听力实验室 TingliLab · teacher's guide

What your students can do in the lab

The lab is a listening-first practice room for beginners, roughly HSK 1 to 3. It runs in a web browser (Chrome or Safari) on phones, tablets, Chromebooks and laptops; there is nothing to install. It isn't a course and doesn't grade anyone: think of it as a practice partner that never runs out of material.

• 听 Listen: short dialogues and passages written by AI at the student's level, read aloud in natural voices (for students, made by the lab's server, with word highlighting that follows estimated timings). Students reveal the characters and readings (pinyin, 注音 zhuyin or both) when they're ready, and answer a few questions.
• 声调 Tones: hearing the four tones (single syllables and pairs), and repeat back: the student says a syllable or word and sees their pitch drawn against the voice's (a Microsoft neural voice), with a verdict for single syllables.
• 听写 Dictation: hear a word or line and type it in pinyin or zhuyin.
• 写 Write: learn to write characters stroke by stroke, then write them from memory when prompted by their sound, pinyin or meaning. Each stroke is checked as it's drawn, on the device.
• 说 Talk: a spoken (or typed) conversation with an AI partner who plays a role (a shopkeeper, a taxi driver, a classmate…) on an everyday topic, at the chosen HSK level, followed by a short debrief. See the AI partner for how it is kept safe.
• 文本 Texts: paste in any Chinese text (your class reading, a song) and it becomes listening passages; since v0.32, or take a photo of the page, which the lab reads into the box for the student to check.
• Review (since v0.32): what a student hears, reads, writes and says comes back on a schedule, after 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 and 60 days; Due today and Misses in Tones, Dictation and Write, a line under the tabs counting what's due, and a Review card in their Log. My lists, in Settings, lets a student keep word lists of their own as sources in those tabs, and since v0.33 you can give the whole class lists of yours (see Giving your class a list); Progress shows how each student is doing on them, from their schedule.
• 记录 Log: each student's own progress: clips heard, drill scores, conversations.

Each student's work is saved under their own login and follows them from device to device. The help page describes every tab in detail; it's worth ten minutes before your first lesson.

Before you start

Your teacher account

Teacher accounts are made by the lab's administrator: email hello@tinglilab.com to ask for one. You'll get a username and a first password. The first time you sign in you choose your own password (at least 8 characters; a few words strung together are easy to remember and hard to guess). Your account is also an ordinary learner account, so you can try everything your students will see.

Your email address (since v0.30). You can keep one on your account, in Settings → Account: the lab emails it a link, and once you've used the link the address is confirmed. Then, if you forget your password, Forgot your password? under the sign-in form emails you a link to choose a new one (the email also tells you your username), and you can sign in with the address as well as your username (since v0.30.1). Besides that, the lab sends it only the notice about free accounts, when there is one, which goes to every confirmed address, and a note naming your account if someone asks for a sign-up link with your address. Students have no address and can't reset their own password: you look after their passwords, as below.

Free accounts. Since v0.25 adults can also make a free account of their own on the sign-in screen (since v0.30, from a link the lab emails them). It isn't for your students: a student under 18 gets a login only from you, through your class, with a parent's or carer's consent, and the sign-up form asks people to confirm they're 18 or over. You never see free accounts, and they never see your classes.

Your limits

Each teacher account has a number of active classes it can have and a number of students per class; Settings → My classes shows both. Archived classes don't count towards the number of classes. If you need more of either, email us.

Consent from parents and carers

Before you make a login for a student under 18, a parent or carer must have agreed. The lab asks you to confirm this each time you add students, and records that you did (and when).

• At a school, this is usually part of the school's own permission process for online services. Check with whoever looks after that at your school; they may want to see the privacy statement.
• As a tutor, or teaching at home, ask the parent or carer directly. The note below is ready to send.

Usernames and names

You type each student's first name or a nickname; surnames aren't needed and are better left out. The lab makes the username from the name and your class's code: Amy in the class with code k7m becomes amy.k7m. Chinese names are turned into pinyin (李明 → liming.k7m) and accents are dropped (Zoë → zoe.k7m). The name you typed is what appears on the card and in your class list.

