We provide rich text, including Chinese text and HTML tags. Please do not translate the HTML tags. Translate the Chinese text into English. Here is the translation of the Chinese text in the rich text: Through stimulating students' interest, strictly controlling the quality of teachers and empowering technology, New Oriental has shifted its focus from mere training to driving educational progress on its own. In the class of Xueersi Big Chinese, teachers use clothing and body language to bring students into the poetic realm of ancient poetry. Published in the 910th issue of "China News Weekly" on August 5, 2019 The story takes place on the planet Mars. Eddie and Vee received an urgent order - a secret book of calculations was plundered to the Island of the Bugs. They transformed into super-powered pioneers, broke through layers of barriers, and filled in the equations that were destroyed by bugs, retrieving the secret book. At the same time, they also re-integrated Worm, the main director of this farce, who, with his love for bugs, was once shunned by everyone, back into the circle of friends. This is the content of the animated courseware "Eddie Vayl" developed by Xueersi for primary school mathematics. Through the running of the animation, children not only master the knowledge points but also understand the need to respect and be inclusive of individuals with different interests. In the classrooms of Xueersi, it is common to see more than ten children sitting in the front row. Under the guidance of teachers and courseware, they engage their brains in a journey of expanding and exploring their thoughts. Parents of the students behind sit focused, occasionally learning some educational "secrets" from the classroom, while also paying attention to the teacher and their child's performance. Sixteen years ago, Xueersi was just a small training class in Zhiying Business Building on Zhichun Road, Haidian District, Beijing. By the end of February 2019, Xueersi had about 50 teaching points in Beijing and had set up more than 500 teaching centers in 56 cities across the country, with millions of students enrolling for classes every year. But regardless of how large it expanded, small class teaching and open classrooms have always been the tradition Xueersi has adhered to. In 2010, Xueersi became the first domestic primary and secondary education and training institution to be listed in the United States. In 2013, Xueersi officially changed its group name to Huafei. Today's Xueersi is no longer just an education and training company. Stimulating students' interest What impressed Yang Li and her daughter Xiao Xiao most was a mathematics class in the fifth grade of Xueersi, which took place over the past five years. The theme of the course was "three-dimensional shapes and spatial imagination." For primary school students, it is difficult to imagine the spatial configuration of three-dimensional shapes through the teachers' verbal descriptions or even drawings. In the classroom, primary school mathematics teacher Hucan displayed a cool and versatile artifact. It was an animated courseware that could fold and mark the unfolded diagram of a small cube and can rotate the folded small cube freely at any angle. More magically, it could make the corresponding number of small cubes "grow" out of each grid on a 16x16 unit grid, by changing the numbers on the grid. This created diverse and ever-changing three-dimensional shapes. Once the small cubes formed a large cube, he could also cut, shuffle, and rotate the cube, making certain rows and columns of small cubes disappear. With such "magical operations," the students instantly gained a vivid and intuitive understanding of three-dimensional shapes. Yang Li was also deeply engrossed. She remembered that due to the "powerful" courseware, the atmosphere in the classroom was heated, and students exclaimed, "Teacher, show us another shape!" stimulating students' interest and is Xueersi's "trump card," which is also the reason Yang Li signed up her daughter. Xiao Xiao entered the fifth grade this year. There are only 15 students in each class of Xueersi, which means that teachers can give students more attention. When Xueersi was founded, Zhang Bangxin divided his first batch of 20 students into two classes to ensure the effectiveness of the tutoring, and this small class development model has continued to this day. Xueersi also has an open classroom, allowing parents to observe. Moreover, the institution's "refund anytime dissatisfaction" policy has also won widespread praise among parents. Haotingzhixue, vice president of the Beijing Branch of Xueersi, is responsible for teaching. He often teases himself and uses real-life scenarios to make learning more relatable. For example, he compares himself with students, his family's travel experiences, dressing matching, and the principle of multiplication, and humorously acts out decision-making difficulties. He is patient in explaining areas where students find difficulty, carefully guarding their self-esteem. This has gradually sparked Xiao Xiao's interest in mathematics, making her willing to take the initiative to solve problems and build her confidence. Yang Li remembers that last summer vacation, when she took her daughter to Paris, France, her daughter spontaneously discussed the concept of triangles when they saw the glass pyramid at the Louvre. After enrolling in Xueersi for about a year, her daughter's math grades showed a significant improvement. Back in 2002, when teaching the first student, Zhang Bangxin tried to spark her interest in Chinese by telling many stories about Chinese idioms. This practice was documented in a series of idiom chains. Inspiring student interest, with the goal of awakening students' self-drive and making learning more active and effective, has been on Zhang Bangxin's mind since 2002. He envisioned that by changing students' attitudes and habits in these two hours, they could potentially influence the effectiveness of learning for the rest of the week. He proposed the idea of having students first reiterate what they had learned. This later developed into Xueersi's habit system of "oral narration," allowing students to explain the knowledge points in their own words. According to Yang Li, after each lesson, when Xiao Xiao took the initiative