Learning is an ongoing process. Even with a master’s degree in teaching English at the collegiate level, Yuzhe “Emily” Wang, 25, still finds it valuable to watch episodes of “Friends” to help her perfect her English.

“I watch it every day,” she laughs. “I find it really helps.”

This academic year, Wang is succeeding Dartmouth High School’s Mandarin teacher Alexander Lee, after he accepted a teaching job at Harvard University.

Originally from Henan Province, Wang studied and taught English at Minzu University of China in Beijing before becoming a graduate student at Brandeis University where she taught while working on her degree.

“When I was teaching at Brandeis, I wanted my students to keep a curiosity for both studying and life,” said Wang. “That’s the reason why I left Brandeis to come here. I want to make my students curious about Chinese culture and language.”

She currently has 68 students in three classes. She said that, because her classes are 90 minutes long, it affords her the opportunity to teach a little bit of everything: culture, history, handwriting and grammar.

“When I was teaching college students, it was totally different from teaching here. College students...they don’t care about teaching methods or styles. They just want to know what to study for. But high school kids, they need you to teach the same things in different ways to motivate them,” she said.

That can include group activities or games. She asked some of her students to Google the names of five Chinese celebrities and write their names using Chinese characters. She taught one of her classes a catchy song that can help students memorize numbers.

“I asked them to sing the song and record it, and I’ll listen to it tomorrow,” she said.

Wang said many of her students are interested in learning Mandarin because it may one day help them conduct business in China or with Chinese people. She thinks it will also help them engage with international students at universities.

“Right now, I’m trying to focus on the speaking part because that part is practical for them,” said Wang. “I require them, when they go into the classroom, to say ‘nǐ hǎo’ to me, which means ‘hi.’ When they leave the classroom, they have to say ‘zài jiàn.’ That means ‘bye.’”

For her, Wang said the biggest challenge of learning English was grammar. She said she sometimes needs extra time to respond in English, giving her time to mentally reorganize the sentence parts.

Despite how challenging learning a new language may be, she thinks it’s a great experience for students.

“A totally new language is like taking the first step to a new world,” said Wang.