Devices

Do the setup on a computer if you can: the login cards print best from one. Each student needs their own login, even when devices are shared: logins mustn't be shared. For speaking (repeat back, Talk), each device needs a working microphone, and headphones help a lot in a busy room.

A consent note you can send

Copy it, change the bits in [brackets], and send it by email, the school's messaging system or on paper.

Step by step: from nothing to a class with logins

1. Sign in at mandarin.lexlovers.com with the username and password you were given, and choose your own password when asked.
2. Open Settings (设置, the last tab) and find My classes, just under your Account.
3. Make a class. Type a name your students will recognise (Year 9 Mandarin, Tuesday group) and press Make class. The lab gives it a three-character code, such as k7m; the code ends every student's username in that class. You can rename the class later; the code stays.
4. Open the class by tapping its name in the list.
5. Type the names. Under Add students, type or paste your students' first names, one per line (from a spreadsheet column is fine). Up to 60 at a time, and no more than the class allows: the line next to Add students shows how much room is left.
6. Check the usernames. Press Next: check the usernames. Each line now shows the name as it will appear on the card, and the username the lab suggests. Change either if you like. Usernames use lower-case letters and digits (and - or _), up to 24 characters; the class code is added for you. If two students share a first name, the lab suggests amy and amy2; you might prefer amy-b.
7. Confirm consent. Tick the box to confirm that a parent or carer has agreed for each student under 18 on the list. The lab won't make the logins without it.
8. Make the logins. Press Make these logins. If any username needs changing (one already exists, or belonged to a student removed in the last few weeks), nothing is made yet: the problem is shown on its line; fix it and press the button again.
9. Print the cards, or save the file, straight away. The new passwords appear once, with two buttons:
   • Print login cards opens a page of cards (name, username, password, the lab's address, your class and your name) ready to print and cut out, ten to an A4 page. If nothing opens, your browser blocked the new window: allow pop-ups for the site, or use the file instead.
   • Save as a file (CSV) downloads the same list, which opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets (Chinese names included).
   Passwords are like panda-river-42: two easy words and a number, easy for students to type. The lab can't show them again, because it only stores them in scrambled form. That's fine: a forgotten password is replaced in a click (see Day to day). Press Done when you have the cards.
10. Hand out the cards. Keep a copy (or the file) somewhere safe too: students sign in again each lesson, and sooner or later someone will lose their card. A lost card isn't a problem: a new password takes a click.

The first lesson

1. Students open mandarin.lexlovers.com in Chrome or Safari. On a phone or tablet, Add to Home screen from the browser's menu makes it open like an app.
2. They type the username and password from their card, exactly: all lower case, with the dot in the username and the dashes in the password.
3. When the lab first asks to use the microphone (in repeat back or Talk), they press Allow.
4. A gentle start that works well: Listen (make a clip, listen twice, then reveal the characters), then Tones (a round of four tones), then Talk at HSK 1 with a familiar topic.
5. On shared devices, students sign out at the end: Settings → Account → Sign out. That also clears their work from the device (it stays safe on the server), so the next student starts clean. Student sign-ins also end by themselves after a day. If the device is offline at that moment, the lab still clears it and says so, then finishes signing the student out as soon as it's back online.

Day to day

Everything here starts from Settings → My classes → your class, then tapping a student's name for their options.

A student has forgotten or lost their password

Tap the student → New password. A single card appears, ready to print or read out. The old password stops working at once and the student is signed out on every device, so a lost card can't be used by someone else.

"Too many tries"

After 8 wrong passwords in 15 minutes the lab pauses sign-ins for that username, to stop guessing. Either wait a quarter of an hour, or give the student a new password, which lifts the pause straight away.

A student has left, or was added by mistake

Tap the student → Remove. Their login stops working at once, and their saved progress is deleted from the server within a month. If you removed someone by mistake, email us within four weeks: we can bring them back with their progress. (Until then the lab won't let you reuse that username, so a new student never picks up someone else's work.)

Pausing a student

Switch off signs the student out and stops them signing in, without deleting anything; Switch on undoes it. If the lab's administrator suspends a student you've switched off and later lifts the suspension, the student stays switched off until you switch them on.