to explain the topic to her, it was an exercise in mathematical thinking. In 2011, Xueersi changed its educational philosophy from the initial "Learning Changes Destiny" to "Making learning more effective." According to Yang Fuguang, this effectiveness has three meanings: effectiveness in results, efficiency in learning, and a good learning experience throughout the process. In 2017, with the release of the Ministry of Education's "Core Literacy for Chinese Students" and the execution of the new college entrance examination program in pilot cities, Xueersi further upgraded its philosophy, defining it as the cultivation of students' "lifelong capabilities," including reading ability, communication skills, and creative thinking, and is integrated into Xueersi's curriculum. In the Big Chinese Language class, students are taught to expand their knowledge in literature, history, and philosophy, and develop good reading and expression skills. For science classes, students are taught to explore spirits and practical skills. After the unit in the "Four Directions" theme of a math class, children not only trace back to the ancient methods of recognizing directions, such as with sundials and compasses but also understand that they can rely on the Big Dipper and the North Star at night. In the eyes of Dong Guanpeng, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Communication University of China, the key to Xueersi's success lies in not only studying for the sake of exams but also in improving students' learning efficiency, allowing them to achieve better results in a shorter time and achieve sustainable growth in capabilities. Teacher Admission Rate lower than 5% In 2002, after graduating from Sichuan University and subsequently being admitted to Peking University's biology Ph.D. program, Zhang Bangxin, for the sake of economic independence, began tutoring students at home. Because he had a profound influence on the first student he taught, parents of other children quickly recommended him to others, leading him to teach 20 "clients" every weekend. When the SARS epidemic hit, Zhang Bangxin had to temporarily suspend the tutoring class, but he managed to create a math website to answer questions online for parents and students in need. Following the epidemic, Zhang Bangxin's tutoring classes quickly resumed. Due to word of mouth passed on by parents, he was overwhelmed with students, to the point where he could not handle the volume. At the time, Zhang Bangxin managed to scrape together 100,000 yuan and, in August 2003, registered a company, and this was how Xueersi was born. As the student scale continued to expand, recruiting new teachers became urgent. At that time, Beijing's well-known extracurricular tutoring institutions primarily hired public school teachers, making it difficult for someone like Zhang Bangxin, who lacked experience, connections, and resources, to recruit. The individuals he was looking for were a different type - outstanding graduates from top universities. However, there were few applicants who fit his requirements. Out of the first batch of applicants, Zhang Bangxin interviewed 60 teachers for an entire day and only admitted 3 people, yielding an admission rate of 5%. Liu Yachao was the first to be admitted and is currently the COO and co-founder of Huafei. Later, another young man met Zhang Bangxin at the teaching site and was named Bai Yunfeng, and is now a co-founder and president of Huafei. Further down the line, Jiyuning, a talented woman who graduated from the School of Mathematics at Peking University, met Zhang Bangxin on the school's BBS and joined Xueersi in 2004. She still remembers the scene of her interview at Zhiyin Building: a makeshift office with a whiteboard, a marker pen, and a sheet of paper with several questions to choose from for teaching for 20 minutes. She recalls feeling "very nervous" and "briefly praised her writing on the whiteboard while mentioning that her language wasn't good enough," Ji Yunying laughed. Today, Xueersi has over 10,000 frontline teachers, still retaining the tradition of recruiting talent from top universities with an admission rate of less than 5%. In the past two years, from receiving resumes to final recruitment, the pass-through rate is even less than 4%, as explained by Yang Fuguang, who mentioned that they want to select candidates with genuine enthusiasm and passion for teaching. However, selecting talent is only the first step. Teacher recruitment must go through "resume screening- face-to-face interviews- preliminary trials- written tests- guide for re-trials- re-trials- pre-job training- final school principal interview" and other layers of screening. In reality, the establishment of this set of teacher training systems actually stems from two crises that Xueersi has experienced. In 2004, right after Xueersi's student population crossed the 1,000 mark, two of the best teachers left with 200 of the best students. In the summer of 2007, the largest training institution in Beijing secured a $20 million financing, and Xueersi experienced another significant blow when it managed to poach five core teachers from Xueersi. These events made Zhang Bangxin start to rethink the company's management issues. Initially, Xueersi only wanted to be a "small and beautiful" company with only 7 teaching sites in Beijing's Haidian district and just over 10,000 enrolled students. After the crisis in 2007, Zhang Bangxin began to consider financing and public listing, but increasingly thought about the benefits and personal development of the employees. Therefore, he decided to establish a teacher training college to quickly provide assistance if a teacher were to leave. Upon passing the first four rounds of inspection, the guidance of the re-test from the recruiter will be conducted by the Xueersi training instructor and experienced teachers, with the aim of providing assistance and observing the recruitment's trajectory during the re-test phase. After recruitment, new teachers have to undergo training for half a year, including speaking in class, listening to class, preparing lessons, and trial lectures, all as part of their internal cultivation process before formal teaching. In the first year of teaching, Meng Xing, a math teacher at Xueersi, remembered that she had to prepare the