Professor Shen is a very dedicated teacher. The entire class is taught in Chinese, even when you ask for clarification. This usually isn't a problem, since intermediate-level classes should be taught in Chinese anyways. So I don't take it as a negative.

However, it seems like learning vocabulary outside of the class material is necessary to do well on exams and take-home essays because of how much has to be written and the limited scope of the textbook. If you don't go beyond the textbook vocabulary, your essays will seem very contrived.

If you aren't enthusiastic about learning Chinese, this class can get annoying. But if you do care for the subject, then Professor Shen is great.

Attendance is mandatory. On Zoom, Breakout sessions usually take up about 15-20 minutes per class. Homework is graded for completion rather than correctness. Purchasing the workbook is not needed, since she provides the homework worksheets online to be printed. The midterm and final will be most of your grade. This class uses the Cheng & Tsui Integrated Chinese series textbooks.