UPDATED: This page was first published on 8 August 2020 and has been updated to include some more recently established organisations that offer Ghanaian language classes and resources.
When UK-born husband and wife team Naomi and Ben Fletcher could not find a place to learn their Mother Tongues and teach their children, they decided to create their own.
The Ghanaian Language School (GLS), part of the Neo Native Group, rolls out its interactive online courses from August in Twi, Ga, Fante and Ewe.
GLS was established in 2009, and offers courses (led by native speakers), workshops, clubs and tuition for adults and children.
Sessions include useful phrases to help when travelling in Ghana, dealing with tricky family conversations, ordering a meal and more.
“We offer a professional, well-structured, and fun teaching system that would work for anyone who wanted to learn a Ghanaian language,” Naomi and Ben said. “And it is a safe space for you to make mistakes and learn how to correct them.”
GLS offers evening and weekend courses and private tuition. These courses are offered over 10 weeks at one day a week. Find out more http://theghanaianlanguageschool.com/
Lingua 54 has rolled out Ga to its language portfolio. It already offers Twi and Fante. This company offers small class, allows you to customise your schedule, learn at your own pace and review your progress and rate your class. Visit www.lingua54.com for more.
Learn Ewe is a space for students to learn the language spoken in Ghana an d Togo. The teachers are Seyram Adzanku, Nutifafa Feyi and ChrissJames Zogli. Contact lindaadzanku@gmail.com for more.
Want to brush up your pronunciation? Join Speak Twi share interactive posts in Asante Twi @speaktwi to help you get your tongue those tricky words.
Project 1957 offers in-person conversational sessions in Twi and Ga with informal group sessions that allow you to construct sentences and improve intonation as well as sharpening your listening skills. Find out more @project1957
LEARNAKAN.COM is a community-based e-learning website dedicated to helping you to read, write, and speak Akan, the most-spoken indigenous language in Ghana, West Africa. The site was set up in June 2016 and officially launched on July 17, 2016.
Users can learn with the company’s free lessons, or sign up as a premium member. As a premium member, you enjoy a structured, interactive learning experience with our month-to-month sets of courses.
Each course level features weekly lesson sets made up of videos, texts, quizzes, assignments, audio, downloadable PDFs for offline learning, etc. You achieve points for your efforts, and earn a certificate for each course level you complete to encourage you on.
Twi Learning Center is an online Akan language school, established by Emmanuel Buabeng in June 2020, to teach the Twi and Fante languages.
Lessons are delivered on Zoom with the majority of our students representing Ghanaians in the diaspora, namely from the USA and the UK that want to learn their mother tongue.
Classes start from beginners (level 1), intermediate (level 2) to advanced (level 3), and are delivered through professional tutors in structured and informal lessons using videos and lesson notes. Find out more about them here: https://twilearningcentergh.com/
Study Twi allows you to join our one-to-one interactive lessons with qualified teachers to speak Twi fluently. Students will be speaking, writing and reading Twi in their first lesson. There is the opportunity to explore the language through real-life conversations, practise scenarios; listening activities and videos, learn vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar, pronunciation, intonation. Also get to know the Akan culture with Twi lessons, and also the different dialects.
Resources and books
Asiedu Tech was established in 2016 by founder Kofi Asiedu-Berchie in his quest to provide multilinguals, teachers, lecturers, reporters, product designers, translators, writers, journalists, librarians and educators with a literacy tool.
Out of it, Kofi created a keyboard and software to enable the public to write using African characters.
“The keyboard tool translates in 89 languages from the Niger-Congo language root, and is the first Afrikan keyboard with a dictionary. It actually has two (Akan and English),” said Kofi, who is also a trained systems engineer. Visit the company to learn more. ww.asiedutech.co.uk
Cee Koko is an African language learning platform established in 2020 by founder Christian Kofi Agyapong.
“I created Cee Koko to improve my Twi by producing material to help me learn and become more confident in speaking,” said Christian. “I would like to replicate this with the diaspora and learners all over the world and create a safe space for people to talk and to learn.”
Pookie Dumplings Books was established by author Barbara Serwaa Acheampong in 2020, as a platform to introduce young readers to the Asante Twi language and Ghanaian cultures.
“Our books are designed to help build identity through the sharing of culture,” said Barbara. “Our mission is to help preserve our culture by making it accessible in a beautiful format for future generations.”
Born in Ghana but raised in the UK, Barbara credits her parents for ensuring she and her siblings spoke their Mother Tongue - Asante Twi.
‘123 Counting in Twi’ is a fun introduction to the language and features colourful illustrations along with the words phonetically spelt to aid pronunciation.
‘Days and Names of the Week in Twi’ is an enjoyable and interactive way for children to discover their Twi name.
Find out more about Pookie Dumplings here: https://pookiedumplings.com/ and follow them on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/pookie_dumplings_books/
Sandra Amoako - the founder of Aliko Books. She talks about developing an early learning bilingual book for English speaking children to learn Twi.
She also explains why learning your Mother Tongue is the gateway to culture and being Ghanaian means to her. To learn more about Alikobooks, visit https://alikobooks.com/
The Bureau of Ghana Languages exists to promote and preserve Ghanaian languages through publication and certification. Find out more here: https://www.bgl.gov.gh/
If there are any language schools or resources you think we should include, drop us a line at akadimagazine@gmail.com and we will endeavour to include them.
Our resources
An interview on language endangerment with documentary filmmaker Pamela Sakyi in AKADi Issue 2 here.