Marie Meiying Jiang

Marie Jiang is an Associate Professor, Adjunct in the Department of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she develops interdisciplinary approaches that integrate language, art, and culture. She established SAIC's Mandarin Chinese curriculum in 2014, building it into a professionally structured language program. Previously, she served as a Lecturer and textbook recording specialist in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

Marie holds three master's degrees: an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Chicago, an M.S. in Physics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and an M.S. in Optical Engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). Before entering academia, she held leadership positions in financial and trading companies.

Marie focuses on Object-Based Language Teaching (OBLT), museum-based learning, and innovative approaches that connect language acquisition with visual arts and cultural engagement. Her paintings have received multiple honors through the National Arts Program and other exhibitions. 

Set up the formal Chinese courses and teach Chinese I and II since 1/2014.

With my background as a news broadcaster and a Chinese textbook recorder, I created a unique approach to teach Chinese sound system efficiently by grouping similar phonations together and emphasizing unfamiliar tones whilst comparing samples of American accents to British accents to draw upon familiar intonation differences. I also use music and lyrics as a way to learn the difficult pronunciations easily.

I teach Mandarin in an integrated way by combining both traditional and creative teaching approaches. Students learn spelling, pronunciation, reading, and writing in Chinese through a wealth of interactive exercises from picture associations, story-telling, current event discussions, and repetition exercises.

In addition to the predefined teaching materials, I tailor each of my classes to current events and issues that my students are interested in. These materials range from Chinese history and culture to ancient scholars and their philosophies to modern Chinese moves, music, and news events. Beyond the classroom, I give my classes tours of the Chinese Gallery in the Art Institute. I introduce the collections that show Chinese writing development on different materials from clay to bronze to jade and the poems and paintings from major dynasties, while also highlighting the Chinese history and civilization development.

Technology is utilized in every class and beyond to increase the productivity and ease of learning.

Beyond teaching my students, I am actively involved in finding opportunities to combine their creative and career interests with their Chinese education. I believe in the immense value that comes from studying abroad in a different language and culture.

Teaching benefits teacher and student alike. The interesting teaching opportunities motivate me to think creatively.

Teaching the modern and classical Chinese language, culture, history, calligraphy, arts and crafts.