“Passion and Love are the Key to Happiness.”
– Wendy Tan
Born in Singapore and raised there and in Malaysia, Wendy Tan grew up in a multi-cultural environment with access to a wide variety of traditions and languages. Through her parents she learned Teochew and Hakka, through her school she learned Mandarin and English, and through her friends and popular culture she picked up Cantonese and Malay. These early encounters laid the foundation for her life’s work in language instruction and interpretation.
Despite being surrounded by such a vibrant heritage, Wendy, as a young girl, would often dream of traveling to the United States to learn about Western culture and to experience a different way of life. She worked extremely hard to make this dream a reality, spending many years tutoring students in Malaysia to raise airfare to come to the United States. When her dreams finally came true, she first landed in Minneapolis, Minnesota where worked to acquire a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Master’s in Management Information. During this time, she gained a wealth of experience working for corporations like IBM Global Services, Wells Fargo, Piper Jeffrey, and T-Mobile.
In 2005, Wendy moved to Seattle for the excellent seafood, the proximity to her home country, and to use her business and language expertise to launch a language school – Mandarin Experts. As the owner and director of Mandarin Experts, Wendy teaches K-12 grade in most of the Seattle and East side public and private schools, and specializes in language training for professionals who work for corporations like Microsoft, Starbucks, HTC and etc. She is also a Mandarin and Cantonese tester, providing testing services in translation and basic conversation for major airlines like Delta and American Airlines.
Wendy Tan is a FLAP (Foreign Language Assistance Program) recipient at the University of Washington. The goal of the FLAP program is to develop an exemplary model of K-12 immersion education and to develop foreign language immersion teachers’ capacity to meet Washington’s growing need for immersion instructors. She has also participated in STARTALK, a teacher certification program enabling teachers of Mandarin to qualify for conditional teacher certificates in Washington State and to continue on the path to full Mandarin teacher certification.
After more than fifteen years in the field, Wendy Tan is passionate about her work and still loves what she does. One of the most enriching things for her is the time spent with students helping them to achieve their goals and to learn about one of the world’s oldest and most beautiful cultures.