742 NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE, No. 32 22 FEBRUARY 2008

PART 2

TE REO

Having established the nature of the child this part of the document focuses on language policy and how Kura Kaupapa Māori can best advance the language learning of their children.

As a natural and logical progression for graduates of Kōhanga Reo, a primary focus of Kura Kaupapa Māori is the continuing development of the Māori language of their children. At the same time there exists a particular concern among some parents that the English language skills of their children should also be addressed. The primary language issue for Kura Kaupapa Māori became one of determining how the optimum result could be achieved in the development of both languages.

Indeed, the issue called for considerable research, including a review of the literature which described the experiences of other language communities, especially those whose language, like that of the Māori, was experiencing serious decline. The language policies and teaching practices of other nation states, where bilingualism was a valued attribute for citizenship and the learning of a second language in educational institutions was encouraged, provided a rich panorama of experience from which the first Kura Kaupapa Māori could base its language policy.

The principle of total immersion featured in much of the literature, and the published research experiments of Lambert and his associates in the French and English Quebec experience legitimised total immersion as being particularly effective in advancing the French language competence of English-speaking children.

So did the research studies of Dr Lily Wong-Fillmore, Professor of Education, University of California, Berkeley, USA, in which a range of second language learning methodologies, being used to teach elementary schoolchildren English were compared. Of these, total immersion proved to be significantly more effective.

The Ataarangi and Kōhanga Reo initiatives which had preceded Kura Kaupapa Māori by five years had already established the effectiveness of total immersion. This then became firm policy for Kura Kaupapa Māori.

In summary, then, Te Reo focuses on bilingual competence and sets principles by which this competence will be achieved. Kura Kaupapa Māori therefore:

• respect all languages.
• expect full competency in Māori and English for the children of their kura.
• insist that legislation for the Māori language is worthless without a total commitment to everyday usage of Māori.
• affirm that total immersion most rapidly develops language competence and assert that the language of kura be, for the most part, exclusively Māori.
• accept that there is an appropriate time for the introduction of English at which time there shall be a separate English language teacher and a separate language learning facility.
• agree that the appropriate time for the introduction of English is a matter for the kura whānau to decide as a general rule, when children are reading and writing competently in Māori, and children indicate an interest in English.
• assert that along with total immersion, bilingual competence is rapidly advanced through discreetly separating the two languages and therefore reject the mixing or code-switching of the two languages.