When I was making my Action plan for this teacher inquiry I had to consider ethical implications and explain how I would address them when I collected data. The ethical issue I identified from the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) Ethical Guidelines was the principle relating to harmful effects and unintended consequences for research participants.
I was concerned that the inquiry may cause anxiety for my students who have limited knowledge of conversational te reo Māori. From the beginning I was careful to ensure my students knew that this would be challenging for all of us and I was learning alongside them. Although we are speaking 15 minutes of te reo Māori each day with no English, there is no expectation that students will have a conversation during this time. Other than responding to greetings and simple questions, which they have been doing all year, they have the option to just listen. As my inquiry continues, I am hoping my students will understand it is safe to take risks. The learning focused culture standard in the Standards for the Teaching Profession requires me to develop a culture characterised by respect, empathy and safety (Education Council, 2017). This is something I strive to achieve each day.
At the moment, about 30% of the class are attempting to communicate using the vocabulary they have. The others are passive during this time, but I am hoping that just hearing the language being spoken will build their knowledge and confidence and, eventually, they will begin to participate.
Bigdeli and Bai (2009) discuss the negative impact anxiety can have on teaching and learning. They argue that learning environments are often saturated with anxiety. Cabrera-Solano, Gonzalez-Torres, Solano, Castillo-Cuesta & Jiménez (2019) found that anxiety can be reduced by designing activities based on group work, pair work and games. I have already decided to add more structure to my 15 minutes each day, using a shared book as a model, and incorporating more sharing in small groups or pairs.
As I reflect on the way I implemented my inquiry I can see ways to improve in the future. Next time, I will spend longer explaining what we were trying to achieve and why it is important. Since we started, a couple of students have expressed some negativity which has given me the opportunity to talk about the importance of preserving te reo Māori. They were more invested once I compared the language to the endemic species of New Zealand (a topic we have been studying in class). They began to understand that we need to preserve the language as no other country in the world is going to do it for us.
Another way I would improve the implementation is to make more of an attempt to engage whanau by sending home some information about what we are doing, and inviting them in so they can participate and contribute.
References:
Cabrera-Solano, P., Gonzalez-Torres, P., Solano, L., Castillo-Cuesta, L., & Jiménez, J. (2019). Perceptions on the Internal Factors Influencing EFL Learning: A Case of Ecuadorian Children. International Journal of Instruction, 12(4), 365–380. https://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2019.12424a
Bigdeli, S., & Heesoon Bai. (2009). The Triunal Model of Anxiety and its Application to Anxiety Reduction in Learning and Teaching Environments. TESL Canada Journal, 27(1), 103–114. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v27i1.1029
New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE). (2010). NZARE Ethical Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.nzare.org.nz/portals/306/images/Files/NZARE%20EthicalGuidelines2010.pdf
Hi Amanda, thank you for posting. I found the content informative and thought provoking. My partner began her te reo Maori journey early this year (with relatively limited experience), by joining a full immersion programme at Te Herenga waka o Orewa Marae. The teaching method focused on the use rakau blocks (cuisenaire rods), which as we know was initially used to support mathematical learning.
ReplyDeleteShe used them in level one to learn colours and how to own, share and exchange the blocks as well as some grammatical structures such as prepositions of place, comparatives and superlatives, determiners, tenses, adverbs of time, manner, etc., to show sentence and word stress, rising and falling intonation and word groupings.
Creating a visual model of constructs made the learning more fun and took some of the pressure off what could have been a high stress learning environment for her and her fellow students, perhaps this may also be of use for younger students.