Te Kohanga Reo Hei Tikanga Ako i te Reo Maori: Te Kohanga Reo as a context for language learning

Abstract

Te Kohanga Reo is an indigenous educational intervention aiming to recover Maori language usage; a need anticipated in early research by Clay (1968). This paper argues that understanding the effectiveness of Te Kohanga Reo for language development and for classroom discourse requires two things. Firstly, a theoretical framework which enables language acquisition to be seen as culturally contextualised and secondly research strategies that enable cultural contexts to be understood. A study of language use in Te Kohanga Reo provides evidence for how language use and processes of acquisition express and construct cultural meanings.