Endorsements

Lisa Binder, Esq.

I am delighted to write this letter on behalf of Yvonne Saalman.... I have an A.B. in Classics from Harvard, an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Berkeley, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. I have studied a variety of languages both inside and outside of the university classroom, including Latin, ancient and modern Greek, German, Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin. Yvonne is without question one of the best language teachers I have had.

I was a student in Yvonne's Mandarin class at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute in 2008 and 2009. In our class we used the Integrated Chinese, Level 2, textbook, and Yvonne's focused and organized instruction was instrumental in helping me acquire the reading, writing, speaking and comprehension skills emphasized in the textbook. Yvonne consistently challenged us to improve our skills while making sure that our questions were answered before we proceeded to the next step in each lesson.

Yvonne's patience and her ability to explain complicated points of grammar and syntax in ways that her students can understand make her an excellent teacher. She is also dedicated to identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each particular student and tailoring the lesson to focus on areas that need improvement. Yvonne often stayed after class to answer questions and to clarify particularly difficult points of grammar for her students.

I have no doubt Yvonne would be a tremendous asset to your program. She inspires her students to work hard and to enjoy the process of learning a very difficult language.

Sincerely,

Lisa Binder, Esq., Harvard Law, April, 2010

Steve Levin

It is with great enthusiasm that I write this letter of recommendation on behalf of Yvonne Saalman. By way of background, I am a Los-Angeles-based attorney and public relations professional who has had the pleasure of taking Mandarin Chinese classes with Yvonne for over two years at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute.

Quite simply, Yvonne is a talented and dedicated Chinese language instructor who exhibits the highest level of diligence and professionalism. Yvonne has the unique ability to make learning a new language both fun and interesting. Not only does she teach her students the core principles of tone, pronunciation, grammar, and reading and writing Chinese characters, but she also injects her lessons with fascinating stories and jokes about China and Chinese culture. I genuinely enjoy going to class when Yvonne is teaching—so much so that I could not imagine learning from any other teacher.

Yvonne is truly committed to her students. She is eminently patient and tailors her approach to each student according to his or her proficiency. Although her services are clearly in high demand—she teaches at the Institute several nights per week in addition to providing private lessons to multiple clients—she always makes herself available to students both in and out of class to answer questions and provide additional learning resources. I often wonder and am amazed by how she is able to juggle so many roles.

In a relatively short period of time, Yvonne has transformed me from someone who knew not a single Chinese word or character, to someone who is comfortable with basic conversation, reading and writing (although I prefer to write the Chinese characters on the computer). I am often complimented on my Chinese skills and have even been asked by my employer to travel to China to conduct business there. I owe most of my progress and ability to Yvonne and her teaching.

Sincerely,

Steven M. Levin

Helena Duey Malchione

It is a sincere pleasure and honor for me to recommend Yvonne Saalman as a teacher of Mandarin. Yvonne has worked privately with me on an intensive study of Mandarin for the past ten months, during which time she has engaged and challenged me in every imaginable way.

Throughout my time studying with Yvonne, I have admired and respected her many valuable qualities. Yvonne’s patience and diligence lend themselves to the constant and rapid improvement of the pupil. She is quick to identify the individual strengths and weaknesses of her students, and she responds aptly with appropriate exercises and commentary to enable the student in question to overcome every lingual obstacle.

I have also greatly admired Yvonne’s genuine dedication to all of her students. She demonstrates this dedication through her flexibility with her schedule, her willingness to work at whatever pace set by the student (however rapid that may be), and her meticulous attention to creating personalized homework assignments for each student.

My difficulty mastering preposition grammatical structures, for example, prompted Yvonne to create a series of translation homework assignments specifically targeting this weakness. I have been truly impressed by Yvonne’s personal investment in my success as a student of Chinese language.

In just ten short months, I have made tremendous improvements in my reading, writing, and speaking skills due to Yvonne’s teaching methods and dedication. Native Chinese speakers have showered me with compliments on my pronunciation, my easy fluency, and my depth of understanding of Chinese culture; I forward every compliment to Yvonne, without whom none of my current skills would exist at the level that they do.

In closing, let me say that I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Yvonne Yang for teaching Chinese language and culture. She would be an asset to any student of Chinese.

Sincerely,

Helena Duey Malchione, Yale University, Class of 2012

Sipan Nazaryan

I am a fifth-year student entering my final semester of architecture school at Woodbury University. Throughout my life as a student, I have had the privilege of traveling the world and meeting some incredible people. This past summer I participated in a study abroad program in China, which prompted me to learn the Chinese language. I have since taken Yvonne Saalman’s Chinese language course at Woodbury University.

In only fifteen meetings, Yvonne’s teaching methods have allowed me to read, write, and speak Chinese with a level of comfort and confidence that I did not think plausible in such a short period of time. Yvonne has a unique ability to inspire her students to challenge themselves and strive to achieve more than they initially think they can. She is encouraging, yet difficult to please; no incorrect pronunciation goes unnoticed, as she patiently works with each student to achieve excellence. Yvonne never settles for mediocre or simply satisfactory work. It is this inherent drive to raise the bar that makes her such an inspirational educator.

Apart from being absolutely dedicated in the classroom, Yvonne is more than willing to help her students outside of class. On numerous occasions, I have called or e-mailed Yvonne with questions, and she has always been there with an immediate response.

As a student, it is sometimes easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of work that we are asked to produce in all of our classes. However, my experience with Yvonne has taught me to remain persistent and motivated in everything that I do. Her personal story of how she had to leave China with almost nothing and start a life of her own is one that has inspired me greatly. Yvonne opitimizes the true teacher, in that she does not simply teach her students a subject; she teaches them to become better people.

Sincerely,

Sipan Nazaryan

Grace L. Lim

I am a USC graduate, a certified public accountant at Ernst & Young, LLP and am being transferred to Shanghai, China this August [2008]. Therefore, I sought the assistance of Yvonne to polish my fluency in the Mandarin language. Yvonne was very keen to take me on as a student and help me achieve the level of fluency to be able to communicate professionally and effectively with my counterparts.

Yvonne is very diligent, in that she teaches from 7.30am through the night daily to enrich her students with her language skills. She also is always excited and ever willing to help with any questions and engages her students with real-life application examples and stories. Her infectious energy also makes learning a fun-filled and productive experience. Last but not least, Yvonne’s mastery of Mandarin is amazing; she can trace back modern Chinese characters to their sources and roots, which was very useful to me.

Yvonne is also very good at listening to her students’ pronunciation and tone to ensure they enunciate each word correctly. Further, she takes a lot of effort to make sure her students retain what they have learnt by testing them through spelling tests or reading tests.

Sincerely,

Grace L. Lim

Brendan Hirschmann

Yvonne was my Chinese tutor for a year and I have known her for approximately two years. Under her tutelage, my Chinese improved rapidly and my vocabulary grew many times over.

At the beginning, I had mere scraps of knowledge about the language. However, after working with Yvonne for a matter of months, I was able to skip forward two levels of formal Chinese courses when I left California to begin my undergraduate studies at university.

Yvonne used excellent textbooks and was always interested in my progress from week to week. She possesses a deep undersanding of the key differences between English and Chinese that students typicall struggle to grasp.

The additional attention given to conversational skill is the primary advantage, in my opinion, that Yvonne provides over a formal course at an institution. She provides a high level of energy and commitment to her students. Her scheduling was flexible and she offered a very comfortable study environment.

For anyone interested in learning Chinese, I highly recommend working with Yvonne Yang.

Sincerely,

Brendan Hirschmann, Harvard University, Class of 2011