This project involved 11 secondary students learning Mandarin Chinese in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. The goals were to increase interest in Mandarin, improve memorization skills, and encourage speaking practice. The teacher, Zoe Tian, created a Chinese rap song with difficult sentence patterns and vocabulary to help students memorize the material. Students enjoyed performing the rap and helping each other practice. According to feedback, the rap approach made learning more fun and effective compared to traditional methods. The teacher was pleased with how engaged and supportive the students were during rehearsals and performances.

1. My Chinese Rap
Zaohui (Zoe) Tian
North Lanarkshire
Aims and Objectives
• Increase students’ interest in Mandarin.
• Improve memorisation skills
• Encourage students to practise and improve
their speaking skills in a fun way
Language: Mandarin
Target Pupil Group
• Secondary students
Number of pupils involved
• Four S3 and seven S6 learners who had to
chosen to study Mandarin
Start and Finish
September 2015 – April 2016

2. Relevance to CfE capacities
Successful Learners, who can reflect on how they have
acquired and learned their first language and how this can assist
them in further language learning
Confident Individuals who, through experiencing success
and support, can interact with others in real-life situations, talk
about topics of personal interest and deliver presentations in
their new language
Effective Contributors who can work in individual, paired
and group situations, and establish and maintain contact with
other speakers of the target language.
Responsible Citizens who have a growing awareness of life
in another society and of the issues facing citizens in the
countries where their new language is spoken.
This project helped students to become:

3. Quotes from
learners/teachers
• Perfect activity for memorizing difficult sentences, Pupils can still remember questions
and answers after a long period at time, which indicates that it has become the long-
term memory. Teacher
• I feel the way Zoe has taught us was better because if we can hear it in a song it would
be easier to learn and catch on. Learner 1
• Zoe has introduced me to a new way of learning. I have enjoyed myself very much,
instead of learning words and phrases, we learned a few songs to help us remember
our words. This is a fun method and it was helped me to remember my Mandarin. I have
thoroughly enjoyed myself. We have also taken part in games which have been fun. I
think this is a better way to learn. Learner 2
• Zoe is constantly teaching us new and exciting methods of learning, this includes fun
and cheerful games which cover speaking, writing and listening. These activities are a
far better way of learning and enjoying Mandarin. Learner 3
• Zoe introduced us to a new way of remembering Chinese words which is both effective
and fun to do. Learner 4
3

4. My thoughts
• In order to make my class more active and get students more
interested in Mandarin, especially to help them memorise difficult
sentence patterns with tricky pronunciation. I chose a Rap song which
has a strong rhythm, then I put those Mandarin sentences into the
Rap, to create My Chinese Rap.
• The students showed a great interest in performing the Rap Mandarin,
and they helped each other during rehearsals for the performance,
and I am so pleased to see that.
• After doing the Mandarin Rap, the students always ask me when shall
we do it again, they enjoyed it so much, and they still remember those
difficult sentences.
• For the future Chinese language assistant, I would like to say that just
inspire your creative mind and make more interesting activities to help
your teaching, you will surprise yourself.
4

5. S3 pupils performing their Chinese Raps
‘what color do you like?’ ‘how do you go to school?’
www.britishcouncil.org 5