The question of te reo in schools

Why some New Zealanders are concerned about their children becoming multilingual can be puzzling to contemplate, writes Sharon Harvey.

OPINION: This week we celebrate the Ma¯ ori language for the 45th year since the first Ma¯ ori Language Week in 1975.

Friday 14 September is Ma¯ ori Language Day and the 48th anniversary of the day the Ma¯ ori language petition was presented to Parliament. It was initiated by the Ma¯ ori activist group Nga¯ Tamatoa and the Te Reo Ma¯ ori Society and carried 30,000 signatures calling for Ma¯ ori to be taught in New Zealand schools.

Since that time huge strides have been made by Ma¯ ori in establishing kohanga reo, kura kaupapa Ma¯ ori and Ma¯ ori tertiary institutions. As a result of these steadfast efforts to educate through te reo Ma¯ ori medium, many young Ma¯ ori now speak te reo better than their parents.

It is a wonderful thing that in a country so dominated by the English language, we can witness these young people move with ease in and out of the languages they speak, read and write. Some of them, of course, speak more than Ma¯ ori and English.

From the 1980s English medium schools, directed by successive national curricula, have also integrated Ma¯ ori into their school culture. Primary teachers, especially, have made considerable efforts to improve their Ma¯ ori language proficiency and thread te reo into much of their classroom work.

Consequently several generations of young New Zealanders have high quality Ma¯ ori pronunciation of place names and the like, and can use Ma¯ ori words and phrases effortlessly as part of their New Zealand English.

Despite successes in the education system both for Ma¯ ori and others, a more worrying reality sits under these developments. The 2013 census showed that Ma¯ ori speakers of Ma¯ ori have been in decline since at least 2001. The 2018 census data may be even more of a wakeup call. And New Zealanders as a whole still confess to being overwhelmingly monolingual in English. This is true for more than 80 per cent of the population.

By widening the education effort to explicitly include all young New Zealanders, te reo Ma¯ ori may have a better chance of long-term survival and revitalisation.

Important also will be the many benefits that accrue to students.

They will have the opportunity to become

multilingual through learning our indigenous language, a key Pacific language with historical roots extending across much of the Pacific.

This will also enable them to connect more intimately with the land they are growing up in and they will have the chance to empathise with the struggle Ma¯ ori have had to hold their culture, language and land throughout colonisation.

Ma¯ ori Language Week is an occasion that gives us pause to consider why New Zealand Ma¯ ori is still not a language that all New Zealanders learn at school from teachers who are highly proficient in te reo Ma¯ ori as well as capable in language teaching pedagogy.

Some say it’s too hard because we just do not have the skilled teachers.

My answer would be to start training them right now and not leave it a day longer.

Many of us believe Ma¯ ori students need first access to high quality Ma¯ ori instruction but the plan should be in place for others to come close behind. With no plan and no resourcing, nothing will happen.

The question of compulsory Ma¯ ori in schools appeared on the 2017 election manifestos of both the Green Party and Labour. The related press announcements

attracted some vehemently negative positions on the teaching of Ma¯ ori to all New Zealand students. Why people should be so concerned about their children becoming multilingual can be puzzling to contemplate.

However, if people have grown up monolingual, speaking the world’s most dominant language, and see little modelling of multilingualism in their communities or society, it may not be so surprising that they have extreme views. As a society, and particularly within our education system, we need to put more effort into explaining to people the benefits of learning other languages, and Ma¯ ori in particular.

By widening the education effort to explicitly include all young New Zealanders, te reo Ma¯ori may have a better chance of long-term survival and revitalisation.