Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura) now offers a Samoan language course at NCEA Level 1. The course helps students develop their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills through a range of topics such as family, home life and celebrations. The course is structured to allow flexibility in terms of the order in which topics are studied and includes an open-ended topic that enables students to investigate an area of their own interest.
Whether students are learning Samoan to strengthen their identity as Samoan, to communicate with family members, for career enhancement or another reason, this subject will provide them with an opportunity to build on prior learning and to develop problem-solving, and communication skills.
Sia Batcheler is Te Kura’s Samoan language teacher and is excited by the move to teaching online.
She says, “I’ve always wanted to teach online because we don’t have many resources for the language out there and there’s a whole range of students who want to learn the language. If you are teaching at a school, you only reach the kids in that school. Whereas with online it’s all over NZ and can be global as well.”
Sia says the most rewarding aspect of teaching for her is hearing kids using the language, especially to communicate with their families. “It’s mainly the kids learning their identity, where they come from. Their roots. Because I think that’s the cause of some of the problems we have in our young people – they are disconnected from who they are. Getting them to know themselves can help with confidence and with the language comes all those values and things they need to know about themselves.”
Rico Itula is learning Samoan with Sia. He is enrolled with another Wellington school who has a partnership agreement with Te Kura, so that school can support him studying Samoan with us. Rico says he’s studying the course “Because it’s my culture and I don’t really know the language that well. I have been wanting to learn for a while and this opportunity came along and I just took it. I was excited when I found out about the course. My Dad is from Samoa. My Mum is like me, she doesn’t know much Samoan."
Rico says, “It’s a dream of mine to go to Samoa someday – I have a lot of family there, so being able to speak to them would be good.”
Please contact us to find out more about learning Samoan with Te Kura: info@tekura.school.nz
(It's recommended that students have completed Year 10 Samoan or equivalent or have a Samoan language background.)