Teacher Only Day (Last day of the Term 1) Reflection

 Today is the last day of term 1 and we have TOD in Glen Taylor school. All Manakalani school Teachers gather at Glen Taylor to share their knowledge, ideas, actions, strategies and experiences. I am very grateful I was a part of this day and grasp a few new strategies and ideas for my kids. Today's focus was on supporting teachers in implementing a range of approaches that will help students to develop the knowledge, strategies, and awareness required to become effective readers across curriculum levels and learning areas. Developing teacher capabilities to use a range of deliberate acts of teaching inflexible and integrated ways to meet the diverse literacy learning needs of our students. Today's speaker was Dr Rae Si'ilata. She talked about Pacifica learners and their educational achievement in Aotearoa New Zealand. Educational inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand on the basis of socio-economic class and language background remains persistent and endemic.

There is a still relatively limited pool of research that directly addresses Pasifika bilingual education in Aotearoa New Zealand. This research ranges from Spolsky’s initial study into the potential for Samoan bilingual education in the 1980s to more recent case studies of (mainly) Samoan language programs, as well as related studies into the benefits of bilingual programs for Pasifika (and other bilingual) learners. 

The implication of best practices is Funded specialist bilingual teacher education pathways for Pasifika bilingual education in both initial teacher education and at in-service/postgraduate level. Targeted in-service professional development support for teachers in Pasifika bilingual education, as well as updating and expanding existing related research and professional development resources. Additional Pasifika language and literacy resources, and related assessment measures, to support the ongoing consolidation and expansion of Level 1 and 2 Pasifika bilingual education programs in primary schools, as well as the expansion of NCEA Pasifika language subjects in secondary schools. A related community (and wider public) dissemination strategy on the attested benefits of Pasifika bilingualism and bilingual education, along with the limits of English monolingualism in an increasingly linguistically super diverse Aotearoa New Zealand.