Confucius Institute · Star Teacher

Concept · Star Teacher

Who
teaches it?

An idea, not a plan yet. Students pick a course for the person who teaches it. So what if our teachers sold our courses, instead of the institute?

On this page

01The ideaWhat it is, and what it is not 02Where it comes fromMasterClass, our students, the market 03How it could workThe match and the campaign 04What we still decideFour open questions

01 · The idea

Put the people who teach in front.

one sentence, that is the whole idea

What it is

Every course shows who teaches it

Photo, name, one line about them, one line from them

Campaigns sell a course through two or three of its teachers

What it is not

Not a celebrity campaign

Not one teacher as the face of the whole institute

Not a new name or a new logo

02 · Where it comes from

One idea borrowed. Two reasons of our own.

Source 1 · The inspiration

MasterClass sells people, not courses.

MasterClass grew into a company valued at $2.75 billion on one idea: people do not buy a course, they buy access to a person. The teacher is the product. The course is how you get to them.

See how they do it: masterclass.com ↗

What they do

01The homepage sells the teacher. The course title comes second.

02The trailer ends with the teacher saying their own name.

03Every post is one person, not a catalogue.

Why it works

Humouryou will not be bored

Connectionthey faced what you face

Hopeif they can, you can

Source 2 · Our students

36/45

put teaching quality first. In their own words they named their teacher, never the institute.

Source 3 · The market

6/6

Chinese course providers we scanned in Rotterdam show no teacher. Not a name, not a face.

Source 3 · The network

0/496

Confucius Institutes worldwide name their teachers. This would be a first.

Where we part from MasterClass

Same principle. Our own version.

	MasterClass	Us
Who	World-famous celebrities	Our own teachers, with real academic credentials and a university behind them
Faces per course	One, locked to the course for good	Two or three, because teachers come and go
Production	A Hollywood film crew	A small crew in our own classroom, one day

03 · How it could work

A first sketch, in two parts.

The match decides which teacher goes with which course. The campaign decides what we make and where it goes.

sketches, not a design

03a · The match

One name on the website. Two or three faces in the campaign.

Two matches, two sets of rules

	On the website	In a campaign
Shows	Who teaches this course this semester	Who carries this course in posts, flyers and the newsletter
How many	One name	Two or three faces, never one
Who qualifies	Whoever is on the timetable	Teachers who teach this course, now or regularly
When it is set	Every semester, when the timetable is fixed	Once per campaign, before the shoot
When someone leaves	The next name goes on the page. That is all.	The other faces carry on. Nothing is pulled. The next shoot adds someone.

What happens when a teacher leaves

The campaign holds. One name changes.

Letters instead of names, because this is the rule and not the casting. Solid lines are the campaign: they hold. The dashed line is the website: it follows the timetable.

How someone arrives

The face from the post is on the course page.

The face from the post is on the course page, so the click never lands on a stranger. The name next to the price is who actually teaches you this semester.

03b · The campaign

One shoot per course. Then a steady rhythm.

What we make, and where it goes

	Course page	Instagram	Newsletter	Flyer	Reception screen	Google and AI answers
Portrait
Video, about 40 seconds
One line in their own words
Short bio with credentials
Newsletter block

On the course page these come together as one teacher card: photo, name, one line about them, one line from them.

The rhythm

01Before the shoota twenty minute talk per face

02Shoot dayall faces of one course

03From Januarycampaign for the February intake

04Every semesterwebsite names follow the timetable

The talk is where their own words come from. We do not write them.

Who posts

The teacherown channels

The Instituteshares it on

The websitealways on

A clip from a teacher reads as advice. The same clip from an official account reads as an ad.

Who posts

The teacherown channels

The Instituteshares it further

The websitealways on

A clip from a teacher reads as advice. The same clip from an official account reads as an ad.

04 · What we still decide

Four open questions.

01Which courses go firstInside China is first on the roadmapOpen

02Which faces per coursetwo or three who teach itOpen

03What we call it in publicStar Teacher is a working titleOpen

04Scope and dates of the first shootwith a production partner, the briefOpen

Production

Hannah van Heelvideo and designIn

Production partnerbrief ready, partner to be foundOpen

Locationour own classroom, Zuyd studios closedSet

Scope and datesfirst course and its facesOpen

Good to know

One institute, two addresses.

Rotterdam and Maastricht are where the teaching happens, not what we campaign on. Nothing here is built per city.

Three to five faces to start.

Wenjun Zhang, Tianzhao Li and Bo Zhang to begin. More join in November and February.

Where the 36 comes from

They name their teacher →

45 students, in their own words.

Where the 0 comes from

496 institutes →

Not one of them names a teacher.