Courtesy of Justin Xu

Senior Skyler Ji converses with students on a video call. Ji, who has been speaking Chinese since birth, treasured the opportunity to talk with native Chinese speakers. “I wanted to join because of the opportunity to talk to and interact with people in China. I used to go to town a lot, but, recently, I haven’t been,” Ji said. “I also wanted to join because of the opportunity to talk to Chinese people and see how COVID[-19] has been impacting them.”

After spending hours on a plane to visit his grandparents in rural China, senior Justin Xu noticed a disparity between rural English speakers and urban English speakers. He was invited to a local middle school to have a conversation in English with students. English, one of the most important subjects in the Chinese school system, is one of the hardest languages to learn for native Chinese speakers.

“I noticed that [the students] had a really hard time speaking to me. They could only say the basics [like] ‘Hello, my name is.’ They couldn’t say anymore and they couldn’t have a conversation,” Xu said.

When Xu conversed with students living in the urban areas, he found that they could speak much more fluently than their rural counterparts. To quell this inequality, Xu founded SpeechKing, a nonprofit tutoring organization.

“My parents, who came to America on a research grant, were living in rural villages with my grandparents. They were watermelon farmers. After learning English in high school and college, my dad still had trouble communicating in everyday life,” Xu said. “However, if you look at larger cities like Beijing or Shanghai, they spoke English as fluidly as me. What shocked me a lot was the disparity between larger cities and smaller rural areas.”

Xu’s mission is to target this divide head-on through online English lessons. To teach his students, ranging from elementary to college level, he created a curriculum using WeChat and Messenger.

“In local schools in China, they only touch on grammar and writing; they don’t practice speaking because a lot of the teachers themselves have trouble speaking. So what SpeechKing does is we focus on improving their speaking skills through video calls,” Xu said. “The first activity is where we have a conversation with them, introduce ourselves and talk about hobbies. After that, we gauge how well they speak English or if they can’t speak English at all.”

Xu’s lessons are tailor-made for each individual student. What started as a one-man operation bloomed into an organization with many moving parts and helpers. Senior and Midwest Regional Coordinator Skyler Ji started at SpeechKing during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“At the start of COVID[-19], I had nothing to do, and Justin was talking about how he had a bunch of students who he was teaching. It was really just him, his cousin and one of his friends from China,” Ji said. “It seemed fun and it seemed like a good way to spend my time, and also to improve my Chinese as well because I’d be having conversations with the people in China.”

Ji’s parents, first-generation Chinese immigrants, exposed him to Chinese from a young age.

“Chinese was the first language that I learned because my parents were Chinese immigrants. When they moved to the United States, they barely knew English,” Ji said. “At home, they would speak Chinese to each other rather than English, so the first thing I heard from them was Chinese.”

Much like Xu, Ji’s family also often travels to China to visit his grandparents and relatives.

“One time that I visited China, I actually went to school there for a month. I got to learn English there with them. I got to actually be taught by the Chinese schooling system. A lot of it is pronunciation because they don’t know how to pronounce the words,” Ji said.

When attending school in China, Ji received a lot of attention as the only American in the school.

“As the only American going to school in China, I felt I stuck out, which was usually a good thing. People turned to me for English help, and they all were very interested in my life,” Ji said. “Other times, while practicing Chinese or even doing math homework, I truly felt like an outsider as I wasn’t able to read Chinese fluently the way that my classmates could.”

Ji’s time in China shaped and changed the way he thinks about people foreign to the United States, especially those who do not know English.

“Before, I thought we were in completely different worlds; they were thousands of miles away and spoke a completely different language. However, after going to school with them for a few months, I realized all the similarities,” Ji said. “We learned the same subjects, played the same games at recess, and even sang the same songs- they had me sing ‘Do a deer, a female deer.’ Going to school in China made me realize we’re all not so different as we think we are.”

In his many visits to China, Ji discovered the same difference in English-speaking ability that Xu did.

“It was shocking seeing the disparities in English learning in China. In places such as the city of Beijing, everyone has access to textbooks and learns English constantly,” Ji said. “In places in rural China, however, English is not standardized and someone in fourth grade would learn the same things a first-grader would learn in Beijing.”

As Xu plans to go to college, he faces a dilemma: stop SpeechKing or keep it going. He chose the latter and plans to grow SpeechKing for years to come.

“I want to continue growing this project even as I’m in college, but obviously in college some of our volunteers won’t have enough time. Right now, we are seeing a problem with volunteer shortage, and we realized those problems right now. We’re trying our best to recruit more volunteers,” Xu said.

Xu and Ji are looking for volunteers of all languages and backgrounds. They stress that you don’t have to speak Chinese to find a place at SpeechKing. Even English-only speakers can help tutor college-level students.

“Regardless of if you’re a Chinese speaker or even if you’re an English speaker, hit us up,” Ji said. “There’s definitely a place for you here. It’s really fun. Whatever you want to do, just come along.”

Xu is always surprised at the gratitude of his students, and the way that his organization affects them. The non-profit program, run and organized by high school students, has had many success stories.

“Every time we help a student, they are really shocked because English classes are really expensive in China. They’re shocked that we’re offering these classes for free,” Xu said. “Our students write thank you letters and say how thankful they are for providing these classes. I’m proud of their feedback on how they’ve improved their English because of this organization.”