots are opened up publicly on LinkedIn and Instagram.

    You can join by making payment in full when the course is open for booking.

  • Scroll down this page to the course outline to see the lesson dates and times.

Meet your Teacher(s).

I’m Sumbella (also known as Sumbal to my Pakistani/Urdu/Hindi speaking audience). I am currently the Community Lead here at Well Teachers, and in the spirit of doing something about teacher wellbeing, I’m delighted to be teaching this Mandarin Hobby course.

Before this, I worked as a Teacher Training Specialist for Schools across the Middle East & North Africa @ Cambridge University Press & Assessment based in Dubai. Before that I worked at GEMS, Oxford University Press and with international schools around the world. You can find out more about my career path over on LinkedIn.

And before all of those experiences, I studied for my BA in Mandarin Chinese jointly at SOAS University of London & Beijing Normal University, followed by an MSc in Comparative & International Education from the University of Oxford.

I am currently based in Chitral, in Northern Pakistan, where I’ll be teaching this cohort virtually from my home here.

If you have any questions about this course, contact me at: sumbella@wellteachers.org

P.S. Dina here is a fictional character I drew up when I was tutoring students in Dubai in Mandarin. If you join the cohort, no doubt you’ll see her pop up to help along the way.

Words from Former Students

  • "If the lessons ain't with Sumbella, I don't want them!"

    - A parent wanting Mandarin tuition upon hearing I had no availability. 🙃

  • “If you were to tell me that I would be taught Chinese by a non-native speaker, I would be concerned, skeptical, and hesitant. However, Miss Sumbella easily broke this stereotype within just 1 session! She easily convinced me that yes, non native speakers are just as capable! So thank you for that! I would go and say to an extent that this is the most important thing I learned from her a couple of days ago."

    Saeed Al Mheiri - Scholarship Student @ ADIA, Abu Dhabi

  • "Her teaching method is fun, that’s what motivates me to continue."

    Hamda Abbas - Student of Mandarin Chinese - Private Classes, Emirati Business Owner @humanandbeings

  • "It was an interactive and engaging session, at the same time challenging too as we were learning a new language. The idea of sharing best practice is amazing where more than 100 teachers (Laoshi) can share the different strategies of teaching. For every lesson "The Flow of lesson" is very important and it's completely based on the Learning objective and the Success criteria. It's great for students to see the end goal and the journey of how to get there. Guided meditation was very relaxing, peaceful and productive.Last but not the least the raffle which makes us more energetic and happy to see the winners."

    - Teacher in the UAE joining a workshop featuring a part learning Mandarin.

  • "I really love Sumbella's energy and positive motivation through the lessons! I don't think there is a better teacher or a better manner of learning Chinese. I really love the structure or the flow in which her course is designed. It is like building a tower one brick at a time. Also love how [she] insists on learning how to write the characters."

    - Esha Kothari of @nomadicindians

  • "Even though my training with Sumbella was only a day, it was the most fun I had compared to the past couple of years of doing Chinese!"

    Emirati Scholarship Student on a Pre-China Orientation day workshop sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA)

  • "Wish I had a teacher like her back in high school!"

    Saeed Al Mhairi, UAE