Curriculum Guidelines for Teaching and Learning Te Reo Māori in English-medium Schools: Years 1–13

June 2, 2023

Curriculum Guidelines for Teaching and Learning Te Reo Māori in English-medium Schools: Years 1–13

Pg 6

Te reo Māori is taught to a highly diverse group of students, in many different contexts, and by teachers with a wide range of language and teaching backgrounds.

It is essential that teaching and learning focuses on enabling students to achieve worthwhile outcomes, and so the guidelines describe achievement objectives for student learning at each level.

Teachers are encouraged to take an inquiry approach to teaching and learning in their
reo Māori programmes

Ngā rauemi tautoko Support materials

www.tki.org.nz/r/digistore

Te Whakaipurangi Rauemi is a collection of teacher resources that are available on the website Te Kete Ipurangi (at www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/teacher_resources/index_e.php).

Te Reo Māori Lesson Plans (available at www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/lesson_plans/index_e.php)

Ka Mau te Wehi! (Ministry of Education, 2007) is a multimedia resource package that links to levels 1 and 2 of these curriculum guidelines. It is designed to be used by teachers of years 7 and 8 who do not speak te reo Māori and are unfamiliar with the pedagogy for teaching additional languages but would like to learn along with their students. www.tki.org.nz/r/language/lls/wehi/index_e.php

Ngā reo ā-iwi Regional dialects

pg 7

There are minor variations in the reo used by different rohe. The greatest variations are in pronunciation and vocabulary; variations in grammar are relatively minor. These variations are partly due to the different village or island origins of the original settlers, but some of them may have arisen because of the relative isolation of local populations after they settled in Aotearoa. These language variations are not usually significant enough to interfere with communication. This means that teachers can feel confident
that the dialect with which they are familiar will provide their students with a solid foundation for learning te reo Māori.

However, there are good reasons for teachers to learn about the dialect that is most used in the local community. By highlighting some of the language variations in class, teachers can increase their students’ language awareness. They can also support those students who are learning a dialect at school that differs from the one they use in their home. As they learn about local variations, teachers increase their own knowledge and expertise and so can engage in more meaningful ways with their Māori students’ whānau and communities. [Alison’s note – WTF?! the regional dialects are part of the foundational identity for many, so while shouldn’t be a reason to resist learning as much te reo Māori as possible, should also be included in learning where possible].

Te tūranga motuhake o te reo Māori The importance of learning te reo Māori

Pg 12

By learning te reo Māori, students are able to:

participate with understanding and confidence in situations where te reo and
tikanga Māori predominate and to integrate language and cultural understandings
into their lives;
strengthen Aotearoa New Zealand’s identity in the world;
broaden their entrepreneurial and employment options to include work in an ever increasing
range of social, legal, educational, business, and professional settings.

Ngā hua o te ako i te reo Māori
The benefi ts of learning te reo Māori

Ahurea
Cultural
Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are intertwined, and so learning te reo Māori gives
students access to te ao Māori (the Māori world) and to Māori world views.

Pāpori
Social
Learning te reo Māori gives students other ways to express themselves. It deepens
their understanding of human experience as they learn about the impact of culture
on people’s values, beliefs, and ways of thinking. They learn the skills to interact
appropriately with others and to avoid situations where there is the potential for
misunderstanding.

pg 14

Whaiwhakaaro
Cognitive
Learning te reo Māori helps students to grow as learners. They discover more ways
of learning, more ways of knowing, and more about their own capabilities. They may
become more refl ective as they compare what they know of their fi rst language with
what they are learning in te reo Māori. They ask questions and challenge themselves.
They learn how to learn.
Studies show that students who speak more than one language perform, in a
number of ways, at higher levels than those who speak only one.

Te reo me ōna tikanga
Linguistic

In many parts of the world, people grow up using at least two languages from an
early age. This gives them an awareness of language and how it works that improves
their understanding of their first language and their ability to use it. Learning a new
language also helps them develop skills, attitudes, and understandings that they can
transfer to learning other languages. For these reasons, learning te reo Māori is
recommended not only for students who have particular strengths in language learning
but also for those who find learning languages challenging.

pg 17

Ngā ākonga o te reo Māori The learners of te reo Māori

Effective teachers make no assumptions and gather information about each student’s personal background, prior knowledge, and willingness to take a leading role.

Many teachers will themselves be learners of te reo Māori. By sharing this with their students, they model the New Zealand Curriculum vision of lifelong learning and emphasise the value that is placed on te reo Māori. They also reinforce to their students the concept of ako – the idea that they are part of a community of learners in which each person has something to contribute.