"Suspended by the administrator"

The lab's administrator can suspend a student, a whole class, or a teacher's account (for example while something is looked into). A suspended student or class is marked suspended by the administrator; its students are signed out and can't sign in. You can't lift a suspension yourself: you won't see Switch on or Remove for a suspended student, and a suspended class can't take new students or be deleted (you can still rename it, give new passwords and archive it). If you think it's a mistake, or want to know more, email us. Archiving and bringing back a class doesn't lift a suspension.

Changing names

A student's displayed name can be changed (type it and Save name); their username can't. The class's name can be changed with Rename; its code can't.

End of term or year

Archive the class: its students are signed out and can't sign in, nothing is deleted, and the class no longer counts towards your number of classes. Bring back undoes it. A class can be deleted only once it has no students: remove them first, or archive it instead.

More classes, or a bigger class

Email us with your username and what you need. The administrator can raise your limits, or a single class's limit.

This week's words

Give them to the whole class as a list: under Lists, in the class, paste them in and press Save, and every student has them in Tones, Dictation and Write at their next sync. See Giving your class a list.

Giving your class a list

A list is the class's own set of characters or words: this week's, a chapter's, the ones for Friday's test. Each list you give a class is a source in every student's Tones, Dictation and Write, called Class: and its name, from their next sync, and what they practise from it goes on their review schedule like anything else. Up to 20 lists a class, 200 items each and 500 in all; they don't count against anyone's own lists.

Making one

Open the class (Settings → My classes → your class). Under Lists, press New list, give it a name (up to 30 characters, in any script: 第三课, Week 4), and put its words in the box: one a line, or several a line separated by spaces, pasted from a word list or a textbook's vocabulary if you like. Traditional characters are read as simplified. A reading in tone numbers after one chooses among its readings: 长 zhang3, 好 hao4, 银行 yin2 hang2 (v or u: for ü, 5 for the light tone); without one, the lab reads it as it does everywhere, and says which items it read that way where there was a choice. Press Save: the list is the class's once the lab has answered (Saved 第三课 for Year 9: 24 items). Anything that isn't a character or a word of up to four (a word in Latin letters, say) is named and left out. A new list is only on your screen until it's saved, and a list for the class has at least one item.

What each tab can use

After a save, the line says what each tab can use: Tones: 18 characters for single syllables, 6 two-character words for pairs; Dictation: 20 words; Write: 30 characters. Tones plays a list's single characters on their own, each in the list's reading, and its two-character words as tone pairs; repeat back takes both. A character whose tone Tones can't play on its own (a light tone, or a tone its syllable takes only beside another) isn't counted for single syllables. Dictation plays the words of up to three characters with one reading, as a round of words. Write takes every character of every item. An item one tab can't use stays in the list for the others.

Changing, copying and deleting

• Save and Rename change the class's list at once; each student's page has the change at its next sync (a round already going keeps the words it started with).
• If the list was saved elsewhere since you opened it (on your other device, or by the lab's administrator), nothing is saved: the page shows the list as it is now, and Put my words back brings yours back, to save over it if you mean to.
• Delete asks once more first. The list goes from the class, and from your students' sources at their next sync; what they've practised from it stays on their schedule.
• Copy to… copies the list to another of your classes (under the same name, or with " (2)" after it if that class has one already), or to My lists, your own, to practise it yourself. A copy is separate: changing one changes nothing in the other. It works from an archived class too, so last year's lists can go to this year's class.
• An archived or suspended class keeps its lists, unchanged until it's back.
• The meanings come from your own word bank first, then the HSK list, then one the lab looks up, so a meaning you've edited in your bank is the one your students see in Tones and Dictation, from the list's next save (Write shows them their own bank's meaning, or the HSK list's). The readings are yours too: where a character has several, your students see the one you chose.

What your students see

Each list is a source in Tones, Dictation and Write, Class: 第三课, above their own lists. A list they haven't practised yet shows on the Review line under the tabs, New from your teacher: 第三课, a button that opens Tones with the list chosen (Dictation for a list with nothing for Tones, Write for one with nothing for either), until they've had a round from it on any of their devices. They can't change a class's list, but copy to my lists, beside the source (and in Settings → My lists), makes it one of their own.

