Goitseone Ishmael, 33, a Chinese language assistant teacher at Legae English Medium School in Gaborone, Botswana, teaches around 350 Standard 3-6 students consisting of 14 classes per week. Goitseone encourages her countryfolk to consider a career in the Chinese language.
Excitement and joy could be heard as students at Legae English Medium School in Gaborone, Botswana, greeted their teacher Goitseone Ishmael with the Chinese phrase “ni hao,” which literally translates to “hello” in English, before she began her Chinese language lesson.
“Today we are going to begin our class by watching a Chinese movie,” she says, and the students jump up and down with joy.
Some of the students ask if it’s about the well-known actor Jackie Chan. Finally, she manages to get them to settle down. Ishmael, also known as Liu Weiwei in Chinese, started her job as a Chinese assistant teacher at Legae English Medium School in 2022. Now she teaches around 350 Standard 3-6 students consisting of 14 classes per week. After graduating from university with an associate’s degree in business information systems, Ishmael was encouraged by her sister to enrol in the Confucius Institute at the University of Botswana (CIUB) in 2017.
“While I was studying at CIUB, I developed a strong interest in the Chinese language, culture and lifestyle, especially in August 2018 whenI set foot in China for the first time through the Summer Camp with CIUB,” she told Xinhua during an interview.
Ishmael went to study at Shanghai Normal University in China in 2019. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, she couldn’t go back to China to finish the last semester and ended up finishing it online and graduating while in Botswana. As a Chinese assistant teacher, Ishmael mainly teaches students Chinese songs and how to make paper cutting or lanterns. She also assists Zhang Lu, the only Chinese teacher from the CIUB, in teaching general Chinese.
“Teaching a language is really interesting, and kids are always interested in learning more, especially about the Chinese culture and food. They ask a lot of questions during my lesson like what the things they like are called in Chinese,” she said, adding that most of the students want to visit China now since she started teaching them.
According to Ishmael, Batswana can benefit a lot from learning the Chinese language. She said everything in China is convenient, including the transport system and payment processing systems, so Batswana can learn and see how they can improve services here. Because there’s a demand for English teachers in China, Batswana can also go over teach English. As such, 33-year-old Goitseone encouraged people to consider a career in the Chinese language.
“It is not only for communication, it will also open other opportunities for them. There are various types of jobs that people can do after learning Chinese like working as a Chinese language teacher, a translator or interpreter,” she said.
Basel Ncaagae, the head of Legae English Medium School, said the school introduced Chinese full-time in 2018 after the management expressed a desire to move away from the Chinese club, given that the club was not reaching many students. The school implemented Chinese as a full-time language study programme dubbed Confucius Classes because a huge number of students expressed an interest in learning Chinese. The programme teaches Chinese greetings, how to count in Chinese, how to introduce themselves, their age, the weather and time. The kids also participate in the Primary School Chinese Bridge where the winner gets an opportunity to travel to China and represent the school. On top of that, there are also Chinese-related competitions such as Talent Show that students can also take part in.
For the complete article: http://www.news.cn/english/20220319/d96665b2759f418580064bb1dc292e70/c.html
Published on March 19, 2022
Photos by Tshekiso Tebalo/Xinhua
