Teaching Chinese from Zero: How I Helped Italian Students Find Their Voice

When beginners start learning Chinese, they usually place deep trust in their native-speaking teachers. Compliments like “You’re the best Chinese teacher I’ve ever had” no longer make my heart race as they once did, but I take them as a sign of recognition: you are my teacher.

Still, students can clearly sense both your teaching ability and your dedication.

So, how do you teach spoken Chinese to a class of nearly one hundred absolute beginners? The answer is simple: get everyone moving—and talking.

Breaking the Silence in a Big Classroom

Italian students are often shy. To help them open up, I first had to get moving myself:

• Tech helps. A portable voice amplifier from China became my lifesaver. With it, I could reach every corner of a huge classroom without straining my voice.
• Move with the students. Wearing my microphone, I walked between rows, calling on students directly. By the end of each class, I was drenched in sweat—but nearly every student had spoken.
• Details matter. Teaching pinyin sounds like [u] and [y] requires more than just technical explanation. I had to exaggerate my mouth shapes and repeat: “Look at me, watch carefully!” until students mastered it.

Perhaps I looked less formal than other teachers, always waving my arms and acting things out—but my students trusted me more because of it.

From “I Have to Speak” to “I Want to Speak”

I constantly adjusted my methods based on advice from experienced teachers and feedback from students. My goal was to shift the mindset in class: from “I have to speak Chinese” to “I want to speak Chinese.”

The textbooks we used, Chinese for Italians, read like a TV drama, following characters Marco, Paolo, Anna, and Mi Xiaoyu through daily life, love, and work. I used this to my advantage:

• Connecting different lessons like episodes of a series
• Turning classroom dialogues into real-life scenarios
• Even discussing the “love triangle” between Marco, Paolo, and Mi Xiaoyu as a speaking activity (because yes—gossip makes language learning more fun!)

The result? Students didn’t just learn Chinese—they enjoyed it. One student even told me:

“This isn’t just the best Chinese teacher I’ve had—it’s the best Chinese class I’ve ever taken.”

For a teacher, there’s no greater joy than being picked by your students.

About the Author

Li Junbo – Teacher at Wenshan University, Yunnan. From October 2016 to November 2019, he served as a government-sponsored Chinese language teacher at the Department of Oriental Studies, Sapienza University of Rome.