In Progress

The class's Progress has a Lists table above the students: for each list, its items, how many students had a round from it this week, its rounds in the last 7 and 30 days, and when it was last practised. Tap a list for its page. At the top, the class's hardest items: the list's items the most students have marked as misses, with how many and where (找, tone heard: 3 of 5 · 绿, written: 2 of 5). Then a row a student: their rounds from the list in 7 and 30 days; met, the list's items they've answered; right at the last answer; due now on their schedule; needs help with, their misses and where (找 tone · 绿 writing · 旅游 reading); and the day those are from. Order them by name, needs help first, or least practised first. A student's own page, and their What my teacher sees, have a line for each list.

Which number is which: rounds are those started with the list as the source. Once its words are on a student's schedule they also come back in Due today, and those rounds count as Due today's, not the list's, so rounds undercount the practice. Met, right, due and needs help count every answer: they're what the student's own Review card says about the list's items, whatever round the items were answered in, Due today's included, as of their last sync. A student whose page hasn't synced since this version shows not yet.

Seeing your students' progress

Open the class (Settings → My classes → your class) and press Progress. You get a row for each student, or on a phone a card each. The lab's server works the numbers out from each student's saved work, as their devices last synced it: practice done offline, or on a device that hasn't been online since, shows up once it syncs. Refresh fetches them again.

What the numbers mean

• Last active: the last time their saved work shows them doing anything. Students with no practice in the last 7 days are greyed. Nothing synced yet means the lab has nothing saved for them: they haven't used it yet, or not on a device that was online.
• Last 7 days and Last 30 days: clips they finished (answered the questions); drills: tone items in the Tones tab, dictation lines, repeat-back attempts and words written in the Write tab; and conversations with the AI partner. The student's page also counts their turns: the lines they said or typed.
• Right or matched, 30 days: over the last 30 days, how often their answers were right, and how often the tones they heard or said matched the voice's (since v0.31: the lab compares tones, it doesn't mark them). Comprehension is the questions after each clip; tones is tone items, matched; pinyin is dictation, as two shares: syllables with the right sounds / with matching tones; writing is the share of characters written from memory cleanly: without a hint, without being shown and not skipped (learning a new character, tracing and writing on paper count as drills, not here). Nobody ever sees the strokes themselves: they're checked on the student's device and never sent. The student's page also says how many questions, items or syllables each share is out of (for writing, how many characters they tried), and adds repeat-back, which judges single syllables only (a word gets a guide, not a verdict, so it isn't counted here). A dash means there's nothing to count yet.
• Words: how many are in the pool they practise from, how many they've heard in a clip or conversation, and how many they heard for the first time in the last 7 days (new). New words are counted from this version of the lab on, so expect zeros at first.
• Flags: the safety flags of the last 90 days (below). ⚠ with a number means conversations stopped with the support message that nobody has reviewed yet.

Lists: above the students, a table of the class's lists, each opening its page, with the class's hardest items and how each student is doing on it (see In Progress, under Giving your class a list).

Order sorts the list by name, least active first, or flags first. Save as a file (CSV) downloads the table, with every number and the flag counts, ready for Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. It holds your students' names, so look after it as you would a class list, under your school's rules.

One student

Tap a student (or, on a computer, select their row and press Enter) for their page: all the numbers, the last four weeks (clips, drills and conversations each week, this week first), a line for each of the class's lists, their safety flags, and their conversations with the AI partner, newest first. Tap a conversation to read it: the partner's lines with their English, what the student said or typed, the 💡 tips they were given, and the debrief at the end. Close puts it away. The transcript is the copy the student's device saved; any flagged lines shown with it come from the lab's own log.

Safety flags

Flags come from the lab's own conversation log on the server, which nobody's device can change, and go back 90 days. There are two kinds:

• Stopped: support message shown (in red). Something the student said suggested they might be in danger or being hurt, so the partner stopped the role-play and showed where to get help. Until someone marks it reviewed, it's called out at the top of the class's progress. Open the conversation to read it in context, then follow your school's (or your own) wellbeing and child-protection procedures, and email us the student's username and roughly when. Some turn out to be a misunderstanding or a student testing the partner; treat each one seriously all the same.
• The partner changed the subject. The conversation was heading somewhere unsuitable for a classroom, and the partner steered it back. Usually harmless (a student testing the limits, a misheard word), so these are only counted in the Flags column, not called out.

