Goal One

This is an important and ongoing goal for me as I want to be able to integrate te reo naturally into my classroom and it’s something that I currently find difficult. I am not confident in my pronunciation, am worried about getting it wrong and have a limited vocabulary. I enjoy seeing the way my lecturers and other teachers integrate te reo naturally into their speech and it’s something I want to be able to do. My AT was fantastic at using Māori naturally and the children responded well to it. She has also made an effort to learn sign language (and has been teaching it to her class) and greetings from the languages of some of her students and uses them frequently. Over time, I would also like to become proficient in sign language.

My initial plan for this goal was to come up with a word each day and try to use it within the class. Upon reflection, I don’t think this would have been successful, as it would have been inward focussed, measured only by myself. Being given the platform to present a word of the day to the class by my AT allowed me to share my goal with the class and bring them along with me as I was learning. I think it’s important to show children that people learn throughout their life, which hopefully fosters a desire for them to become lifelong learners, part of the vision in the New Zealand curriculum (Page 8). This also links strongly with the competencies of ako and Manaakitana in Tātaiako (Page 2).

Initially the plan was for me to share and teach my word during the first mat time of the day, which is after free play. I found it challenging to do this on the first few days as it wasn’t top of mind for either teacher so it was easy for them to forget I was going to do this, and I felt uncomfortable interrupting them in front of the class so didn’t draw their attention to it. From my second day I started reading a story to the class after morning break. I decided this would be a good time to present my word and started doing word of the day before reading the story, which worked well.

The biggest challenges I faced with this goal were making sure that I chose appropriate words and used them with the correct pronunciation. Finding excellent resources helped me immensely in this. The Kuwi & Friends Māori Picture Dictionary and the online Māori Dictionary (www.maoridictionary.co.nz) were invaluable, particularly when used together. The picture dictionary provided suggestions of words that related to the classroom and school, so I could use them in context and the online dictionary gave definitions and audio pronunciation which I used to practice with.

I was privileged to be able to take part in a class visit to a local Marae on my first Friday, so I was able to see how the teachers integrated learning about the Marae into their planning. We did a session on writing your pepeha, so that the children could present them in small groups at the Marae. This made me aware of the wide variety of cultural diversity in the classroom and how important it is to be conscious of this when talking about who we are and where we come from, so everyone feels included. I was involved in a discussion about the significance of where you are born vs where you identify with on our Noho Marae and it made me realise how confusing it can be for children to think about their awa and manunga in relation to where they are from and where they now live, as we as adults found it a complex thought process. I understand that there had been some discussion about how to think about this, and most of the children did a simplified pepeha (they were able to take them home overnight for whanau input and some children did their full pepeha).

I attended the syndicate’s regular singing session early in the first week and I was impressed at how many Māori songs the children knew and how good their pronunciation was. The children knew so many songs that the teachers had a quick discussion during the singing session to decide which song they would use when doing the pōwhiri later in the week.

My success, albeit small so far, with this goal has inspired me to focus on speaking (and correctly pronouncing) more te reo in my everyday life and I have started to use Māori words in my home. When I said mōrena to my son one morning, he expressed surprise and said ‘that’s what they say at school’. I want our household to become one that comfortably intermingles English and Māori, so me saying mōrena isn’t surprising, it’s just what happens.