Nativelike Māori oral language proficiency in Māori-medium education

Abstract

In July 2014 there were 17,713 students enrolled in Māori-medium education in Aotearoa New Zealand. This number represented 2.3% of the the total school population. Māori-medium are those schools where the curriculum is taught in the Māori language for at least 51% of the time: Level 1 immersion, 80% of the time and Level 2, 51% of the time. The 282 schools with students enrolled in Māori medium include Kura Kaupapa Māori and Kura under Section 155 and Section 166 of the Education Act. A significant number of schools (189) are not designated Kura but offer Level 1 or Level 2 immersion. Oral language proficiency progressions were established and reported in Kaiaka Reo – Reo-ā-Waha ki te Motu (2013). The nationwide study used descriptive analysis and Rasch analysis to determine the reliability and validity of the Kaiaka Reo as an oral language assessment tool for Year 1 to Year 8 students in Māori medium. In this current project the researchers were charged with the annotation of Māori oral language exemplars. The oral language samples were collected from three year levels, that is, Year 1, Year 4r and Year 8 of five kura using the Kaiaka Reo oral language proficiency assessment tool. In total, 54 oral language exemplars are annotated in detail against the progressions established by Kaiaka Reo and the alignment or non-alignment of the annotations with Ngā Whanaketanga Reo Māori and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. Special attention is given in this paper to the nativelike language of some of the students.