Abstract:
Current notions of effective practice for linguistically diverse learners within digital learning environments in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) are often restricted to production of digital output or ‘products’ in the dominant language (English) only, and do not include incorporation of learners’ heritage language resources, or even of their particular English language varieties. In Aotearoa/NZ, the indigenous language, Te Reo Māori, is spoken by a linguistic (predominantly indigenous) minority, while other linguistic minorities, including those from the Pacific Islands, speak the languages of their island nation homes. This chapter focuses on NZ Pacific (Pasifika) learners within primary contexts, where teachers and educational leaders in English-medium classrooms need to move beyond practices that rest on Pasifika learners adopting majority culture English language, literacy, and identity in order to achieve academic and digital goals. This chapter explores the process and outcomes of transforming CALL in multilingual contexts to better meet both the learning and cultural aspirations of Pasifika peoples in Aotearoa NZ. A Pasifika metaphor of the Va‘atele (double-hulled deep-sea canoe) is offered as a framework for Pasifika learners’ success in order that schools and educators might understand how it is possible to both privilege and utilise students’ linguistic and cultural resources within the digital learning space at school. In this way, Pasifika learners can make meaningful connections between home and school funds of knowledge (Gonzalez et al., 2005), and are able to experience success in both domains. Evidence is presented from a case study that draws attention to the central roles teachers play in enabling Pasifika learners to connect, rather than replace, the world-views, languages, literacy practices and experiences of their homes with the digital language and literacy practices of school. The enactment of linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogies within digital learning spaces improves students’ linguistic and literacy achievement in English and heritage languages, while also enabling stronger connections between home and school domains.