When he was not yet twenty years old, Professor Jao taught the Chinese language in Hanshan Normal University as a substitute teacher when he was appointed by Zhan Antai in 1935. Soon afterwards he was employed as an editor on arts and literature at the History Compilation Bureau of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong province, with prominent scholars such as Wen Tingjing, Mao Heting and Xian Yuqing as his colleagues. From 1939 to 1941, Professor Jao was appointed as a research fellow at Sun Yat-sen University. At that time Sun Yat-sen University moved to Yunnan Province in response to the Japanese occupation. On the way to his post, Professor Jao was detained in Hong Kong because of sudden sickness. From 1943 to 1945, Professor Jao was appointed as professor at the Wuxi Sinology Academy in Guangxi; in 1946 as a professor in Guangdong University of Arts and Science; in 1947 as professor and department head in the department of Chinese literature and history, Nanhua University. From 1952 to 1968 Professor Jao taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, serving successively as the lecturer, senior lecturer and professor. The topics of his lectures covered the Shijing, Daoism, Chuci, and early medieval poetry and literary criticism. From 1968 to 1973, Professor Jao was appointed as Chair Professor and Department Head in the Department of Chinese at the National University of Singapore. From 1970 to 1971, he was invited as a visiting professor at Yale University. From 1972 to 1973 he served as a Research Professor in the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. From 1973 to 1978, he went back to the Chinese University of Hong Kong and served as a chair professor and department head. From 1978 to 1979, he was a guest professor in the Department of Religious Sciences at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. Later on, he was appointed as professor in the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, for five months. From 1981 to 1988 he trained students in Chinese traditional culture at the East Asia University, Macao. After that, he taught at the department of Arts, CUHK, and the same time he also continued research at the Institute of Chinese studies, CUHK.

To sum up, Professor Jao had been occupied in teaching for over 70 years and has had students all over the world. He could be fairly called a great master of education and an inspiring model as a teacher.

Since he has lived primarily in Hong Kong and Macao, Professor Jao’s unique influence on the local development of culture and academia is highly noteworthy.