lessons 10 to 20 times every one-and-a-half-hour class. Technology Improving Education "Zhao Zilong was surrounded by five generals, but don't worry, as long as the right method is followed, Zhao Zilong can get out. It's just a matter of finding the right path - nothing more than 81 steps" - during break time at a Xueersi classroom in Beijing, the children had gathered at the front of the classroom and were chanting these lines, dancing and gesturing, while watching an animated educational product called "Gift Egg," released by Xueersi. This behind-the-scenes mastermind is none other than Hu Chan, the chief instructional and research instructor for the elementary science animation group at Xueersi. Besides being a teacher, he also involved in the creation of "Gift Egg," which has become a hit among elementary school children, helping them solve mathematical problems and pass through topics, such as "broken equations due to bugs" and "uneven distributions," both of which explain knowledge points as well as qualities children should have in their daily lives. Xueersi's Beijing headquarters and 8th floor of the Shengda Building is the base for the elementary animation group. Here, there is a team of over 30 people who, in addition to producing "Gift Egg," also created "Eddie Vee," a courseware educating millions of elementary school children and help them in breaking through challenges and solving mathematical problems creatively. Zhou Liang, the head of the animation group, has been in the animation industry for over 15 years. In May 2017, with the huge demand from students, he joined Xueersi with the goal of developing interesting and beneficial children-themed products that fit their aesthetic. He and his team re-integrated the Eddie and Vee characters, creating a new math world called Maess (Math) Planet. The "Eddie Vee" courseware produced here every year totals over 2,000 minutes, including "The equation destroyed by bugs" and "Can't divide evenly" among other "explosions," that not only explain knowledge but also teach children qualities they should possess in their daily lives. This was followed by the production of a completed 32-episode season of "Gift Egg." "Gift Egg" was initially a physical and chemical teaching product for junior high school, taking the homonym of "Chemistry and Physics." After he joined Xueersi, Zhou Liang repositioned and designed this product, increasing the viewership to nearly a million on the Xueersi APP. Hu Chan, the chief creator of "Gift Egg," is proud that each time he tells students that he is the creator of "Gift Egg," he can always collect the admiring eyes of children and their parents. Doing good instructional and research work has always been the main focus of Xueersi. Ji Yunying, the senior research director of the teaching research platform at Xueersi, saw instructional research as the soul of the entire teaching process, while Yang Fuguang viewed it as the foundation of teaching - be it for teachers' training or actual teaching. In reality, Xueersi started instructional research to resolve issues arising from the different teaching styles, textbooks, and progress points among teachers. Ji Yunying recalls how some teachers could teach six questions in one class, while others could teach more than ten questions. According to Zhang Bangxin, standardization is a must, as the teachers and their teaching methods should be based on standardized personalization, which ensures quality personalization at its core. As a result, Zhang Bangxin and the founding team selected the best eight out of 60 teachers to establish the standardization of teaching research at Xueersi. In their eyes, the most outstanding teachers need to take a step back and allow their teaching methods and experiences to be refined and synthesized into the standardization system to uphold the quality bottom line. In 2007, Xueersi officially established the research department. The founders once again took the six teachers who were the most outstanding and sent them to develop the standardization training department. This standardization system then merged into Xueersi's ICS intelligent teaching system, going through eight years and a total investment over 100 million yuan. In 2012, the second internal speech at Xueersi was considered the second transformation, with Zhang Bangxin viewing it as a focus on increasing research investment. In 2013 and 2014, Xueersi started to witness a surge in technology-related personnel. Later in 2016, the Xueersi invested 126 million yuan to upgrade the intelligent teaching system from ICS to ITS. Yet with the support of artificial intelligence and big data, teachers could customize lesson plans using the ITS platform, while students could conduct detailed observations of chemical reactions through delayed, micro-shot filming, and understand molecular structures via 3D animations. In Xueersi's teaching system, instructional research is only one piece, with the ITS system being able to track a teacher's use of courseware in class and the teacher providing feedback each week, forming a complete loop between instructional research and classroom instruction. In the initial design of the curriculum framework, instructional and research teachers needed to participate in the development of the curriculum content. Once the courseware production process had begun, animators and other team members could join. At Huafei, currently, there are around 5,000 content and technology research and development staff. During an interview in March this year, Zhang Bangxin stated that the company's R&D expenses would approach nearly 2 billion yuan this year, growing at a 50% pace annually in recent years. Besides building itself, Xueersi also contributes interactive courseware and micro-lessons to public schools in Beijing and other places, promoting dual-teacher teaching and joining curriculum development. In Zhang Bangxin's vision, Huafei is no longer just a training institution but a company using technology to advance education. He hopes that under technological support, Xueersi will become synonymous with "capacity improvement" and, while ensuring the students' mental and physical health, develop capabilities that will last a lifetime. (For the protection of privacy of interviewees, the names Yang Li and Xiao Xiao are pseudonyms)