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Activities

Effective pedagogy for language teaching

Effective pedagogy research is integrated into these teacher support materials.

The New Zealand Curriculum (pages 34–36) summarises evidence of the kinds of teaching approaches that consistently have an impact on student learning.

Research into second language acquisition pedagogy reviewed in Ellis (2005) establishes ten principles for teacher actions that promote student learning.

Research into intercultural communicative language teaching (Rivers, based on Newton et al. 2010 [1]) establishes six principles for a pedagogy that is effective in achieving the outcomes specified in The New Zealand Curriculum.

Language learning activities

Choose or adapt these learning activities to suit your students’ diverse needs and the particular objectives they are to achieve.

Listening comprehension – focus on meaning

This cloze activity challenges the students to make meaning from what they hear, and reinforces their understanding of words used in particular contexts.

I _______ with my _______ to Tokelau.

 

We _______ to Apia.

 

Then we went by _______ to Tokelau.

 

It took _______  _______ by _______ .

 

It was a very _______ journey!

 

_______  stayed at my _______  Lēpeka's _______.

 

Lēpeka's _______ is my father's brother.

 

I _______  _______  in New Zealand and Lēpeka in Tokelau.

 

We are the same _______.

 

This was my _______ in Fakaofo.

This activity is from page 2, which sets the scene for the story. Hand out copies of this activity to the students.

Read the text aloud, or have a gagana Tokelau speaker read the text. As they listen, the students write the missing information in the gaps, in English, according to what they hear. Repeat the reading so that your students manage to complete their entries. The students check their responses using copies of the storybooks, or copies of the English translation.

Adapting text

The students recognise and use particular phrases in different contexts to reinforce their learning.

Use the gagana Tokelau text on page 2. Have the students create a new setting by using the same sentence patterns, but varying the details. For example, a student could start by saying (or writing) sentences such as these:

Ko ki mātou ma oku mātua na olo ki Auhetalia.

Ko ki mātou na felelei ki Aukilani oi olo ai ki mātou ki Hini i he vakālele. Na fā itūlā i luga o te vakālele.

[I travelled with my parents to Australia. We flew to Auckland. Then we went by plane to Sydney. It took four hours by plane.]

Note that people on Nukunonu say vakālele, but people on the other atolls say vakalele.

Reading aloud – focus on pronunciation

The students improve their pronunciation and reading fluency in gagana Tokelau.

(a) To help them articulate the vowel sounds well, ask your students to open their mouths wide and say each vowel sound, exaggerating each sound by lengthening it. Now have them place consonants before the vowels to practise single syllables. For example, they say pa pa pa pa, pe pe pe pe, pi pi pi pi, po po po po, pu pu pu pu.

(b) The students take turns in their groups to read the story aloud. Group members give feedback to the reader, congratulating them by saying Lelei or Mālō lava, or suggesting they try again to get the pronunciation right.

(c) Have a competent gagana Tokelau reader listen to your students reading the story aloud. This person then offers feedback to individual students to help them improve particular aspects of their pronunciation and reading fluency.

(d) The students work in groups. They read the story aloud as a role-play. They rehearse their role-plays before they present them to the class.

Illustrations – exploring visual language

The students recognise that Tokelau language and culture are organised in particular ways, and they make connections with their own language(s) and culture(s).

The illustrations in the storybook contain information about particular aspects of Tokelau culture that may not be referenced in the written text. For example, the written text mentions who is playing tīuga, but there is no additional information about this game in the text. The illustration, though, shows how tīuga is played.

Discuss each illustration with the students, to help them to locate cultural information. Make links to relevant information in particular units of Muakiga! Lead the students to make comparisons and connections with relevant aspects of their own language(s) and culture(s) throughout each discussion.

The students could explore these aspects of culture, and present information on posters, for example, some kinds of fish that the men in Tokelau typically catch with nets.

Patterns of language – focus on form

The students write texts with appropriate use of macrons and correct spelling. They produce and respond to questions and requests.

As a class, focus on the particular questions (direct and indirect) in the story. For example, Ko he ā kō tā te tamāloa ē fai? / What’s that man doing?; Ni inati ā nei lā tē tufa nei? / I wonder what’s for today’s inati.

