Jianfen was born and raised in a serene rural village in Central China’s Hunan province. She joined Berea College in 2016 upon receiving her Ph.D. in Chinese pedagogy from The Ohio State University. Her dissertation explores an ecological framework for language curriculum and instruction.

While conducting her doctoral research about Chinese pedagogy, she developed a deeper understanding of traditional Chinese thoughts and fell in love with ancient texts. She expects to explore those texts and stories more with her students.

Jianfen loves learning and teaching languages. Besides English, she took French and Japanese classes at college. She is currently trying to learn German and Spanish.  Before coming to pursue graduate studies in the United States in 2009, she worked as an English language teacher in Beijing.

She is dedicated to drawing implications from a broad range of disciplines that concern human development and human communication to enhance the teaching and learning of intercultural communication. She is convinced by her research and her reflection on experiences of learning and teaching that knowing and doing are inseparable, so she adopts an experiential-learning-focused approach in her teaching. Her motto is: Just DO it if you want to learn it!

Her publication focuses on culture-focused, learner-centered curriculum and instruction. She co-authored Perform Suzhou: A Course in Intermediate to Advanced Spoken Mandarin and co-edited Performed Culture in Action to Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, a volume on innovative Chinese language pedagogy.