Task-based language teaching as a tool for the revitalisation of te reo Māori: one beginning teacher’s perspective

ABSTRACT

This article explores the extent to which task-based language teaching (TBLT) as an emerging but increasingly popular language teaching approach can be used successfully for teaching te reo Māori as a minority and endangered language in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The article presents the experiences and perspectives of one beginning teacher of te reo in an initial teacher education programme. This teacher participated in a one-year course with a dedicated focus on TBLT, designed principally for teachers of the so-called Modern Foreign Languages (MFLs). The article outlines this teacher’s initial struggle to see the relevance of the MFL course for her work as an intending teacher of te reo, and her ultimate embracing of her peers and the ideas explored in the course. The study raises issues for the pertinence of TBLT for strengthening and supporting New Zealand’s indigenous language, and concludes that an approach such as TBLT may have an important role to play.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous languages
• language revitalisation
• task-based language teaching
• languages in schools

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my colleague Deborah Walker-Morrison, iwi (Māori kinship group) affiliations Ngāti Kahungunu; Rakai Paaka; Ngāti Pahauwera, and Associate Professor of French, for her willingness to read and comment on this article from the perspective of te reo Māori in English-medium contexts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Martin East http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3681-5028

Notes

1 Due to ethical considerations of confidentiality and anonymity it is not possible to provide further details about participants.