Diversified methods

In addition to establishing 29 Confucius Institutes and classrooms in 22 African countries, the Chinese language and culture provider has also diversified its teaching methods in South Africa.

Wang Yuchen, director of the Confucius Institute at Tshwane University of Technology, said that supported by Hanban, the Confucius Institute at the university has partnered with the Southern African-China Science, Engineering & Technology and Education Association to launch a half-hour daily on-air Chinese classroom in West Pretoria in 2012.

This radio program covers Chinese language, cultural trends, history, customs, calligraphy, dialects, Chinese tea drinking habits, ancient stories and the annual Hanyuqiao competition, a project promoting Chinese language and culture overseas. The program includes information on scholarships the Chinese government is offering to South African students this year.

"More than 530 students and local residents have registered with this on-air classroom. We are also working with other South Africa-based Confucius Institutes to attract more students to participate in this program via multimedia platforms," Wang said.

"One sign of this trend is that more Chinese companies, such as Lenovo, Huawei Technologies and StarTimes, are determined to further engage with all sorts of business opportunities in South Africa. People here have realized that they cannot communicate with Chinese directly. Thus the demand for learning Chinese has remained high."

Wang said if graduates can speak fluent Chinese they have more chance of finding decent jobs in South Africa's service and tourism sectors, because 100,000 Chinese tourists chose South Africa as their travel destination in 2012, according to the Department of African Affairs at China's Foreign Ministry.