Māori and education

Classroom teachers report on their success with the Māori version of the highly proclaimed Pause Prompt Praise reading tutoring programme. In a surprise result, student tutors improved their reading skills while helping their peer learners improve.

The first comprehensive study in New Zealand which shows that children taught mathematics in a second language (in this case Māori) achieved better than comparable children at a neighbouring school who were taught in English.

An account of the important work by Joshua Fishman on reversing language shift which highlights the precarious state of the Māori and Aboriginal languages.

From deciding what to call a bilingual unit to the increased workload for non-native speaking Māori teachers, the issues and tensions that schools are likely to meet when they establish bilingual Māori–English classrooms are varied.

Children can be encouraged to maintain and develop their proficiency in Māori in a classroom where it is not the language of instruction. This research has implications for the promotion of Māori in New Zealand classrooms as well as the promotion of minority languages elsewhere.

By identifying issues that impact on student achievement in low decile schools with high ratios of Pacific Island and Maori students schools can improve the learning opportunities for these students.