For the love of the language

Many of Zhang's students have already graduated from college and are teaching Chinese in local schools, while others have come to China for higher education.

Zhang says that teaching Chinese in Africa has been a tough experience. Her tryst with the continent began in 2007 when she was selected by her alma mater - Zhejiang Normal University - to be the Chinese director of the first Confucius Institute in Cameroon.

"We had to live in dirty houses covered with iron sheets, old beds and broken mattresses. There were also frequent power outages," Zhang says, adding that it was tough to stay calm and composed. "Though I was mentally prepared for the ordeal, I was almost ready to gave up after the first day," she says.

"Being an optimist by nature helped and soon I was able to adjust to the surroundings and live with the difficulties," she says.

Zhang had only one colleague and between them they were responsible for almost everything in the early days. "Besides preparing the instruction materials and syllabus, we also had to pass out flyers detailing the activities at the center, introduce ourselves to as many people on the street as possible and also make local friends.

She, however, says that the biggest challenge was on how to make the difficult Chinese language lessons interesting for African students.

"We realized that teaching vocabulary and grammar alone would not be enough to attract students," she says.