Language champs

Tu Tangata, Issue 19, 1 August 1984, Page 8

Language champs

The infants at Waiwhetu kohanga reo can run conversational rings around university first-year maori language students according to linguist Lee Smith.

He has just completed an evaluation of their maori language skills.

Not only could the children reply to his questions in maori but they asked their own.

‘When they start initiating conversation you know they’re good,’ he said. ‘Conversationally they can ask you anything they want.

‘But if that knowledge isn’t developed I’m sure they’ll lose it.’

The three star infants, all four years old, had an estimated maori vocabulary of 1000 words according to the results of the maori picture vocabulary test which measures oral comprehension and ability to discriminate between visual images.

All three had been speaking maori for less than two years.

Report Mr Smith, a Wellington Polytechnic maori language tutor with a masters degree in oceanic linguistics, was called in by Waiwhetu parents curious to know the amount of maori being learn-

Lee Smith ed at the two-year-old centre, and to get an opinion about the resources and techniques used. He spent two full days and two half days observing, testing, doing oral interviews and recording the 20 preschoolers with their supervisors (kaitaiaki), parents and community people. He said it was difficult to make comparisons with academic qualifications because the language nursery aimed at conversation not grammar, but the children’s speech was well ahead of students at School Certificate and Universary Entrance, and first-year university level.

His report says the supervisor used an ‘immersion’ or ‘audio-lingual’ approach to learning maori, seeing themselves not as teachers but as creators of an environment in which everyday

language skills would be naturally and rapidly picked up.

The three, all experienced mothers, constantly invented interesting language activities including visits to the bush, the swimming pool, nights spent outdoors camping and regular physical education.

Routine, repetitive activities like road-crossing and meal preparation were used to consolidate language learning and the children had one formal learning session a day.

Unit The report says the best test of the children’s language skills was spontaneous conversations. The children spoke only maori when playing hide-and-seek, block building or sandpit games, encouraging each other and telling tales if english was spoken by one of the group.

In conclusion Mr Smith said any hesitation on the part of local schools to accommodate and build on the foundations being laid in language nurseries would be seen by maori people as a disguised form of the ‘unofficial suppression’ of New Zealand indigenous language which exsisted within the state education system up to the 19505.

While a bilingual maori/english unit within Whaiwhetu Primary School was an obvious extension of the kohanga reo next year, by that time the precedent of an alternative maori school might already be established.