Kia ora koutou, nau mai haere mai ki tēnei kura,

te kura o Hukanui.

Ko Nadine Malcom tōku ingoa.

Nō Kirikiriroa ahau.

I te taha o tōku pāpā ko Te Arawa te waka,

ko Ngāti Tarawhai te iwi.

I te taha o tōku māmā ko Ngāti Awa te iwi,

ko Mataatua te waka.

Kia ora koutou.

I think it’s vitally important that teachers upskill

themselves in te reo and tikanga Māori but also

marry that and use effective

second language acquisition techniques.

You know, you could give teachers lists of vocabs

and sentence structures,

but what are the most effective ways to teach it,

so that embedding happens effectively for the children?

You know posters up on the wall and a couple of songs

although is really great but what are the nitty grittys?

What are the actual nuts and bolts of how you teach,

how that makes it effective for the children?

And I think that's why our programme,

our te reo Māori programme, has worked

because the teachers are getting confident in that

knowledge of te reo and tikanga Māori

but they’ve actually got some practical techniques

on how to deliver it so it’s effective and so the children

are acquiring the language successfully.

We started our te reo Māori programme

nearly two years ago.

We established a working committee of passionate

teachers within the school.

I had heard of Jeanne Gilbert and her work

with the languages and so I contacted her because

I felt there was a gap in the pedagogy aspects of

how we were going to teach te reo Māori.

So there were two things happening:

one we wanted to upskill and build confidence

in the teachers of using te reo and teaching te reo,

but we also needed them to employ effective principles on

actually how to deliver te reo Māori as a second language.

The structures and systems we put in place across

the school I like to think of it - it was really multilayered.

So on the outside we had the go ahead from the board

and the principal supporting the programme and

giving the funding which funded my position to lead.

Then we had myself and Jeanne who worked together and

she acted as sort of mentor/coach

and we’d do some whole school planning.

She then worked with the Māori team,

the group of teachers. So it was like a filter down process.

So we’d work together up here,

then I’d work with the Māori team leaders

and then I would go into each of the classrooms

and we worked in the cycle model.

We’d used this model before with our literacy and writing

development PD across the school.

So we timetabled up slots for me to go into

each classroom for half an hour and model a lesson.

It might be a specific te reo Māori something modelled

or it could have been a second language

acquisition method that I would model.

The second half of the term was devoted to me going back

into those same classrooms and the teachers

would then model back for me, I would observe them

and I would provide written and verbal feedback

and feedforward, and we would go from there.

I think having that trusting relationship with

that person that’s coming in is really, really important

and it’s something that develops along the time

as well to get the buy in of teachers.

For the te reo Māori programme I think you have

to allay fears first of all. That it is okay to start

no matter what level you’re at. It’s absolutely okay to start

if you are at the level of the child,

and make that explicit to the child, to the class.

I knew that I was going to be on a big learning continuum.

It wasn’t one of my strengths and I knew that

it wasn’t one of my strengths but then I knew

that we were all in the same position.

For us as teachers there was a continuum of people like me

who were learning and people who had more skills.

So I think that was really positive for me to think

well I don’t know all the answers but I can find out,

and I’m going to be learning with the children,

and I might make some mistakes along the way

but hey that’s what learners do.

Key shifts I’ve seen in classroom practices

probably would be the formulaic language

that the teacher is using, that’s the everyday

instructional language. That has increased hugely.

They’ll have prompts on their whiteboards

around the rooms for them to always remind them to

as much as they can use the instructions in te reo Māori.

Also in our planning we have changed the way

we planned for te reo Māori.

Planning is more purposeful

and the expectations are that every class at Hukanui

is teaching te reo Māori. So planning has changed as well.