School expands its Samoan side
The Samoan language is being given a boost after the much-anticipated opening of a primary school bilingual unit.
Temperamental weather couldn’t dampen spirits as the community gathered to celebrate the founding of the Samoan bilingual unit at May Road School last week.
Mothers dressed in specially made puletasi joined children, church representatives and politicians to mark the opening of Lumana’i Manuia Mo A Taeao, which translates as ‘‘forward with honour, futures of tomorrow’’.
Board of trustees Samoan representative Fono TigafuaFinau says the language nest has been a priority for the decile 2 school since last year.
‘‘Midway through the year we did a survey and the result of that was large numbers of parents thought it would be great to set up a Samoan bilingual class,’’ she says.
‘‘Parents are really important in this journey and are really excited about this.’’
One parent joining the celebrations says it is ‘‘awesome’’ that the school has opened the unit.
‘‘The principal has been really great in supporting us in establishing the bilingual class since we started talking about it.’’
The Mt Roskill school has 30 per cent Samoan students and has a Samoan language pre-school that will feed into the bilingual unit. It makes use of an existing classroom and will have about 50 per cent Samoan language integrated into lessons during the day.
At the opening ceremony principal Lynda Stuart spoke about the importance of acknowledging cultural identity.
‘‘Students embrace learning when they know that their culture is celebrated and respected,’’ she says.
‘‘Your language is part of your identity – if you can learn in your own language you can access the deeper curriculum.’’
The opening of the unit closely follows a report from the Royal Society of New Zealand advocating for Kiwis to become more linguistically diverse to coincide with the country’s increasing multiculturalism.
The report also pointed to studies that show bilingualism improves other areas of learning, including creative thinking and maths.
There are more than 130,000 Samoan New Zealanders and Samoan language is the third most commonly spoken language in New Zealand after English and Maori.