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Activities

Learning activities

You do not have to use all the activities suggested below. Choose from and adapt them to suit your students’ needs.

Introducing the text

As a class, study the cover and title page of Ko e hā ‘a e hikingaua? Discuss foods that are important to different cultures and consider the Māori cultural practice of hāngi.

Encourage the students to consider where the girls in the illustration on the title page might be taking the bowls of food. Prompt the students to think about what dish might be shown on the cover.

Reading the text

Read the first page of Ko e hā ‘a e hikingaua? with the students and encourage them to study the illustration to help them establish who the main characters in this story are and what is happening–Sokopeti invites her French friend Madeleine to a Tongan meal. Then have the students work in pairs to read and analyse each page of the story. They could:

  • describe what the illustrations show
  • summarise what happens on each page
  • make connections between an illustration and the supporting written text
  • list the steps in making lū sipi
  • draw a mind map that illustrates the different characters who are introduced as the story progresses and their relationship to each other
    • identify features of the language and illustrations that demonstrate particular features of anga faka-Tonga, for example, choice of recipes, seating order at the tables, and the associated values.

As you work through each page, identify any unfamiliar words or expressions (in the text or the discussion). Record these on the board.

Support the students to notice patterns of language that they will use in other contexts, for example, Ko e hā ‘a e hikingaua?/what’s for dessert?; Ko e hā ‘a e puha?/what’s that box?

Once everyone has read through the text, play the DVD of unit 12 on making ‘ota ika, providing the students with photocopies of the transcript and playing the DVD as many times as necessary to help the students understand the steps involved in this recipe. 

After reading

Lunch

As a class, discuss the Sunday lunch described in the story and who was involved in creating the meal. Encourage the students to identify the particular aspects of anga faka-Tonga and the Tongan values that the story expresses.

If there are questions that your class have not been able to answer, set research tasks, and encourage the students to search the Internet or the library or talk with family members, other students, or experts from a Tongan community.

Have the students work in groups or alone to research and prepare a presentation about one of the following topics:

  • the kinds of dishes described in the story compared with special dishes associated with their own culture
  • the formalities demonstrated in the story and in anga faka-Tonga compared with formalities of their own culture; for example, seating arrangements, saying lotu (a prayer), who is served food first, the reasons for getting together
  • how the written language and illustrations in the story reveal cultural practices and values in anga faka-Tonga  
  • the different methods and technologies involved in food preparation in the story, for example, the technology of the ‘umu, compared with food preparation and technologies common to their own culture(s).

Thank you letters

Have the students work individually to write a thank you letter in lea faka-Tonga from Madeleine to Sokopeti’s family. Encourage the students to use the story to guide the content of their letter and use appropriate formulaic expressions that they have learnt in previous units of Faufaua! An introduction to Tongan. 

Master chef

Have the students use the information from Units 12 and 13 and Ko e hā ‘a e hikingaua? to instruct the class, in lea faka-Tonga, on how to prepare a particular recipe.

You could extend this activity and turn it into a competition, where several students are participants in a TV cooking competition and have to prepare their dishes to a deadline, explaining the full process as they go in lea faka-Tonga.

Shared meals

Arrange with your local Tongan community for some people to work with your students to prepare some common Tongan dishes for a shared meal.

Reflecting on learning

Prompt the students to reflect on what they have learnt from working with this text, by asking questions such as:

  • What strategies helped you to understand the story?
  • What will help you to remember the new language?
  • How can you use the new language in other contexts?
  • Can you identify significant aspects of new learning about anga faka-Tonga?

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