TUZUNGUMZE KISWAHILI

'Tuzungumze Kiswahili' is an interactive televised Kiswahili course which is aired twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:00 am. Each lesson is thirty minutes long. Cultural aspects of the speakers of Kiswahili will be integrated in each lesson. There will be invited guests who are originally from East Africa or have visited East Africa to talk about different aspects of life in the different countries where Kiswahili is spoken, the people, their diverse cultures, the history and geography of the different countries. The guests will enable learners of Kiswahili to hear different people other than the teacher speaking Kiswahili and they will see how speakers of Kiswahili greet each other. Video clips will be used wherever necessary to reinforce certain topics. The countries in focus are Tanzania (Fall 97), Kenya, and Uganda (Spring 98).

Students will be given ample opportunities to practice Kiswahili. During the airing of a lesson, students will be asked to practice with their fellow students and their teachers, and they will be asked to call into the studio by phone and talk with the Kiswahili instructor and invited guests when they are in the studio. The lessons will be divided into units which focus on different aspects of Kiswahili, the people, and the countries where it is spoken. Students will receive a workbook with exercises related to each unit. Classroom teachers, using the provided teachers’ manual will be able to monitor students progress. There will be supplementary exercises relevant to the weekly lessons posted on the world wide web. Students can do these exercises at school or at the public libraries, where Internet connection is available. Students can also practice writing by engaging in impromptu interactions in real time with other students and speakers of Kiswahili by joining the on-line Kiswahili club from the University of Pennsylvania’s language learning resources.

By the end of the first semester students will be exposed to different aspects of Kiswahili culture, and will be able to do the following in Kiswahili: · greet and say good-bye · ask someone’s name · say their names · give a brief introduction about themselves · talk about their families and friends · talk about things they like to do · make requests, ask questions, give information · identify different objects and talk about them · do different interactions like at the market, at the doctor’s, etc.

These language skills will be reinforced in the spring semester, and the students are expected to reach the intermediate low/mid proficiency level following the guidelines set by American Council for Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

For more information on the Kiswahili lessons, please contact

You can also contact the Kiswahili instructor: