Jiani Lian

Visiting Senior Language Lecturer of Chinese Affiliation: Visiting
Education: BA Beijing Language and Culture University; MA University of Massachusetts Amherst

jnlian@nyu.edu

Research Areas: Chinese Language Pedagogy; Classical Chinese Language and Literature; Active Learning

Jiani Lian is a Senior Language Lecturer of Chinese at New York University Shanghai, where she has been teaching Chinese at various levels, including heritage and non-heritage learners, since 2015. She holds a MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

Lian is a passionate educator who seeks pedagogical approaches and curriculum design that promote active learning, cultural awareness and intercultural communication. She has been actively involved in the NYU Shanghai Summer Chinese Immersion Program, where she taught intensive Chinese language courses and served as Program Coordinator in 2023. She has also developed and taught a Classical Chinese course since 2017, which is listed as a Core Curriculum language for the Chinese Language and Literature Minor at NYU Shanghai. 

Previously, Lian taught Chinese at UMass Amherst and in other programs in China, such as the University of Virginia's Shanghai Intensive Chinese Language Summer Program and the Alliance of Global Education in Beijing. Since 2021, she has also worked as an evaluator for the Critical Language Scholarship Program for the US State Department.