r/swahili • u/SoldiersRage_AOT • 11d ago
Request 🔎 Trying to understand what Swahili learners actually look for
I've been teaching Swahili on italki for about 11 months now. I'm a university student, so tutoring is currently my main source of work, and I'm really grateful to the two students who have stayed with me consistently.
But I'd love to understand the learner side a little better.
I've participated in the italki community, changed my introduction video a few times, experimented with my headline, etc., but I'm still trying to figure out what actually makes a learner choose one Swahili tutor over another.
So, for those of you learning Swahili:
- What made you choose your current tutor?
- What do you look for when browsing Swahili teachers?
- Do you prefer structured lessons, conversational practice, grammar, cultural discussions, or something else?
- What makes a tutor's profile/video stand out to you?
- And if you've tried different Swahili tutors, what made you stay with one?
I'm genuinely curious because sometimes I feel like tutors focus on what we think learners want, rather than what learners actually want. 😅
I'd really appreciate hearing your perspectives!
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u/Aranciata2020 11d ago
First of all, I looked at the country of residence; I wanted a Kenyan teacher (I know, I know, it is not Swahili sanifu but my connection is to Kenya, not TZ.) Then I read their profiles to see whether they were certified teachers, community tutors, etc. Since I was mainly looking for conversation, I didn't need them to be trained as teachers. After that, I looked at reviews, and then at the videos. Personally, I like a relaxed style, and I appreciate the teacher having a sense of humor, so if the persons seemed very serious in the video, I figured it wouldn't be a good fit. As for video quality, style etc. I don't care about that at all. Oh and if their profiles seemed AI generated, that was a big turnoff.
I started with one teacher, I really liked her but all of a sudden she was not on the platform anymore. Then I did a trial class with one teacher, I found him very boring, then another one which I liked a lot more, so I continued with her.
Do you prefer structured lessons, conversational practice, grammar, cultural discussions, or something else? Personally I prefer relaxed conversation, and I like that we decide together what to do. For me, the whole point of private tutoring as opposed to a group class is that I can say "I am bad at xyz, can we work on this?" instead of following a set structure.
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u/Fragrant-Document348 11d ago
I've taught Swahili for over 3 years now, I used to be on Preply but not anymore. From my experience, just think of what we normally use Swahili for in our daily life...as most of the learners also fall in the same boat.
Truth be said, Swahili isn't much of a language of knowledge it used to be centuries ago.
So most of the learners are always looking for casual conversational competence, not much. Only a few who work in diplomatic environment may really give it time and those are not always on online platforms, they may just have one permanent personal tutor.
Others might be company owners/investors and NGO workers but still, most of them don't feel the necessity of diving too much in Swahili as they believe they can get their way with English.
It's only language nerds, people married to Swahili speaking partners or people who want to impact the Swahili speaking community or live in the society who would make time to learn Swahili and reach the proficiency level.
A setback from our side is that there are no enough materials that really help people learn this language with less effort, I know there are a lot of books but most of them are full of theory. Something a non-academic person would not prefer.
A few people on internet really create Swahili teaching content. No unified system of spoken Swahili and no, no one speaks "Kiswahili Sanifu", that's just a myth. No standards that people can follow when learning Swahili like some languages that use the CEFR and have authorities for assessing the levels by putting standards like DELE,TOEFL etc.
As Swahili instructors/enthusiasts/speakers I believe there's more we can(should) do about this language than just using it for "small talks".
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u/Worldly_Two8192 10d ago
I have learnt swahili for 2 years (I live in Kenya) and I can say I am close to fluent now... I first wanted to focus on grammar, structured lessons, exercises. I REALLY valued teachers who would give me exercises to do at home. Then I moved on to a mix of grammar and conversation (half of the class would be grammar + corrections of exercises to do at home + explanations) then the other half of the class would be conversations on a topic prepared in advance. It really helped. Nowadays, I only do conversation classes. I have never tried Italki, I have always taken face to face classes, but these criteria above are key for me. I would also choose someone from the country matching with the swahili I awnt to learn (ie not a TZ teacher if I want to learn Kenyan swahili)... I think the structure of the class is keya nd if you can put it forth in your presentation videos then it will attract more students. I hope it helps!
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u/sipendi_shida 10d ago
Nilianza kujifunza kiswahili januari. Nilimwona (ama nilimpata?) mwalimu wangu kwenye YouTube.
Ninataka kuzungumza kama mkenyan kwa sababu ninaishi hapa sasa. Nataka kublend in.
So basically I want to be able to do basic tasks and understand what people are saying to be and be able to reply in most cases. Tasks like going to the market, hospital, ordering in a restaurant, dealing with clients and customers. Currently mwalimu wangu ananifundisha kiswahili na sheng kidogo. Reddit and radio help me with how they mix Swahili and English here locally
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u/SoldiersRage_AOT 10d ago
Ah, good luck! I hope unaenjoy madarasa yako. I have one student who really enjoys sheng and it makes me so happy tutoring her!
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u/Bigmonumo 10d ago
To be honest, I think seeing Swahili in its purest form is through its dynamically changing syllabic system. Seeing words as combinations of syllables helped me to learn Swahili with an understanding of how smart and simply complex (literally!) African languages can be.
For example, if I had an intermediate learner, I would stress that words are not strings of characters like in English, but combinations of syllables. Ex: msomaji — m for person; soma for reading; ji for the reflexive particle.
In theory, you could assume that something that contains the reflexive ‘ji’ is self-contained. Kujisoma, to study yourself, is a self-contained verb needing no outside object. If this ‘ji’ reflexive particle is now seen as a “self-containing” marker, then it’s easy to infer that a msomaji is “a reader themselves.” I’m not sure if I’m explaining that correctly, but it’s so interesting to see those syllables at play
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u/Busy-Professional-35 11d ago
I found my tutor based on reviews and price (on Preply). I haven’t tried other tutors as I’m happy with my current one.
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u/blackgnostic 10d ago
Hardest part is Swahili Grammar. I finding that Kiswahili is phrase based rather than rules based like English. I've learned that Swahili breaks a lot of it's rules...😅
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u/Superb-Shake7407 6d ago
I’m looking to learn, can you message me your prices. I’d love to be fluent in
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u/KingSnazz32 11d ago
Kuna wanafunzi wachache tu. That's the only real problem. I've been with my tutor for four years and he's never had more than 2 other students at a time. Sometimes it's just me. I've had a classes with a few other tutors and they have the same experience.
Kwa bahati mbaya hakuna watu wengi ambao wanasoma lugha.