Have you ever felt like you were out of your depth or think you're out of your depth where you constantly overthink things when really the answers are staring right in front of your eyes? Wow Part 2 of my Masters qualification is finally over and I can definitely say that “God is good? All the time! All the time “God is good”. I sit in my office and reflect back on the many occasions I have spoken to God requesting wisdom and support. You know he really hears your prayers when you really call out to him and acknowledge you are nothing without him. Thinking back to when I had to give an oral presentation about my research project I was always thinking about my bilingual students but most of my bilingualism! My own personal bilingualism where a New Zealand born boy didn’t have the luxury of being immersed in the Gagana Samoa but through the opportunities I did receive tried to soak up the Fa’a Samoa way as much on my own as I could. I came to a realization that learning the language this way was never enough to really understand my Gagana Samoa. You know I definitely feel that we have a lot of students who are just going through the motions and hoping they learn what they need to learn by accident.
Deliberate teaching of the Gagana Samoa is needed in order for our students to really experience the true representation of what it means to be fully immersed in our Language. I am probably not doing a good enough job as a teacher teaching the Gagana Samoa but I can bet damn well I look to change this for myself and our generation to come. Oh well back to my oral presentation, well I was so worried that my project did not have enough merit and wasn’t worth diving into but as I presented my project my facilitator was very moved and confirmed to me that this is a project worth doing! Sometimes we go through life and we think what we have ideas about are not enough or not worthy enough for others but really you just have to run it straight and follow through with what you initially thought of doing! I call this not backing yourself on a hundred! I think its because you have at the back of your mind that you weren’t always the smartest kid in school but I can definitely say I was the bravest! Especially all the primary and Intermediate plays I had to endure and face in my younger years. You know you are never too old to learn. There is always going to be something to learn, something to improve, something to increase and something to change, and because of this there will always be new learning and new perspectives!
Now that part 2 is over, Part 3 of my Masters programme is on the rise! At this moment in time I am waiting for my ethics forms, and learning agreement consent to be approved and then I finally gather data for my project. You know I never thought I’ll be doing research but I am going to have to in order to pass this Masters. I really should say I get to be a researcher which sounds more positive lol.
Today I went to school to meet with my principal and just have a chat about the Masters programme and run through some ideas. It was definitely worth the time which is always when talking to Sonia, she is such a wise and critical thinker when it comes to teaching and learning. She explained how hard it was for her to complete the masters programme because of the passing of a family member and grandchild which I can't fathom because I have never been through it myself but when it comes to it losing anyone is the worst experience ever! She managed to get her focus back and successfully present her final report to pass her Masters. This tells us that we just never know what this life will throw at us at any given time we can lose someone close to us or something out of the ordinary just happens to stop by and we can never be prepared for this type of situation but what we can hope for is the love of god to get us through to the other side! Sonia Johnston well done on just being strong for you and your family and God sees your heart for service which will always go unnoticed.
Some of the discussion we had was about the flipped approach to teaching and learning and how I am going to do this with Gagana Samoa Language. She mentioned to me that you know our student’s do not have the privilege of being fully surrounded by our Gagana Samoa richness because of the context they are currently living in “New Zealand”. But what we can do is provide this to them every chance we get through education. My research objective involves me
implementing Universal design for learning together with flipped learning approaches in order to develop an online tool that provides more engaging ways in improving the understanding of Gagana Samoa in our senior year levels in our Samoan Bilingual Unit.
It is not so much the tool that I am solely focussing on but its the context within that tool that will provide a more deeper learning experience for our students.
There are so many resources for our te reo students where they provide different modes of literacy for them to learn the reo where as Samoan I don't think there is ever a tool created where students dive deep into the formal ways of our Gagana Samoa. Sonia mentioned that now that you have your research objective it's working out how to narrow this right down into small chunks where each step is considered a step closer to your change project.
How are you going to deliver content through a flipped approach? What content are you looking to use with your students? How are you going to reflect and keep a record of what you are doing?
There was a mention about using what you have done prior with the students instead of creating the wheel. There was a mention about Formal speeches with the students, maybe attend and record these speeches and unpack it with the students check for understanding and structure,
Also think about other ways of delivering Samoan content e.g audio, stories, there was an idea that te reo Maori are using their grandparents to retell stories so they capture, keep and pass down to generations.
You know what I was thinking about as well, was the fact that AI is comin on strong nowadays and people can just AI the Samoan Language. I don't know if this is relevant but it was just a thought that dropped in my mind. Lol Our sacred traditional ceremonies as well like ava could be used to explore with the children.
Thinking about how students learn because some students do prefer face to face conversations instead of online tutorials but I guess this is something that we do need to think about as well.
Going back to see for another conversation.
Overall a very productive conversation with Sonia and now its back to getting prepped for the implementation of my change project.
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