With a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Tao is a lecturer at the School of International Chinese Studies of ECNU, a master supervisor in TCSOL, a lifetime member of China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese, and a member of International Society for Chinese Language Teaching. She is mainly engaged in theoretical and practical research on TCFL, second language teacher education research, post-methods theory and IB Chinese language teaching research, and comparative study of English and Chinese languages and cultures. She studied and worked in the US, South Korea and Australia, and currently offers courses such as Introduction to International Teaching of Chinese Language, Comparison between Chinese and English Languages, and Introduction to Chinese Civilization (all English) for undergraduate and graduate students. She has independently led or participated in five university-level teaching research projects and one National Social Science Fund project. She has delivered more than twenty papers in public academic journals including core journals, one academic monograph and one professional translation, as well as multiple co-authored and co-edited textbooks.