The First and Only Chinese Learning Center in Utah

In 2019, after getting the master's degree in Bilingual and Multicultural Education from the University of Connecticut, the educator Xiaorui Dou came to Utah to teach in the Chinese Dual Language Immersion program. While working at schools as an educator, she recognized that students who study Chinese as a second language need a solid understanding and consistent practice outside of schools to be successful in school. Parents who cannot speak the same language cannot help their kids finish school homework or give extracurricular support. Those parents end up hiring tutors to support their kids' second language learning. However, there was a vast disconnect between students' tutoring contents and the curriculum in the target language in school. While the school curriculum blends with target languages, the tutors at home were only teaching basic target language vocabularies, such as colors, numbers, or even how to write Chinese characters in stoke orders. When the tutors' support is not meeting the students' actual needs at school, students turn to refuse the second language they are learning. 
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Mrs. Dou founded Yu Wen — a Chinese-only teaching service committed to providing the local best instruction to address that gap. Her goal: teach Chinese as a second language with fun and meanings, the skills to succeed in learning Chinese, and the confidence to achieve their academic potential.
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After helping many students during the pandemic, Mrs. Dou realized that there are more students in need of qualified Chinese tutors than she could offer by herself. Hence, she decided to gather all students who want academic-related Chinese tutor services in one center to create a solid and active Chinese learning dynamic to help students learn Chinese. At the same time, students can also support each other to learn Chinese outside of school. 
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Mrs. Dou finished refining her teaching methods and materials to support all students learning Chinese in Yu Wen Chinese Learning Center. The students who come and study in Yu Wen will take a language assessment and get their own designed academic support plans. The plan will offer the student support in both the Target language and the curriculum contents related to school. Also, Yu Wen wants to meet all the student's needs, whether they are in school right now or going to school. Yu Wen offers Chinese Immersion Pre-K sections to students going to Chinese DLI programs while have not experienced systematic Chinese learning. For adults, Yu Wen also has designed Learning materials to support adults without Chinese learning backgrounds since Mrs. Dou taught undergraduate students at the University of Connection, and she built a complete system of teaching adults Chinese.