Jianhua Bai has taught Chinese language, linguistics and pedagogy at Kenyon since 1991, becoming a tenured professor in 1997 and a full professor in 2004. A recipient of Kenyon’s 2012 Trustee Teaching Excellence Award, he has led the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and Asian and Middle East Studies Program and served as interim director of the International Studies Program. Beyond Kenyon, he has directed the Chinese School at Middlebury College and held leadership roles in the Chinese Language Teachers Association and the International Society of Chinese Language Teaching. His research focuses on developing advanced Chinese teaching materials, leveraging online learning for language instruction, and improving methods for teaching Chinese as a foreign language.

Hometown: A small village around the size of Gambier, 60 miles south of Beijing

Favorite place to visit: Beijing

Years at Kenyon: 33

Describe yourself in one sentence: I’m a person who loves teaching and enjoys interacting with people of different cultures.

Motto: Learning by doing!

What excites you most about the work you’re doing with Kenyon’s Modern Languages and Literatures program? Language learning is more than cracking the linguistic codes. Successful language learning and teaching should not only develop students’ vocabulary, grammar and other linguistic elements, but also develop students’ strategic competencies and intercultural communicative competence. My recent research is on the latter and its implications in teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign language. 

What is something you have learned from your students? There is no best method of teaching because students are different in many aspects. They have different learning styles, and they have different purposes for learning Chinese. As teachers, we need to value these differences and provide differentiated instruction and learning activities so that all students will learn effectively.

Books, movies or music that have changed your life? It’s difficult to name one or two. I think it is the people around me that have changed my life.

What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you? Don’t try to be perfect.