Mwalimu Tina

Wow! I can already see my Swahili skills improving. There is lots of work to do, but it’s been inspiring to see the true depth of knowledge that Mwalimu Tina has to share. Thanks so much for another amazing lesson! :)

I love learning with Mwalimu Tina because our learning together is engaging & relevant for how natives speak colloquial Kiswahili. She’s helped me learn the language in context by using fun stories! When Tina sees a concept that I need more reinforcement with such as prepositional phrases or negating, she’ll assign exercises that target those skills directly. Tina adapts her instruction effortlessly during the lesson by slowing down, jumping ahead, or referencing previous examples as needed. She makes a plan with her learners of how they’d like to approach their language journey & helped me find other tools to practice my Kiswahili. She’s also checked in between our lessons & invited me to try fun little challenges such as recording myself in Kiswahili on various topics! Tina is incredibly kind & she relates to how I’ve felt being surrounded at home by an unfamiliar language— all this is why mpenzi wangu (my Tanzanian partner) & I both think Tina is the best Kiswahili teacher for me!🇹🇿💛

Mwalimu Tina is the best Swahili teacher on italki, and I’ve worked with multiple teachers just to confirm. The major difference is that she has learned Kiswahili as an adult!Most others instructors that learned as children cannot relate to being an adult learner. She uses lots of different learning aids to teach with. Other people are just trying to have a conversation with you, or worse, asking you to lead the sessions… That’s what the teacher is for! They aren’t proactively providing teaching plans customized to your level like she is. Mwalimu Tina gives textbooks, reading assignments, recordings for pronunciation practice and even chats in between sessions to help make sure you have all parts of the language learning toolkit at your disposal. The materials really aid study and enable the student to be self empowered between sessions. That really gives you a sense of control as a student so you can feel like you’re actually making progress and not just randomly chatting.

Great class as always! I highly recommend Mwalimu Tina. Each lesson has had an organized structure and has helped my Swahili. I have really enjoyed the curriculum!

We all lead busy, hectic and at times shallow lives. But what better way to live rather than exist than to practise 30 minutes a day to becoming fluent in a foreign language. I choose Swahili mainly because my wife works for Kenya Airways and hope to spend some downtime in Kenya. I choose Mwalimu Tina because as well as being a fluent Swahili speaker she is a native English speaker. She is able to explain the nuances and complexities even to a blockhead like me. Of course there are times when I am tired and wish the lesson would be delayed but as soon as the lesson starts her knowledge, humour and enthusiasm motivates me to study harder. I highly recommend Mwalimu Tina to others.

Another productive class! Tina pointed out some uncommon sentence structures I was using and gave me resources to practice what is actually used in day to day Swahili. Even if the classes are booked, I highly recommend sending a message to Tina to check session availability. Her instruction is a can't miss Swahili resource.