Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Maori language and Hawaiian language

One-Way Developmental Bilingual Education

High School

This presentation will report on a comparative study of the teaching of the Maori and the Hawaiian languages in English-medium secondary schools.   Analysis and extracts of a sample of Maori and Hawaiian language lessons will be discussed, as will some of the issues and critical aspects of the lessons observed.   

This presentation will report on a comparative study of the teaching of the Maori language and the Hawaiian language in English-medium secondary schools.   We report here on the analysis of a sample of Maori language lessons and Hawaiian language lessons taught in the above mentioned secondary schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Hawai’i.  Given that, in the absence of a high level of inter-generational transmission, the ultimate fate of the language rests, to some extent at least, with the success of instructed language learning, therefore, these findings may be of major concern so far as Maori language revitalisation and Hawaiian language revitalisation are concerned.  This presentation will help to address this issue and will focus on critical aspects of the lessons observed, including illustrative extracts from them, and on the implications of the overall approach adopted in relation to students' proficiency development and will also provide some simple ways of moving the teaching into the 21^st century.  What is most evident about this comparative study of the lessons observed both in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Hawai’i are (a) their teacher-centredness, (b) the absence of clearly articulated linguistic objectives and generally also of clear linguistic outcomes, and (c) the fact that, notwithstanding the recommendations that many if not all lessons observed were not communicatively oriented, (d) these lessons relied heavily on repetition, translation and memorization and focused primarily on individual, decontextualized clauses and sentences.  In view of all of this, and particularly in view of the exhaustion that is likely to be associated with teacher-centred lessons in which there is a struggle to communicate with students, it is not surprising to find that many teachers of the Maori language and Hawaiian language feel that they are achieving much less than they could.