From learner to teacher: Kay McLeod on promoting Mandarin in schools

Mandarin Excellence Programme Coordinator Kay McLeod will share her journey from achieving an MA in Chinese Studies to teaching and promoting Chinese in schools.  

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The Mandarin Excellence Programme (MEP) is an intensive language programme for schools in England which aims to get more and more young learners engaging with Mandarin Chinese. The original aim of the programme was to have 5000 students on track to fluency in Mandarin by 2020. As of January 2021, there are almost 7000 students enrolled on the programme. 

In this talk Kay will share her own Mandarin learning story, how it led her into Chinese teaching, and insights about the current Mandarin teaching landscape drawn from her work with schools around the country. 

About Kay McLeod

Kay McLeod (刘凯琴) first came to the Chinese language through a Scottish MA in Chinese Studies from the University of Edinburgh, and has been committed to helping other learners access Chinese language and culture ever since.  

She has spent three years living in China, first as a student of Chinese language and literature in Dalian. She later spent two years as in-house translator and liaison interpreter at what is now the Jiangsu Province Performing Arts Centre’s Kun Opera Theatre in Nanjing. In 2012 she graduated with an MA in Sinology from SOAS University of London, closely followed by a PGCE at Goldsmiths University and six years of teaching Mandarin in the UK classroom. 

Kay joined the Confucius Institute in August 2018 as Coordinator of the Mandarin Excellence Programme. Before joining the team, Kay was Subject Coordinator for Mandarin at a school in greater London with a long-standing successful Modern Foreign Languages department and Confucius Classroom status. Kay taught Chinese and German from KS3 to KS5. She also developed the school’s Chinese language and culture curriculum and mentored several teaching colleagues to fully qualified status. 

Kay is responsible for the day-to-day delivery of the Mandarin Excellence Programme in schools across England, using her experience as a classroom teacher and subject coordinator to lend support to schools and individual teachers delivering the programme. 

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