The students work in groups. They compile a set of questions, writing these in their workbooks. The students choose one person in their group to ask the questions. The other students take turns to reply to each question, selecting the response from the relevant page of the storybook.

For an extension activity, have the students memorise their responses, to build their knowledge-stock of language patterns in gagana Tokelau. They respond to the questions without using the storybook. Their responses can be short, as long as they respond with the information that is asked for.

The inati

The students research and present information on aspects of Tokelau culture and values included in the story. They develop their understanding of how people make decisions about access to and use of resources.

The inati is the focus of the story. It represents some of the core values in agānuku Tokelau. The information on pages 8–9 in Gagana Tokelau: The Tokelau Language Guidelines is relevant to this story.

Explore the following discussion points with your students. They work in pairs or groups, and share their findings with the rest of the class. The students:

  • describe the content of the illustrations and make connections between the illustrations and the written text
  • review Unit 12 of Muakiga! and use the information in the story to extend their knowledge of the people, the roles they carry out, and important places, for example, tautai, tauvāega, laulau
  • explore the values of the inati philosophy and discuss these in relation to the story
  • research the kind of fishing mentioned in the story, fishing with nets, to discover why they are fished this way, and why it was important to mention it.

Take the students’ learning about the core values of the inati philosophy a step further. Discuss with them how these values can be incorporated into the classroom as you teach, and they learn, gagana Tokelau.

Crafting text – written communication

This activity helps the students to communicate about people, places, and things.

The students write about the inati in gagana Tokelau as an individual task. They use information from Unit 12 in Muakiga! and the storybook Ko nā Inati to guide their writing.

They write a first draft. They swap versions with a partner and give each other feedback on readability and accuracy of the language. Extend this process to have the students review the work of more than one student. The students take account of the feedback. They write or print out their final version on A4 paper. Display their work. Store copies in their portfolios.

Use of technologies

The students develop their understanding of how society and environments impact on and are influenced by technology in historical and contemporary contexts.

The students explore how the use of locally available materials and food sources influence the development of particular games, and the gathering and preparation of particular foods.

This exploration may include:

  • use of shells in the Tokelau game tīuga (see Unit 5 in Muakiga!), and making cross-cultural comparisons, for example, to the use of stones in the Māori game mū torere
  • consideration of styles of cooking, for example, indoor and outdoor ovens, and cooking processes, for example, boiling and steaming
  • investigating technologies that assist in gathering food, for example, nets for catching fish, and different types of containers for carrying fish.

Inati philosophy

This activity develops the students’ understanding of how people make decisions about access to and use of resources.

The students compare information about the inati in the storybook Ko nā Inati with information about gathering and distributing food in the storybook Te Ika Fuaefa. Students discuss:

  • how inati values are expressed in each story
  • who decides how the food will be distributed, and who is given shares in each story
  • the comparisons and connections they can make between the inati in a Tokelau village setting and the inati in a Tokelau community in New Zealand setting
  • decisions about the access to and use of resources in both settings, for example, in New Zealand the existence of fishing quotas and regulations about the sizes of certain fish and shellfish.

Invite a member of the Tokelau community to come along and talk about the inati in both settings, and encourage your students to ask questions.

Reflecting on their learning

Help the students to reflect on their learning, and also on how they learn. Students could share these reflections with another student, with a small group of students, or with the whole class. As a prompt, ask the students questions such as:

  • What strategies and activities helped you to understand the story?
  • What strategies and activities helped you to remember the new language?
  • How can you use the new language in other contexts?
  • Can you identify aspects of new learning about agānuku Tokelau?
  • How have you improved your use of gagana Tokelau?

For example, a student might say:

“I can now describe the inati in gagana Tokelau. Writing about the inati, and answering questions about it, helped me to remember new language. I can talk about differences between the inati in Tokelau and in New Zealand, and its values.”

[1] Newton, J., Yates, E., Shearn, S., and Nowitzki, W. (2009). Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching: Implications for Effective Teaching and Learning. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

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