Iris L   

New tutor

Bridging cultures through language, story, and authentic communication.

Iris (Kit Ying) is a multilingual educator and writer with nearly a decade of teaching experience across Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, and English. She is TCSOL and TEFL certified, and holds a degree in Bilingual Studies from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Since 2017, Iris started teaching Chinese to ethnic minorities at H.K.S.K.H. Lady MacLehose Centre and worked as a voluntary translator for ethnic minorities women through TheM: Translate for Her. Later, she teaches non-Chinese speaking adults from all over the world and different industries. Her clients include Bill Davidson (Managing Director, Ching Mo Center), Professor Quentin Parker (Department of Physics, HKU), Thomas Martin (Barrister, Pegasus Chambers), Anthony Stephens (Director, Bank of America), Peter (Chemistry Teacher, Australian International School Hong Kong), Tommy (Manager, PCCW), Fred (Software engineer), Milan (Construction worker) and more.

As a teacher, Iris is known for her clear explanations, culturally rich lessons, and her ability to support learners of all levels—from complete beginners to advanced speakers refining fluency. Her approach blends linguistic precision with creativity, making language learning both structured and enjoyable.

In her language teaching career, the remarkable achievement was that Iris discovered the only one family originated from Papua New Guinea in Hong Kong. When she was teaching a primary school student called LeiLei from this family, she discovered that the family spoke “a unique language” and wondered if it was “an endangered language”. Later, she wrote a letter to Linguistic Society of America and also asked about how children from PNG can learn Chinese well. Professor Laurence R. Horn, the former president of LSA replied Iris that it was Tok Pisin which was not an endangered language in Papua New Guinea. However, he encouraged Iris to teach Chinese to non-Chinese speaking people in Hong Kong because Chinese language teaching is meaningful and such kind of language discovery is a great experience like a linguist does.

Beyond the classroom, Iris is an active writer. She is currently working on her own book and was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2025 Fall Writing Contest, a recognition that reflects her strong storytelling voice and dedication to cross‑cultural communication. Besides, she also wants to promote Hong Kong literature.

Whether guiding students through the tones of Cantonese, the structure of Mandarin, or the rhythm of English, Iris brings patience, passion, and a deep understanding of how languages connect people. She looks forward to helping learners grow confidently and authentically in their target language.

When Iris is not teaching, she works as a tour guide at Withlocals. She hopes to promote her home language and home culture.