Ta'iala mo le Gagana Sāmoa - Pasifika Education Community

Talitonuga Tāua ma le Tāua o le Ta‘iala Aoaomo A‘oga i Niu SilaSamoan Values and the Values of the New Zealand CurriculumValues are deeply held beliefs about what is important or desirable. They are expressed through theways in which people think and act.The New Zealand Curriculum, page 10The values described on page 10 of The New Zealand Curriculum are to be reflected in all teachingand learning programmes and classrooms in schools. Through their learning experiences, students willdevelop and clarify their own values and beliefs and come to respect and be sensitive to the rights ofpeople who may hold values and have attitudes that are different from their own.Integrating Samoan cultural values (see pages 17–18 above) into programmes for teaching and learninggagana Sāmoa will enable students to learn about and experience the values that are important to thepeople of Sāmoa.Students will explore personal as well as collective aspirations, which will help them as individuals todevelop positive attitudes towards learning as a lifelong process. As they compare different languagesand cultures within and beyond New Zealand, students will examine the context and implicationsof their own attitudes, of New Zealand’s social system, and of the values on which different socialstructures are based.As they experience the core Samoan cultural values, alofa, fa‘aaloalo, and tautua, in a range ofsociocultural contexts and situations, and as they learn to recognise different elements of the beliefsystem of the people of Sāmoa, students will grow in confidence. As they compare and contrastdifferent people’s beliefs and cultural practices, including their own, they will come to understand moreabout themselves and develop their understanding of the people whose language they are learning.49Fuafa‘atatau: Vaega 1 i le 8Achievement Objectives: Levels 1 to 8The achievement objectives for levels 1–8 (on pages 50–93) are progressive descriptions of thecompetencies that students need to acquire and use to communicate effectively in gagana Sāmoa asthey move through the levels. These objectives provide the basis for planning programmes and fordetermining a learner’s current level of competence in gagana Sāmoa. When teachers know whateach learner has achieved, they can work out what should be the next steps in their learning.In addition, the key competencies are to be addressed in all aspects of the teaching and learningprogramme for gagana ma le aganu‘u fa‘asāmoa.The numbered objectives of the Communication strand are expressed in terms of language functionsand indicate the kinds of language that students should be able to use at each level.Although Language Knowledge, Communication, and Cultural Knowledge are presented in theseguidelines as separate strands, in practice they are like the plaited strands of ‘afa. Each one supportsthe others, and all are used to express the culture. Teachers need to balance these areas of language,and the contexts in which they are used, when designing language programmes. As with allprogramme planning, there are many different ways of introducing gagana Sāmoa programmesinto schools.