The teachers

Jean Columeau has been teaching Mandarin Chinese since 2006. He holds a post in a secondary school in the south of France and also teaches, depending on the year, at middle-school and university level. He created learn-chinese.online in 2012 and has been responsible for its educational and technical design ever since: he develops the site and administers the server.

His training: Chinese as a second foreign language from middle school onwards (a very rare option at the time), then a bachelor's and a master's degree in Chinese at Aix-Marseille University, a year of study at the University of Chinese Medicine in Nanjing obtained on a scholarship, and on his return a master's degree in Chinese studies (master Monde chinois) at the same university.

That master's degree already dealt with a question of teaching: what changes when traditional Chinese medicine stops being handed down from master to disciple and starts being taught at university. The same subject, two ways of passing it on — and the way it is passed on alters what is actually learned. His interest in ancient texts and in the link between language and thought dates from that period, a thread that runs through the culture and etymology pages of the courses.

He taught French as a foreign language at the Alliance française in Nanjing, to an adult audience: students, working professionals, retired people. That is where he received his first real training as a teacher. Back in France, he worked as a Chinese trainer and marker for the Cned, the French public distance-learning institution. That experience counts: it taught him what distance learning demands when it is carried out independently, without the safety net of a face-to-face class.

He also worked for eight years as a sworn translator and interpreter. In companies he was often called in less to translate than to act as a cultural bridge: the parties already spoke both languages, to varying degrees, but stumbled over the codes. That is where the place given to the cultural dimension in the site's courses comes from.

His position on teaching is consistent: he sees himself less as a professor passing on knowledge than as a learner sharing working strategies. He went through the same difficulties as those who take his courses, and he has forgotten nothing of what the early stages cost. The courses are built with that in mind: to make the learner autonomous.

He also runs the site chine-culture.com and a YouTube channel devoted to learning Chinese.

Xiaoqian Columeau is Chinese, born and educated in Jiangsu province. Co-founder of learn-chinese.online, she is also its project manager: the interface, the visual materials and the usability of the courses are her work. She teaches Chinese and Chinese culture in one-to-one lessons, to learners of widely varying ages and backgrounds.

She trained in the teaching of Chinese at the leading Chinese institutions, where she also keeps her teaching qualifications up to date: the 北京华文学院 Běijīng Huáwén Xuéyuàn (Beijing Chinese Language and Culture College), which trains teachers of Chinese working outside China, and the 中外语言交流合作中心 Zhōngwài Yǔyán Jiāoliú Hézuò Zhōngxīn (Center for Language Education and Cooperation), the body responsible for the 《等级标准》 děngjí biāozhǔn, literally "level standards" ⟶ the official framework of Chinese language proficiency, the very one on which the new HSK followed by the site's courses is based.

Her work deals first of all with what is hard to work on alone: pronunciation and tones, fluency in speaking, understanding speech at normal speed. She provides individual coaching, role-play situations and preparation for the HSK certifications. She teaches in Chinese and in French.

She has practised Chinese calligraphy and painting since the age of four, and teaches them as well. This is not a biographical detail: passing on a gesture — how to hold the brush, the stroke order, the rhythm of a line — calls for teaching by demonstration and patient correction, exactly what writing characters requires. She therefore has long experience of passing on skills, in Chinese language and culture activities.

Trained in art and design at the Jiangsu theatre institute, she was art director and then journalist at the magazine "Fashion news" from 1999 to 2005. She also founded the HanWen Shop store in 2024.

It is those years — the calligrapher's studio, the editorial desk, the Chinese cultural scene — that today provide the material for the culture pages and the solidity of her teaching. She does not pass on a culture learned from a textbook, but a culture she has practised.