Danping Wang: the language of connection

“If we can get to Mars, we can learn Chinese!” says Associate Professor Danping Wang, the University’s departing head of Chinese.

After ten years in the role and about to lead a new programme at the University of Oxford, Danping is used to people assuming that learning Chinese is so difficult it’s out of reach.

“A lot of people feel it’s impossible, but my response is, never underestimate yourself. It’s completely manageable with a good teacher, a good attitude and effort.”

She has obviously convinced many naysayers over the years, transforming the University’s Chinese programme into what she believes is the largest of its kind in New Zealand. Most of the more than 400 students who currently enrol at Stage One each year are New Zealand-born students with no Chinese heritage.

“We – my graduate teaching assistants and I – do a lot of innovative teaching, because of the course size, which includes hybrid teaching so students can access the lectures online at any time.” 

Students also co-create the course and share aspects of what they’ve learned with their own communities as a graded assignment – “reading a simple picture book in Chinese at their child’s kindergarten, for example,” she says. “That way they’re giving back and not just keeping the learning to themselves.”

Over the years, her students have taught her a lot about why people take up Chinese and what keeps them learning.

“Their motivations change, but their lives and communities give them reasons to learn that I couldn’t anticipate on my own. Involving them in shaping the course has helped me understand Chinese language education in Aotearoa much more deeply.”

She also opened up a Certificate of Proficiency in Chinese to make learning the language accessible to a wider range of people.

“I’ve even had Kiwi boxers signing up because they want to communicate with their Chinese boxing students, and nurses wanting to talk to their patients.”
The key to good teaching is relationships, says Danping.

“Once you have this people-level connection, students open up so much and progress so well.”

Originally from Beijing, Danping spent ten years teaching in Hong Kong before arriving in 2016 to teach at the University of Auckland. 

She says her ideas about teaching have evolved significantly while in New Zealand, particularly after studying te ao Māori.

“Aotearoa profoundly changed what I believe language learning is for. Generations of language teachers, including me, have been trained to think its purpose is to develop skills and enable communication.

“I now see it as a way of building relationships, bringing people closer, creating belonging and sharing human warmth.”

Prior to coming to New Zealand, Danping twice received Sino-British Fellowship Grants, which support academic exchanges and research between the UK and China.

“I was about to visit Oxford with that second grant, but I got the offer to come to New Zealand at the same time, so I didn’t go,” she recalls.

However, fast forward to 2026, and she has beaten out global competition to be appointed chair of Oxford’s Centre of Excellence for Learning and Teaching Chinese. The new centre is focused on improving access to Chinese in schools, innovative teacher education and cutting-edge research.

“So, it kind of makes me feel like they were waiting for me!”

Danping will make the move to the UK with her partner and three-year-old son. She’ll also take with her a passion for snowboarding (which she teaches as a hobby); an advanced proficiency with AI and language learning, which she has led at Auckland; and her Māoritanga.

“My son was even singing Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi on the plane down to Queenstown on our trip to the snow and the whole plane joined in, so I know he will have that cultural memory as well.”

She says she hopes to leave a flourishing programme, as well as teaching approaches that colleagues can develop further, and relationships that continue.

“At Oxford, I want to be ambitious about change but grounded in care, human connection and participation: all things I learned here in Aotearoa.”

– Julianne Evans