supporting tiriti-based curriculum delivery in mainstream early ...

What also encouraged teachers to continue to strengthen their use of te reo
Māori was that children were frequently responsive to these prompts which
promoted bilingualism:
We have been singing Māori songs. Now I am observing that our
children (infants and toddlers) are able to enjoy them and could do some
of the actions (Jl: Sb, 4/04).
Teachers could see how their input of te reo Māori was resonating with
children, even babies:
I was changing T's nappy and top. As I was putting his arms through the
holes I said tahi and he responded with rua. I was really happy to hear
his response and I continued when I was interacting with him to use my
very limited Māori (Jl: JT, 3/04).
Not only were babies able to remember and use te reo Māori words but
were also making connections between language and artefacts:
I put the waiata tape on the other day and one of the babies had the
equipment and got the poi and I can‟t remember who it was. So I thought
they obviously made the connection between the poi and the waiata,
which was quite neat. It surprised me. It was just sort of put on as
background music really (Tr: S, 28/10/04).
Similarly, children in Case Study Three also under 2 years old were
making connections with te reo Māori:
Especially before lunch we all the staff are using horoi o ringaringa and
now most of the children say horoi o ringaringa and they run to the sink
and they know what it is and they wash their hands for lunch (Tr: Si,
8/12/08).
It appears, therefore, that babies were learning te reo Māori almost in spite
of their teachers. The latent effect of S playing waiata as background music was
that it encouraged te reo Māori acquisition. The notes from Shani shown below,
demonstrate how much can be accomplished when infants communicate in te reo
Māori with each other:
I planned to use lots of te reo Māori words with children such as e noho,
haere mai, e tu. One day while having afternoon tea one child K who is
19 months old said to another child „e noho‟ and showed him the chair to
sit. I got very excited when I heard it. I felt very happy. I was thinking
how effective our strategy of using te reo Māori words with children (Jl:
Si, 1/10/08).
Teachers also reported that supporting each other was effective in aiding
older children to become bilingual:
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