Each flag shows when it happened, the role and topic, what the student said and what the partner answered. Press Mark reviewed once you've looked: the lab records your name and the time, and the flag no longer counts as open. A new flag in the same conversation shows as open again. The lab's administrator sees every flag too, and who reviewed it. If the flags can't be shown just now, the lab's conversation service isn't answering: the numbers are still there, so try again later. A flag can belong to a conversation that's no longer in the student's saved work (deleted on their device, or not synced yet); the flagged lines are still shown.

What's recorded, and what students see

Opening a student's page or one of their conversations is recorded (who, which student, when), and so is marking a flag reviewed, as the privacy statement says. Each student can see the same numbers about themselves, in Settings → Account → What my teacher sees, with their conversations that you may look at marked as such (it doesn't say why).

What students can't do, and why

• Change their own password, or reset it by email: students keep no email address. You look after it, so you can always help a student who's locked out.
• Keep voice recordings. In repeat back they get the pitch graph and the verdict, and the recording is thrown away; student recordings are never kept on the server.
• Choose the larger AI model, or use the AI without limit. Students always get the fast model, with up to 100 AI calls a day between new clips and partner replies (plenty for practice: a new clip is one call, each partner reply another; the counter in the Talk tab shows what's left), and a conversation lasts at most 20 of their turns at the HSK levels, or 30 at No limit.
• Stay signed in for long. A student sign-in lasts a day, because so many devices in schools are shared.
• See slang or vulgar meanings. Words' meanings come from the HSK list in full (since v0.29), but students' accounts leave out a few slang and vulgar senses, as the trial and the free tone lab do; adults' accounts see the whole list.
• See anyone else's work. Each student reaches only their own.

The AI conversation partner: what keeps it safe

• The partner is an AI and says so if asked. The Talk tab says so too, and tells students that their teacher can read their conversations.
• It keeps to everyday, classroom-friendly subjects: no romance, nothing sexual, no violence, alcohol, drugs or gambling, no political or religious debates, no medical, legal or financial advice.
• It never asks for personal details (full name, address, school, phone, email, social media, photos) and never suggests meeting or moving to another app. If a conversation heads somewhere unsuitable, it changes the subject in simple Chinese.
• If anything a student says suggests they are in danger or being hurt, the role-play stops and the lab shows this message: "If something is wrong, please talk to someone you trust: a parent, a teacher or a school counsellor. In Australia you can call Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25, any time) or Lifeline on 13 11 14."
• These rules are set on the lab's server and can't be switched off from the app. Every exchange is kept in a safety log for 90 days, which we review, and you see any of your students' exchanges where the partner changed the subject or stopped (see Seeing your students' progress).
• The listening clips students make in Listen, and the texts they prepare in Texts, are written by the same AI, through the lab's server, under the same classroom rules, and logged in the same way. The server writes every request to the AI itself, from the student's choices (level, topic, length, words), or around a text the student pasted (mostly Chinese, and short), which goes to the AI only as a passage to prepare for listening.

The AI can also simply make mistakes, in Chinese as well as English. Treat its corrections as suggestions and check anything that matters.

Privacy, in brief

• For each student the lab keeps: the name you typed, their username, their class, their practice (words, results, conversations and debriefs), and when they last signed in. You'll be recorded as the person who confirmed consent.
• You can see your own students' progress, read their conversations with the AI partner and see any safety flags; nobody else can, apart from the lab's operator, for running it. Opening a student's page or conversation, and marking a flag reviewed, are recorded.
• A class's lists are kept on the lab's server, with who saved each and when, until you delete them or the class goes; its students see them. Progress counts each student's rounds from each list, from the practice records the lab already keeps, and shows how they're doing on its items, from a short summary their page saves with their practice.
• Students can see what you see about their practice (Settings → Account → What my teacher sees).
• The lab runs on a server in Sydney. AI text comes from Anthropic, and voices and speech recognition from Microsoft Azure (Australia East), for students through the lab's server, so Microsoft sees the server's address, not the student's; neither trains its AI on this data.
• Each night the server's data is copied to an encrypted backup (Backblaze, in the United States, which can't read it), kept for up to two months.
• A student, parent or carer can ask for the student's data to be deleted, through you or by email.

