An interview with Tjibbe van Ellen about Silk Mandarin language school
Marilou den Outer
Unable to find a suitable language school, he decided to start one himself. In a nutshell, that is the story of entrepreneur Tjibbe van Ellen in Shanghai. In the more than ten years since its establishment, Silk Mandarin language school has grown from ‘a small idea’ into an institute offering offline and online classes for individuals and corporate clients, as well as summer camps for children, teenagers, adults, and families. What makes Silk Mandarin unique are its teaching methods: video, blended learning, and slow motion. And it is a success!
In Search of a Good Language School
Anyone who has ever learned Chinese at an institute in China has likely experienced it: a heavy emphasis on theory, such as grammar and memorizing characters. This was precisely the obstacle Tjibbe van Ellen encounterd. At the time, he was working as a hydraulic engineer for DHV and was searching for a school in Shanghai that could teach him how to converse with Chinese business partners. He eventually found a suitable teacher in the person of Liwen Gong, but she eventually decided to start her own school. Tjibbe moved along with her and, upon request, offered his services in business management and marketing.
Tjibbe recalls: “Unfortunately, the collaboration between Liwen and her friends quickly fell through, and the school failed to get off the ground.”
An Unplanned Career Change
“Because she was so passionate about running her own school, I suggested we start one together. Liwen would take charge of everything related to teaching, and I would handle the business side. That is how our partnership began, and it is still a wonderful collaboration. From day one, delivering top quality has been our highest priority. We now have two teaching locations – one in Shanghai and one in Suzhou – with 25 full-time and 25 part-time employees. The split between offline and online students is roughly fifty-fifty. The same goes for the ratio between individual and corporate clients. Our offering is broad, ranging from intensive crash courses with up to six lessons per day (thirty per week) to part-time courses of two to four lessons a week. Two lessons a week is the absolute minimum required to achieve results. We also offer Chinese culture lessons to businesses.”
“By the way, when we started, my plan was to spend no more than one day a week on it, leaving me plenty of time for my engineering work. But we grew so rapidly that it soon took up half of my time, and before I knew it, it had become a full-time job. It’s an incredibly fun and unique job too—through collaborating with my Chinese colleagues, I have come to truly know this extraordinary country and its rich culture. It’s a privilege and, well, an unplanned career switch, but one I wouldn’t have missed for the world.”
Blended Learning: Efficient for Both Student and Teacher
Given its importance, actually learning to speak Chinese has always been the primary goal for Tjibbe and Liwen, forming the core of Silk Mandarin’s lessons. Speaking practice is woven directly into the curriculum: students are asked to study an online video prior to class, which covers new vocabulary and grammar.
“This way, no time is wasted in class on explaining theory,” Tjibbe explains. “We can utilize classroom time entirely for what you can’t learn from a book: speaking proficiency and pronunciation. To master pronunciation and tones, you genuinely need a teacher. This allows us to use class time very efficiently, saving both student and teacher a lot of time. An online review is also available after every lesson, ensuring the material is optimally retained.”
This ‘blended learning’ concept is widely appreciated by students, as reflected on the independent review website Trustpilot, where users give Silk Mandarin a score of 4.9 out of 5.
The Power of Slow Motion
“Many people think Chinese grammar is complicated, but it is actually remarkably straightforward. In fact, compared to many other languages, Chinese grammar is surprisingly simple,” says Tjibbe. “The real challenge is that it is so different from what we are used to. And if you start explaining that with rules upon rules, yes, it quickly gets complicated. That is why we devised a way to make it simple again. We explain the basics of Chinese grammar using just a single rule. We call this our Slow Motion Technique, or SMT. It works like this: calmly observe the actions taking place and put them in chronological order. Think of it as playing the mental movie in your stock-still slow motion and telling what you see happening. What happens first, you say first.”
This proves to be a fantastic way for students to quickly learn how to form correct Chinese sentences. This is precisely what many beginners struggle with: they know the words, but do not quite know in what order to put them in. Silk Mandarin has therefore produces a complete series of videos explaining the core components of Chinese grammar using the Slow Motion Technique. Students truly love it.
HSK Exam System is Getting an Overhaul
For many years, China has used the HSK* exam—the ultimate standard test for people worldwide to assess their Chinese language proficiency (ranging from HSK 1 for beginners to HSK 6 for the most advanced learners). Silk Mandarin’s blended learning system follows this HSK structure precisely, book by book, chapter by chapter. Everything you learn at Silk runs in exact synchronization with what is required for the HSK.The HSK system is soon undergoing a major overhaul. The current six levels will be expanded to nine, while the volume of study material will be significantly increased. Tjibbe notes: “Naturally, we are adapting to this. Furthermore, the HSK will now also test speaking proficiency. And wonderful news for us: the Chinese publisher of the current HSK textbooks has asked us to collaborate on the new material. They want to add our blended learning videos to their course to make learning more interactive. We naturally see this as a special recognition of the quality of our video material!”
More Students Than Before the Pandamic
Silk Mandarin is clearly on an upward trajectory, including in terms of student numbers. That was not immediately expected after the pandemic period, when foreigners left China en masse. Tjibbe shares: “We now even have more students than before COVID. Following the severe lockdown in Shanghai in the spring of 2022, almost no one wanted to learn Chinese anymore, but fortunately we survived that crisis.
Foreign companies are now returning, albeit gradually. Aside from that, we notice that learning Chinese is gaining traction worldwide once again. For example, we recently received many inquiries from Mexico for our summer camps, as Chinese lessons have recently been introduced in schools there. We are also receiving many inquiries from Brazil, Spain and the US.
IAdditionally, we count various consulates and major companies such as BMW, VW, and Pirelli among our clientele. Although we are slightly more expensive than other institutes, students deliberately choose us for our quality. And that is exactly the position we want to have,” Tjibbe concludes cheerfully.
* HSK stands for Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì (汉语水平考试) which literally translates to: Chinese Language Level Exam (or Chinese Language Proficiency Test).
Tjibbe van Ellen lives in Shanghai and is managing director and co-founder of Silk Mandarin Language Training Institute.
Silk Mandarin is a partner of VNC
