We are Meridian Chinese Studies
Meridian was founded by David Su Liqun the creator of the pioneering TDR™ teaching method, author of Chinese for Everyone and TDR: The Tao of Chinese Grammar and lead writer on the BBC TV programme Real Chinese after spending twenty years teaching Chinese to English speakers at SOAS and other institutions.
We’ve taught everyone from actors to entrepreneurs, from government departments to financial institutions. We’ve taught talented toddlers, moody teenagers and savvy students. We’ve taught bankers, lawyers, marketing managers and artists. (Not to mention all the teachers we’ve trained!). We also teach lots of British born Chinese people who are reconnecting with their Chinese roots.
All of our teachers are highly qualified and have a teaching related Masters degree with some also holding a PhD. They are fully trained and vastly experienced teaching professionals—not just Chinese speakers. Our core team includes a mix of native speaking senior teachers, teaching assistants and teacher trainers—all of whom speak good English and have taught in the UK for many years in schools, colleges, universities and private tuition.
Our wider network of professional friends from the worlds of business, film, TV, theatre, video-gaming, psychology, music, design and of course language education also help us to create the most effective and captivating Chinese learning programs around.
It’s this rich and varied experience that allows us to develop the Meridian range of study techniques, tools and materials now being used by an ever-increasing number of teachers to make learning Chinese easier for you.
Our staff
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David Su Liqun—Founder, Meridian Chinese Studies
David Su Liqun is a recognised innovator in the field of Chinese language teaching. As well as writing plays, novels and biographies, David is the creator of the pioneering TDR™ teaching method, author of Chinese for Everyone and TDR: The Tao of Chinese Grammar and was the lead writer on the BBC TV programme Real Chinese. David spent twenty years as the most senior Mandarin tutor in the Language Department of SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London). David has lectured extensively in both the UK and China on TDR, Chinese classics and Chinese culture at universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Economics as well as the British Museum. David Su Liqun leads the language and culture teaching and the teacher training at Meridian Chinese Studies as well as developing new methods and materials to make learning Chinese easier.
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Weisan Hu
TDR™ Trainer and Senior Teacher at Meridian Chinese Studies. Senior language teacher, in University of London. Former TV News anchor at Phoenix TV station from 1997-2004 in UK
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Emily Wang
TDR Trainer and Senior Teacher at Meridian Chinese Studies MA Tourism management, Westminster University UKBA Accounting Heilongjiang Institute of Commerce, China
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Yenmin Wu
TDR certificate for Chinese Teacher Training Course, UK MEd in Psychology of Education University of Bristol UK Bachelor of Art National Chiayi University Taiwan English Teaching Group, The Department of Foreign Languages.
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Ziting Liang
TDR certificate for Chinese Teacher Training Course, UK MA International Relations in University of Birmingham, UK PHD research of International Politics—University of Birmingham, UK
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Hongbing Cai
TDR certificate for Chinese Teacher Training Course, UK EMBA in Sun Yat-sen University China Business English Language in Sun Yat-sen University China Bachelor of Finance Shanxi Radio & TV University
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Hong Lin
TDR certificate for Chinese Teacher Training Course, UK Masters Degree in Educational Management. Brunel University Bachelor’s Degree in English Language Qiqihaer Foreign Language Institute.
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Jian-peng Liang
TDR certificate for Chinese Teacher Training Course, UKMBA-University of Wales Institute, CardiffBA (Hons) Accounting and Finance London South Bank University, UK
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Ching-Ju Hsiao
TDR certificate for Chinese Teacher Training Course, UKMSc in Teaching English (TESOL) University of Bristol, UKA certificate for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL), National Sun Yat-sen University, TaiwanBachelor’s Degree in Education in National Taiwan Normal University, TaiwanA qualification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)
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Xuan Zhang
TDR certificate for Chinese Teacher Training Course, UKMA Translation in University of Bath, UKBA Harbin Institute of Technology
Our dream…
We are passionate about opening up the Chinese language and culture to everyone who’s interested. It’s the reason we’ve devoted our careers to teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture and why we developed the revolutionary TDR™ teaching method to make it easier and more enjoyable for students to learn Mandarin.
Through our teaching, we hope to help our students explore similarities of thoughts, values and ideals between Chinese culture and their own, encouraging understanding, appreciation and mutual respect.
We want all our students to learn the best standard of Chinese possible and strive to make every class inspiring, practical and fun.
What our students say
Getting from total beginner to conversational in 12 weeks is tough, but this course gets close.
The Zoom In course enabled me to learn much faster than I expected and to be comfortable with words and phrases very quickly
TDR makes grammatical rules much simpler than you would expect, it makes Chinese word order seem easy to grasp.
It’s a lot easier than you'd think to learn the Chinese characters and it's really exciting to be able to read Chinese sentences after only a couple of weeks of learning.
My Chinese friends have told me that I've learned a lot very quickly and my pronunciation is good.
Great course; the best thing was to have almost one-to-one lessons. The teachers are very enthusiastic and really want us to learn.
We received lots of feedback and were given specific ways to improve after making our mistakes.
I’ve gone from having no clue, to speaking and making full sentences as well as comprehending them in just a few weeks. Really impressive and enjoyable.