Your students' voices. When a student talks to the conversation partner, their speech goes through the TingliLab server to Microsoft's speech service, which turns it into text. The server keeps no audio. The text becomes their side of the conversation, which you can read in the class pages as before. Repeat-back recordings in the tone lab are judged on the student's device and discarded, never uploaded. TingliLab stores no recording of any student's voice.

The full statement is at privacy.

Known limits for now

Problems and fixes

"That username and password don't match."

Check the dot and class code in the username (amy.k7m) and the dashes in the password. Capitals and stray spaces don't matter for students (phones like to add a capital), but every letter does. Still stuck? Give a new password.

"Too many tries."

Wait 15 minutes, or give a new password (which lifts it at once).

"This account is switched off."

Someone switched the student off: tap them → Switch on. If there's no Switch on and the student is marked suspended by the administrator, only the administrator can lift it: email us.

"Your class can't sign in just now."

The administrator has suspended the class (it's marked suspended by the administrator): email us.

"Your class has finished in the lab."

The class is archived: open it and press Bring back.

A student sees someone else's name at the top.

The previous person didn't sign out of that device. Settings → Account → Sign out, then sign in with their own card.

No sound.

Check the volume and mute switch (iPhones have a side switch), then Settings → Microphone → Reset audio, or reload the page.

The microphone doesn't work.

The browser needs permission: look for the microphone or padlock icon by the address and allow it, then Settings → Microphone → Reset audio. Some school devices block microphones; your IT staff can allow it for the site. Students can type in Talk meanwhile.

"Speech recognition is busy."

Students' speech goes through the lab's server, which takes up to 60 of them at once, so it's rare (see Known limits): wait a moment and try again, or type. Used up for today on this account is the student's 15 minutes, back tomorrow; That recording ran too long means one stretch of listening reached its limit: tap 🎤 again.

The print window didn't open.

Your browser blocked it. Allow pop-ups for the site and press Print login cards again, or use Save as a file and print from a spreadsheet.

I closed the page before printing the cards.

The passwords can't be shown again, but nothing is lost: give each student a New password as they need it (each one comes as its own card).

Two students have the same first name.

Their usernames differ (amy and amy2, or whatever you chose); their names on the cards and in your list can be the same, so you might add an initial to the name (Amy B).

A student's numbers look too low, or are missing.

The numbers come from what their devices have synced. Ask them to open the lab while online (signed in), wait a few seconds, then press Refresh. Work on a device that was cleared before it synced (signing out without a connection, say) can't be counted.

A student doesn't have the class's list yet.

Their page has it from its next sync: ask them to open the lab while online (signed in), or press Sync now in Settings → Data. It's in Tones, Dictation and Write as Class: and its name, and on the line under the tabs until they've practised it.

Someone else seems to have reviewed a flag.

The lab's administrator sees every flag too, and may have marked it. The flag says who reviewed it and when.

Can parents see their child's work?

Not directly. A student can show them What my teacher sees (Settings → Account), or save a copy of everything from Settings → Data → Download backup, and a parent or carer can ask us for the data.

Can I add adults to a class?

Yes, they're students like any other (no recordings kept, you look after their password). Adults who'd rather have an account of their own can make a free one on the sign-in screen.

Can a student be in two classes?

Not at the moment: each student belongs to one class. Give them a login in the class they attend most.

For your students: a short how-to

Print this, put it on a slide, or read it out.

Still stuck?

Email hello@tinglilab.com. To help us help you quickly, include:

• your username and the class code;
• the student's username, if it's about a student (never their password);
• what happened, roughly when, and the exact words of any message;
• the device and browser (for example iPad, Safari or school Chromebook), and a screenshot if you can.

We read every email and reply as soon as we can, though it can take longer during holidays.