Within our Kia Toa team we really enjoy learning languages with our students. Every week Whaea Salena comes into our room and teach Te Reo, she teaches them about Maori cultures, songs and stories. The pupils enjoy it and participate with pride. I really enjoyed learning Te Reo with my class getting to know more about most of my students and their background.
This week is the Tongan language week and I am quite proud of the students and teachers around the school using the Tongan greeting and trying to use some Tongan phrases. As a Tongan I am proud to see the children who were born here in New Zealand and are trying their best to learn a little bit about their culture and background and using the language around the school and in the classroom.
To me, knowing your learners and where they come from give us teachers some knowledge and understanding of who they are which helps in building up a positive relationship between the teacher and the learners. I want to know more about my students from other cultures too and celebrating a language week is a great opportunity that every teacher should make the most of. As a whole school we are doing performing arts where every teacher has been assigned a group of students where they can teach a dance from their own culture. The students are being distributed evenly to each group where they will learn about a dance from another culture. All this is very exciting for me because I can see students respecting and knowing about each other.
