Instructor Bio

Born and raised in Taiwan, Hsin-Yun Liu studied Chinese Literature at the National Taiwan University. Being deeply interested in language study, she continued her graduate study at the University of Cologne, Germany, where she majored in General Linguistics, and minored in Sinology and Phonetics, earning her MA and Ph.D. degrees. Prior to joining CCSF, she taught at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA. Her research interests lie mainly in Chinese Linguistics, especially in syntactic structures of spoken discourse, more recently, the relationship between aspectual marking and discourse structure. She is also interested in weaving technology with learning theories and hands-on practice experience to promote language teaching/learning.

She believes that everybody can learn. She is also a firm believer of “learning by doing.” In particular, she believes that motivation, positive attitude and perseverance are keys to learning success.

She is a member of European Association of Chinese Linguistics (EACL) and currently serves as the vice president of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of California (CLTAC).