FACULTY
The Swahili program at
Makana.
| Merchades "Method" Rutechura
Merchades "Method" Rutechura earned his Master of Arts degree from the Department of African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has a B.A. with Education (Hons) degree (Kiswahili and English) from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Prior to coming to the U.S.A. in August 2006, Method spent three years of teaching Swahili and English in some secondary schools and colleges in Tanzania. After his undergraduate studies (June 2006), he was awarded a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant scholarship of which he taught Swahili and Tanzanian culture at the School of International Training, in Brattleboro, Vermont, for a semester, (i.e. August-December 2007), then he was transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to teach and supervise Swahili language tables. During his graduate studies, Method worked as a Project Assistant at the National African Language Resource Center (NALRC) where he worked as a lexicographer for English - Swahili pocket dictionary and also worked as a Teaching Assistant in the department of African Languages and Literature, teaching Introduction to African Languages and Literature. Also, Method taught Swahili on one-on-one basis to students and Madison community members who were planning to go to East Africa as summer study exchange program students or as volunteers. His academic research interests include: African oral traditions, especially African praise poetry, proverbs and vilifications; language and politics, challenges and applications of translation, bongo flava, teaching Swahili as a foreign language as well as writing and critiquing autobiographical writings.
Selina Shieunda Makana has a Bachelor of Education (Arts) degree; majoring in English and Literature from Kenyatta University, Nairobi Kenya. She has worked as a secondary school teacher in the English and Literature department for five years and also as a language instructor in several language centers in Nairobi. Apart from teaching languages in Kenya, Selina worked closely with various international non-governmental organizations that deal with education and social work. She also worked as a Trainer of Trainees (TOTs), facilitating seminars on education and teaching methodologies in schools around Kenya. Currently, Selina is a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant teaching Swahili and Kenyan culture in the department of African and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures at Stanford University.
The following have made immense contributions
to the development of the Swahili Program at Stanford University
in the past. Many continue to work in collaboration with the current
team:
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