Japanese company, Toshiba has donated 12 AT300 tablets to the University of Zambia Language Centre in Lusaka.

The company made its donation to encourage the expansion of the centre’s capacity to teach foreign languages to its students. The centre’s main focus is to teach Japanese language which will liaise with Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

“The Toshiba tablets are the first and single most important use of technology for teaching at the Language Centre,” says Dr Sande Ngalande, acting assistant Dean of the university’s School of Humanities and Natural Sciences, and its Department of Literature and Languages.

He added that they are using the tablets as a teaching and learning tool as well as for identifying online resources.

“This has allowed us to use our time more efficiently and, importantly, to attract more young people to our language programme,” he said.

Apart from the local languages in Zambia, The University of Zambia Language Centre teaches Japanese, English, American Sign Language, Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Swahili and Spanish to the university’s students, government and foreign ministry officials who engage with foreign nationals in the course of their working day.

“Our donation of the 12 Toshiba AT300 tablets, facilitated by Hokkaido University and the Japanese Embassy in Lusaka, is part of Toshiba Corporation’s commitment to skills development in Africa,” says Chika Yamada, of the Toshiba Corporation in Johannesburg, who coordinated the donation of the tablets. “We were happy to support the University of Zambia’s language programme, as it will surely foster more positive working relationships by bridging communication gaps through the learning of languages.”

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