Ugandan student tops 3rd Chinese language competition

LANGUAGE  LIFESTYLE 

The Chinese Bridge Chinese proficiency competition for foreign secondary school students finally came to an end on June 29 at Makerere University's School of Food Science and Technology.

In Uganda, this was the 3rd time this competition has been organized but internationally it is the 12th year.

Aminat Shammah from Spring of Hope Education Academy won this year's competition. For the past two years, however, the competition has been dominantly won by Luyanzi College School, Bweyogerere because it has for a long time been the only school teaching Chinese language in Uganda.

It was upon this dominance therefore and need to spread the language wider that the Confucius Insititute at Makerere University together with National Curriculum Development Center decided to introduce the language to several other secondary schools. Today, the Chinese language is taught in 30 secondary schools.

At the event on Saturday, the Co-director of Confucius Institute, Xia Zhuoqiong who represented the Director Prof. Oswald Ndolerire, thanked all the schools that participated in the competition for taking part. She also thanked the teachers for bringing their students this far especially since it was the first time to teach Chinese in most of the schools.

"I would also want to urge all the schools to encourage your students to take part in Urban TV's Let's Learn Chinese program and New Vision's My China Story essay competition to stand a chance of winning a trip to China," Zhuoqiong said.

Aminat flanked by some of her family members and officials from Confucius Institute

The Chief Guest of the event, Chen Huixin who is the Director in Charge of Affairs at the Chinese Embassy in Uganda congratulated all the participating schools regardless of whether they were winners or not. He urged them to continue spreading language because the language is as easy as learning the English language.

"I assure you that with your proficiency in Chinese, there are a lot of opportunities available both here and in China. Therefore, I urge you to continue with the language even after this competition," said Huixin

The grand finale

In the grand finale, 11 schools took part and each school had to present their best students. The competition was subdivided into three rounds where each student had to present their knowledge about China and the Chinese language before the panel of eight judges.

The competition started six months ago and for this period, the students have been undergoing intense training from their tutors.

The participating schools included Ntare School, Kiruhura Girls Secondary School, Kawempe Muslim Secondary school, Ndejje Senior secondary school, St. Catherine Secondary School and Spring of Hope Education Academy

Round one was about the presentation of a short essay about China in Chinese. In this round, each student had about five minutes to proficiently speak about China in the Chinese language. At the end of each presentation, each student was asked a random question to test their knowledge of the language.

Round two was a question and answer session. In this quiz session, each randomly selected three questions from a box and the judges fired them questions about China's geography, history and the language.

In the 3rd and final round, the participants delivered a performance about China's culture. They performed in music, drama, art and Chinese Kung-Fu.

After the three rounds, the judges then went for a 15 minutes break to decide who the winners were. During the recess, the Director of the National Curriculum Development Center, Grace Baguma, took the opportunity to thank parents for supporting their students in learning the Chinese language.

She also thanked the government through the  Ministry of Education and Sports for enabling the curriculum center to spread the language among 30 schools.

"The Chinese people are doing a lot in Uganda in terms of business, science, and technology among others. It is therefore important to teach their language so that we are able to work with them better," Baguma said

First runner up, David Aturinda (middle) holding his dummy air ticket with Grace Baguma (left) and Xia Zguoqiong

The winners

When the judges returned, they went straight into announcing the winners of the competition. First, the tutors of the participants who came from the various schools were awarded certificates for their dedicated work.

After the tutors, it was time to announce the winners of the competition. In the third position was Kelvin Agaba from Ntare School. He won himself a certificate of participation and a gift hamper. The 1st Runners up was David Aturinda who also represented Ntare School.

Aturinda won himself a trip to China for a tour and to witness the International Chinese language competition.

The overall winner of the competition was then announced in the name of Aminat Shammah Favour from Spring of Hope Education Academy. She won a trip to China and she will be representing Uganda in the International Chinese Bridge Chinese Proficiency competition later this year.

With excitement, Shammah revealed how happy she was to have won the competition. She, however, said that in the beginning, she wasn't interested in the language until when she started learning.