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Te Reo Māori in the New Zealand Curriculum: Draft

Introduction

The New Zealand Curriculum: Draft for Consultation 2006 sets out eight learning areas that describe, in broad terms, the knowledge and understanding all students in English-medium schools need to acquire. The following extract from the learning area Learning Languages emphasises the importance that is attached to te reo Māori:

Te reo Māori is unique to New Zealand and is a source of our nation’s self-knowledge and identity.

The New Zealand Curriculum: Draft for Consultation 2006, page 18

As well as being the language of instruction in Māori-medium settings, te reo Māori is included within the learning area Learning Languages. Learning te reo Māori can make a valuable contribution to the education of young New Zealanders. The publication of Te Reo Māori in the New Zealand Curriculum: Draft signals to New Zealanders that this country is seriously interested in maintaining and strengthening its social, economic, and political commitment to preserving and maintaining te reo Māori.

These curriculum guidelines¹ are intended to provide teachers with a basis for planning programmes of work for students learning te reo Māori and tikanga² Māori in English-medium New Zealand schools (kura auraki), commonly referred to as mainstream schools. The publication of these curriculum guidelines makes te reo Māori more accessible to learners and raises awareness of the importance of te reo Māori in New Zealand, where it is an official language. These curriculum guidelines are intended to support teachers of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori in both primary and secondary schools, to stimulate the development of teaching resources, and to encourage dynamic and innovative teaching approaches that are responsive to the individual needs of learners.

Some learners, such as those who have had earlier Māori-medium education or who come from homes where te reo Māori is spoken, will have more advanced proficiency in Māori language; they may even be more fluent than the teacher. It is important that the needs of these learners are identified and catered for in the Māori language programmes that teachers and schools provide.

Te Reo Māori in the New Zealand Curriculum: Draft provides a framework for teaching and learning te reo Māori in New Zealand schools. For every two of the eight curriculum levels, the curriculum includes a general proficiency target statement. The primary focus of the curriculum is on achievement objectives. At each curriculum level, there is a small number of achievement objectives (between four and seven). These achievement objectives are accompanied by suggested sociocultural themes, suggested topics, and suggested text types and by descriptions of receptive skills (listening, reading, and viewing) and productive skills (speaking, writing, and presenting). The intention is that teachers will weave the achievement objectives together with these other elements into the unit plans and lesson plans that make up their language teaching programme.

The achievement objectives are accompanied by suggested sociocultural themes, topics, text types, and by descriptions of receptive and productive skills.
Text equivalent of framework weave.

The achievement objectives, together with the other elements³ of the curriculum guidelines, provide a flexible basis that allows teachers to use a wide range of different approaches to programme planning. Although some teachers may wish to introduce achievement objectives in the order in which they are listed within a level, others may prefer to reorder and/or combine them in ways they consider more suitable for particular groups of learners. For example, achievement objectives can be linked to others from lower levels to allow revision to be combined with extension. They can also be supplemented by achievement objectives from higher levels. Refer to the following link for further information about using the curriculum guidelines for programme planning and see curriculum use for more suggestions about when the achievement objectives may be introduced.

The flexibility reflected in these curriculum guidelines is key to learnercentred education. This flexibility is essential because of the different needs and interests of individual learners, the different contexts in which Māori is taught, and the different language and teaching backgrounds of those who deliver the programmes. In particular, teachers need to recognise the prior Māori language learning that certain learners bring to the classroom, especially when they have come from Māori-medium contexts. This flexibility also caters for the variety of English-medium contexts where te reo Māori is taught (including primary, intermediate, middle, and secondary schools) and the different ways of teaching (for example, face to face in classrooms or through distance education programmes).

In preparing these curriculum guidelines, the writers referred to a considerable body of national and international research on the teaching and learning of modern languages, including the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages.⁴ That framework, designed initially to accommodate the languages of Europe, including indigenous languages, provides a comprehensive, transparent, and coherent account of language competencies. The framework, while recognising that all languages and cultures are unique, provides a starting point that enables teachers, curriculum designers, and governments to approach language planning in ways that allow for meaningful comparisons across languages in terms of the formulation and achievement of objectives at different levels.

Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori define Māori identity and are critical aspects of this country’s heritage. Learning te reo Māori in a New Zealand context has, therefore, a very special significance for New Zealanders:

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