Te ako i te reo Māori Teaching and learning te reo Māori

Ngā āhuatanga whai hua o te ako
Characteristics of effective teaching and learning

pg 19

Effective teachers focus on raising their students’ achievement. They have high yet realistic expectations for their students that are based on a deep understanding of the attitudes, talents, and prior knowledge and experience that each student brings to their learning.

Effective teachers of te reo Māori actively build strong relationships with students’ whānau and communities. They manage the classroom environment well and develop relevant and carefully sequenced learning tasks that provide multiple opportunities for learning and enable students to make links between their new learning of te reo Māori and their prior knowledge and experiences.

Ineffective learning programmes, many of the tasks are social. Students have opportunities to work in small groups as they practise and experiment with new and learned language in both authentic and role-playing contexts.

Teachers scaffold classroom interactions to ensure that these are focused on the learning that students
need in order to negotiate meanings and work towards shared learning goals. They help students to gain the skills they need to engage in learning conversations. Ineffective learning conversations, each person feels safe to explore and construct new ideas, and the participants challenge and support each other as appropriate.

Effective teachers prompt and question students in ways that encourage them to reflect actively on their own thinking and learning processes. At the same time, the teachers reflect on their own practice, seeking evidence about the impact of their teaching and adjusting their practice accordingly.

He tukanga akoranga pakirehua A suggested teaching as inquiry cycle

pg 20

Focusing Inquiry: Curriculum choices
Ask:

What do I know about each student’s prior knowledge, goals and aspirations,
and language learning strengths and needs?
What is important and worth spending time on, given where my students are at?

pg 21

Teaching Inquiry: Pedagogy choices
Ask:

How can I teach my next te reo Māori lesson most effectively?
What language learning tasks and approaches are most likely to help my
students progress?
Am I ensuring a cultural context for my class?

Is there something I need to change about how I teach this?
Ask:

How can I teach more effectively?
How can I maintain a communicative approach?
How can I incorporate tikanga into my teaching?
How can I involve whānau with my teaching?

What are the next steps for my students’ learning?
Ask:

What language needs to be reinforced or introduced next?
What different contexts might my students need to use this language in?

Pg 21

Ngā tino māramatanga whai hua mō te ako i te reo Key understandings about effective language learning

New Zealand teachers of languages need to know, in particular, about the work of Rod Ellis and about the concept of intercultural communicative language teaching.
Ellis (2003) recommends task-based language learning. He describes an effective language learning task as one that:

requires the students to focus primarily on meaning;
has some kind of gap that the students can close by communicating;
requires the students to construct their own productive language (language output) rather than only to manipulate language that the teacher provides (language input);
has a clearly defined outcome (other than producing “correct” language). Language teachers can construct tasks that reflect real-life communication as closely as possible and that establish a genuine need for communication. For example, teachers can ask their students to seek or provide the information needed to complete a task successfully. If an activity involves a student asking to be told something that they already know, the activity is not a communicative one – and the students are not likely to find it rewarding.

pg 22

Intercultural communicative language teaching and learning (iCLT):

integrates language and culture from the beginning;
engages learners in genuine social interaction;
encourages and develops an exploratory and reflective approach to culture and culture-in-language;
fosters explicit comparisons and connections between languages and cultures;
acknowledges and responds appropriately to diverse learners and learning contexts;
emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than native-speaker competence.
Newton et al. (2009, in development), page 59

Students are more likely to succeed in learning te reo Māori when their teachers:

combine learning about te reo Māori with learning about tikanga Māori;
take a communicative approach to teaching and learning;
embed teaching and learning about language forms, including grammar and vocabulary, within that communicative approach.

Te reo Māori me ngā tikanga Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori

pg 23

Effective teachers of te reo Māori take cultural considerations into account throughout their programmes so that their students are always aware that te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are inseparable.

the language to discuss aspects of Māori culture and to relate these to the cultural views embedded in other languages, including English. They become increasingly aware that speakers of the same language do not necessarily share an identical set of cultural beliefs and practices. Students learn that there are linguistic and cultural differences between groups (iwi and hapū) in different regions of New Zealand (for
example, differences in kawa – local protocols or tikanga), as well as some very important similarities. The language and culture are not simple or one-dimensional; they are rich, complex, and varied.

pg 23

He akoranga whakawhiti reo | A communicative way of language teaching

Successful communication in a new language involves more than knowing and using correct grammar and vocabulary. It requires learners of a language to develop sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and discourse competence in that language.

Sociolinguistic competence means the ability to produce the language that is appropriate in various social and cultural contexts and in interacting with different kinds of people.
Strategic competence means the ability to sustain conversation, negotiate meaning, and repair breakdowns in communication.
Discourse competence means the ability to produce a variety of coherent spoken, written, and visual texts that are characteristic of the language.

pg 25

Research has shown that language learners benefit when their attention is drawn to the forms of words, grammatical structures, and texts incidentally, in the context of real messages with meaningful content. Teaching grammatical rules explicitly and expecting students to memorise them is less effective. An important part of a language teacher’s repertoire is knowing how to teach language forms in meaningful
and effective ways.

