Mr. Yinghui Chen returns to Kalani for the 2025-2026 school year to teach Chinese and Japanese. Located in E-20, he works with students to educate them not only in the languages of Chinese and Japanese, but also to equip them with skills that will take them far in life beyond high school.
Mr. Chen moved to Hawai’i from Fujian Province, Mainland China, as a high school student. While attending the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, he studied Chinese language and earned a post-baccalaureate in secondary education. Currently, he is working to earn his Multilingual Multicultural Professional Practice Graduate Certificate (MMPPGC).
Teaching has always been a lifelong dream of Mr. Chen. After high school, he wanted to “inspire the students” who experience a language barrier, just as he did throughout high school.
“I attended the world language class in high school because I had to learn English back then and I didn’t really get a chance to make a lot of [English speaking] friends,” he says. “I started making friends in the world language class.”
Mr. Chen proudly encourages his students to bond over learning a foreign language. It’s because of this that he dedicates his career to teaching.
“If I can be the one who creates an opportunity for them to make friends in class, then have them learn something else besides just learning the language,” he says. “I think it will be good,”
Mr. Chen sees teaching Chinese and Japanese as a great opportunity to allow students to work together and bond.
“So I figured, I would like to become a teacher to support those students who have difficulties with their relationships and their communications,” Mr. Chen explains. “The class being an elective gives that opportunity to really collaborate and have fun with languages.”
Mr. Chen shares that both Chinese and Japanese have their easy and hard aspects when it comes to learning the language. Generally speaking, however, he believes both languages are “quite difficult.”
“I think Asian language is a little bit different than European language,” Mr. Chen says. “Chinese [and] Japanese could be difficult because they are using Chinese characters, so writing will be a big challenge.”
He explains that Chinese, in a way, could be somewhat easier than Japanese, as Chinese doesn’t have as strict of a class system when speaking to upperclassmen, compared to Japanese.
“For Japanese, you have to be aware of who you’re talking to,” Mr. Chen says. “[It] could be even more challenging, I think, compared to Chinese when you get to the higher level.”
In addition to finding joy in teaching in general, Mr. Chen shares that he specifically enjoys teaching language. Having students from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities while all learning the same language is one of the things that brings him great pride as a foreign language teacher.
“So teaching language is not just teaching the language itself,” Mr. Chen says. “I think teaching language is also teaching the cultures behind the language, so that’s the part when you’re exploring a different culture when you’re teaching.”
This school year is Mr. Chen’s first year back at Kalani after teaching IB school curricula, meaning it will be quite the challenge for him to adjust after returning to a high school curriculum. Because of this, Mr. Chen explains that his main goal is to “survive” the school year, given the rigors of his classes.
“I teach three different levels of Chinese and one level of Japanese, so prep is a big challenge,” he explains. “I have to create all the materials and then go to the teacher’s workroom to print out all the materials every day.”
Mr. Chen aims to help his students move beyond their comfort zones by having his students work with people they don’t know. He believes this will help them get used to collaborating with coworkers or colleagues in the future.
“I want them to be open-minded to working with different types of people and then get their work done no matter what situation they are in,” he says.
After years of teaching, Mr. Chen has had his fair share of students. From already fluent speakers to those who wish to learn a foreign language from scratch, Mr. Chen always cheers them on throughout their journeys. He shares that as long as students “try their best,” they can learn anything.
“I give them very positive feedback because learning a language is not an easy thing. I keep telling the students, especially Chinese or Japanese, that it’s totally different from English compared to other languages, so it’s okay to make mistakes. I tell them, just as long as they’re putting effort, they will have, they will get the reward back from what they have paid the price on.”
