Xueersi Online School, a provider of after-school tutoring, launched free Chinese language courses on Ximalaya FM, an online audio content platform, on Thursday to help more primary and secondary students learn Chinese poems and stories.

The courses include bedtime stories, poem appreciation and songs with poetic lyrics.

Li Lin, head of the project, said tutorial courses usually cost lots of money, and the free audio courses will enable more students from less wealthy families to improve their Chinese language skills.

Xie Wenfeng, the mother of a fifth-grade student in Shanghai, said the poem appreciation component of the courses will be particularly useful because she often struggles to explain the meaning of a poem to her son.

She said the courses will also help “when I am plagued with bedtime story stage fright and simply can’t think of any stories to tell”.