Elementary Japanese I

Ren Tan teaches first-year and second-year Japanese. She has a Ph.D. from the City University of Hong Kong. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of transnational Japanese studies that engages early modern Japanese intellectual history, and Sino-Japanese cultural and social interactions. 

Ren’s first encounter with language teaching was as a teaching assistant for Japanese classes in Hong Kong. Her experience both as a student and as a teacher in the Japanese language and culture enables her to approach teaching in a different way. She believes that language is not only the product of culture but also is the symbol of culture. Thus, she is particularly interested in incorporating culture as an essential component of second language learning and teaching.