Pinyora Classroom

Pinyora for educators

Build curated Mandarin reading paths, share a join link, and see exactly which assignments your students completed. Free for classrooms.

Open Pinyora → Talk to us about a pilot

Free for teachers and students. No credit card. Works in any modern browser.

Curated reading paths

Hand-pick stories from the HSK 1–6 library and assign them to your class with due dates and notes.

Per-student progress

See who finished, who's halfway, and who hasn't started — without chasing screenshots.

One-click sharing

Share a join link in Google Classroom or Canvas. Print a handout for one-pagers in class.

Why Pinyora?

Mandarin instruction is constrained by an acute shortage of leveled, classroom-ready digital texts. Pinyora pairs a graded, HSK-aligned story library with a teacher workflow purpose-built for assigning, tracking, and adapting reading at the speed of a class period.

Who Pinyora Classroom is for

Pinyora Classroom is built for the people teaching one of the world's most-needed second languages with too little time and too few aligned tools:

  • K–12 Mandarin teachers running mixed-level classes who need a quick way to assign different stories to different students.
  • Heritage and weekend-school instructors who want to send students home with structured reading instead of a worksheet.
  • University and ESL Mandarin programs building extensive reading components into the curriculum.
  • Federal language programs (DLI, FSI, STARTALK) and contractors training Category-IV language proficiency at scale.

Mandarin is classified as a critical-need language by the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department, but most digital tools were built for casual self-study, not for the classroom. Pinyora Classroom closes that gap.

How it works

  1. Create a classroom. A six-character join code is generated. Optionally add your name and a class label like "Mandarin 101 — Period 3."
  2. Build a reading path. Pick stories from Pinyora's HSK-graded library — newbie through native — and add an optional due date and a sentence of context.
  3. Share the link. Drop the auto-generated join link in Google Classroom, Canvas, an email, or print the handout (it includes the code, link, and assignment table).
  4. Track progress. When students sign in, you see a roster with per-assignment completion. Export the table to CSV any time for grading.

Students don't need an account to read; they only need to sign in if you want their progress visible on the roster.

What's included free

Everything below is free for both teachers and students:

  • Unlimited classrooms and assignments.
  • The full graded story library (newbie → native), with pinyin, English glosses, and per-word audio.
  • Tap-to-define lookup, vocabulary saving, HSK progress tracking.
  • Roster sync, due-date pills, and CSV export.
  • Offline reading via PWA — students can keep going on the bus.

Privacy and student data

  • Students who don't sign in leave no trace beyond their own browser.
  • Signed-in students share only their name, email, and per-assignment progress with the teacher of any classroom they joined.
  • No third-party trackers, no ads, no selling of student data.
  • Full details in the Privacy Policy.

Pilot programs and feedback

Bringing Pinyora to a school district, a university course, or a federal language program? We'd love to support pilots with onboarding, custom story sets, and feedback channels.

Email hello@pinyora.com with a one-line description of your program and we'll get back within two business days.