The Chinese Whispers™ Project is the Confucius Institute’s award-winning project (HEA– Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence 2016).
OVERVIEW
Background
The Chinese Whispers™ Project began in 2016 through an interdisciplinary collaboration led by
Professor Marina Mozzon-McPherson (Modern Languages) and Dr Simon Desbruslais
(Music). It involved entering a choir of students from the University of Hull –who learned, in
the short timeframe of three months, a programme of new choir music, in Mandarin
Chinese–into the Manchester Chinese Song Competition (April 2016). The project was
supported by the Confucius Institute, who funded a choir director in Beijing to visit students
during rehearsals to teach them to sing in Chinese. Moreover, students were introduced to
aspects of Chinese culture and provided with traditional Chinese outfits for their
performance. The choir was awarded second prize in the competition and broadcast on
Chinese national television and BBC Radio Humberside. The project received recognition
with a Collaborative Award in Teaching Excellence. To continue the momentum of the
Chinese Whispers™ Project, the University of Hull awarded three PhD studentships to
enable research enquiry and development about the project.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Trademark
Tour to TNU
Concert series
Award in teaching
PhD Cluster Award
Outcomes
Singing curriculum
A singing curriculum has been produced Yanyi Lu, an education researcher who has worked with schools for more than eight years and is a native Mandarin speaker. The singing curriculum is written for beginner Mandarin learners, with the music scores, phonetic translation, and learning notes for each of the songs. This is suitable for both children and adults.
Mandarin teaching videos
Teaching videos have been created alongside the singing curriculum. It aids students who wish to acquire some aspects of Chinese culture and Chinese language, with or without the help of the teachers.
