Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori: year-long programmes get top-ups for special week
One lucky Golden Bay High School student won a prize of a canteen voucher this week for knowing the Maori word for cellphone.
The prize draw, which was conducted by principal Roger File through the daily notices, was just one way that the Bay’s schools recognised Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori, or Māori Language Week.
Some of our schools reported that Te Reo Māori was woven into their curriculum all year round, so special efforts to recognise Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori had not been high on their agenda.
At Collingwood Area School, staff and students are encouraged to use a range of Maori phrases like welcomes, farewells and instructions.Year 7 and 8 students are into their second week of Maori language classes with Gussi Littlejohn. The classes will continue until the end of the year.
At Takaka Primary School, the teacher with special responsibility for Māori across the curriculum is Marlene Alach. She described a number of Māori-themed resources that are available to all teachers. The resources were prepared after Mrs Alach attended a course run by Sue Pryde, the region’s resource teacher of Māori. Mrs Alach also teaches a group of students from years 3 to 6 every Friday, using a Ministry of Education resource called Ka Mau Te Wehi (whcih translates as “awesome”).
“All-year-long programmes are much more useful than just spending some time honouring Te Reo in one week of the year,” said Mrs Alach. “But, like so many other things, it all depends on the teacher.”
Motupipi School held some one-off activities to mark Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori, supporting the ways Te Reo is regularly interwoven with teaching programmes.
“For example, my year 2 kids can all count to 100 in Maori and they are doing really well on their pronunciation, especially of place names in the Bay,” said teacher Helen Young. “But because it’s Māori Language Week there have been some shared activities, and at assembly on Wednesday the whole school performed the waiata Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi. Hearing Maori greetings is becoming totally natural – our kids hear it all the time in the media.”
And what is the Māori word for cell phone? Waea pūkoro.
Neil Wilson
