At the Faculty of Arts General Meeting we celebrated our Mandarin instructor Yanfeng Qu who was the proud recipient of the very first annual Dean of Arts Teaching Award. This is what the Dean had to say about Dr. Qu's teaching:
Dr. Yanfeng Qu is an outstanding Faculty of Arts instructor, and we are pleased he is one of the recipients of this year’s Dean of Arts Teaching Award. His many innovative and creative teaching techniques help his students have fun while learning Mandarin, and he has contributed to the textbooks used by our students as well as others within the lower mainland. He has created 13 Mandarin courses. His students have competed provincially and won awards for both Mandarin speech and singing, and have gone on Study-in-Shanghai and Study-in-Taiwan programs after taking his courses. He tries to meet students where they are, encouraging the zero-background students to meet with him during office hours and asking the more knowledgeable students harder questions in class discussion to challenge them. Overall, the respect he has for his students and the enthusiasm he has for Mandarin and linguistics combine to provide his students with every opportunity to succeed.