Dasha Cowley Cowley

My tutoring style is interactive, structured, and focused on building both confidence and real-life communication skills in Chinese. I typically start each lesson with a casual conversation in Chinese to help the student warm up and practice using familiar vocabulary in a natural way. This also allows me to assess their comfort level and gently correct any recurring mistakes. After the warm-up, we review material from the previous lesson to reinforce retention and ensure understanding before moving on to new content.

The core of the lesson focuses on introducing and practicing new vocabulary, grammar structures, and sentence patterns, often through exercises, dialogues, and speaking practice. To keep the learning engaging, I regularly incorporate creative activities. For example, my student once acted as a realtor and gave me a house tour in Chinese, describing each room using the vocabulary we had learned. We also play location-guessing games using Google Maps, where one person describes a place’s surroundings in Chinese and the other guesses the location, practicing direction words and descriptive language.

By combining structured learning with creative, real-world practice, I help my student gradually build fluency, confidence, and a genuine enjoyment of using Chinese.