Learning vocabulary is an essential part of learning a new language. Where vocabulary is introduced and practised in communicative contexts (rather than in lists), students are likely to see the relevance of learning words and phrases and to be sufficiently interested and motivated to remember them.

pg 26

Te aromatawai | Assessment

Effective teachers share the intended learning outcomes with their students and work with them to develop success criteria that they return to throughout the related learning. When students clearly
understand what they are expected to learn and what the learning will look like, they
can help to monitor their own progress and take advantage of feedback.

Teachers need to build into their reo Māori programmes time and processes for analysing and interpreting assessment information and considering its implications. Students also need planned opportunities to reflect on what assessment information tells them about their progress and what it might mean for their next learning steps.

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Ngā āhuatanga o te whakarite hōtaka Aspects of planning

Ako The concept of ako

In te ao Māori, the concept of ako means both to teach and to learn. It recognises the knowledge that both teachers and learners bring to learning interactions, and it acknowledges the way that new knowledge and understandings can grow out of shared learning experiences. This powerful concept has been supported by educational research showing that when teachers facilitate reciprocal teaching and learning roles in their classrooms, students’ achievement improves (Alton-Lee, 2003).

Te whakamahi i te reo Māori i roto i ngā mahi whakaako | Using te reo Māori in teaching

Students make rapid progress in te reo Māori when they are immersed in a language rich environment, and so teachers are encouraged to use te reo Māori as the language of classroom instruction. This reinforces the communicative purpose of language and provides multiple opportunities for students to learn pronunciation and basic sentence patterns. Students will soon understand the essence of new language even if they don’t understand each of the words or structures within it. There is no need to provide an English translation for each instruction given in te reo Māori.

Teachers will keep to a fairly limited repertoire with beginner learners. Simple expressions such as the following can be used throughout the school day: Āe (Yes); Kāore (No); Kia pēnei (Like this); Kaua e pēnā (Not like that); Kei te pai (Good); Tino pai (Very good); Ka pai tō mahi (Good work); Kia kaha (Try hard); Kua mutu? (Finished?).

Teachers are encouraged to use the appropriate expressions in the local dialect. As students’ competence increases, teachers can adjust the complexity of the language they use, seeking as many opportunities as possible to reinforce new language within genuine communicative interactions.

pg 31

Te whakarite hōtaka reo | Programme planning

By keeping careful records of each student’s learning journey,
teachers can ensure that new learning experiences build on (but do not simply repeat)
previous experiences.

Planning always begins with teachers fi nding
out about their students – who they are, what their learning needs and interests are,
what they have already learned, and what they need to learn next (see page 17). They
select the achievement objectives, at the appropriate level(s), that relate most closely
to their students’ learning needs, and they write learning outcomes, which state clearly
how the students will demonstrate that they have met each achievement objective or a
relevant part of it. They share these outcomes with the students and work with them
to construct success criteria (see pages 37 and 68). They plan sequences of learning
tasks and opportunities that will enable their students to achieve those outcomes,
and they monitor what happens and make any changes that are needed to improve
the teaching and learning. (Information about how to derive learning outcomes from
curriculum achievement objectives is available on TKI at www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_
mainstream/teacher_resources/index_e.php)

It is important not to introduce too much language too quickly or to attempt to cover
every aspect of te reo Māori in school programmes. Overwhelming students with a lot
of unfamiliar language denies them a genuine opportunity to learn the new material
and could undermine their confidence and motivation.

Te anga o Te Aho Arataki Marau mō te Ako i Te Reo Māori |
The structure of Curriculum Guidelines for Teaching and Learning Te Reo Māori

The age at which students begin learning te reo Māori will be one factor in determining what level or levels a class might work within during the course of one year.

Language learning is a recursive process. As students progress, they need to revisit
and build on their learning from previous levels so that they can reinforce important
skills and concepts. For this reason, students should be given opportunities to revisit
each achievement objective from time to time as they progress through the curriculum
levels. On each occasion, they can learn new ways of achieving that objective.

The achievement objectives need not be introduced in the order they are listed,
nor need they be introduced separately. There may, for example, be advantages
in combining aspects of more than one achievement objective at a particular level
in a single lesson.

pg 39

He arotahinga reo
Possible language focus and vocabulary

Students learn new language most effectively within purposeful contexts, and so
these curriculum guidelines do not provide suggestions for language structures and
vocabulary. Students’ knowledge of language structures and vocabulary will develop
as they discover the need for new language knowledge in new situations.