A‘oga Fa‘a Samoa Early Childhood Centre (TLIF 3-089) - A‘oga Fa‘a Samoa digital toolkit Publications
Publication Details
Project Reference: A‘oga Fa‘a Samoa Early Childhood Centre (TLIF 3-089) - Through this project, A‘oga Fa‘a Samoa sought to select and use digital tools that could enable its faiaoga (teachers), children, and families to explore the Samoan language and culture together, and for the children to understand that theirs is an international language that has a place in the digital world.
Author(s): (Inquiry Team) led by Janice Taouma
Date Published: June 2020
Overview
A‘oga Fa‘a Samoa Early Childhood Centre was New Zealand’s first Pacific language and cultural immersion childcare centre. The A’oga Fa’a Samoa mission statement is to nurture positive identity in children through promoting Samoan language and culture. Due to intergenerational language loss, the A’oga also has a role in supporting family members to gain confidence and strength in use of their heritage language.
The best part of this learning curve is that, these ipads not only widen the learning of more Samoan words by the children, but by their families as well. Grandparents who live far away from their grandchildren are always looking forward to seeing their grandchildren’s learning of the Samoan language and culture in A’oga through Seesaw. To them, teachers are trying to rekindle the embers of the fire, teaching our young generations to maintain our language and culture, so that these children can grow up as proud Samoans. (Aunofo Niko- faiaoga)
The project team did not want the tools to be ‘add-ons’ to what the centre was already doing, but to be integrated within its curriculum. By taking a thoughtful approach to the use of digital technology, situating it within authentic learning contexts, the team found that both teaching and learning changed. The children quickly learned to use the new tools to explore virtual worlds while growing their competence in their heritage language. The learning was often reciprocal, as children guided faiaoga in their use of the technology, an experience that helped grow the confidence of both teachers and children. Family engagement, already strong, increased further as the new technologies enabled parents and other family members a deeper and more immediate insight into their children’s learning at A’oga Fa’a Samoa.
The inquiry story
Faiaoga at A‘oga Fa‘a Samoa enable continuity and a family-like atmosphere for children by working with small groups of children as they transition through early childhood education. In the first year, the project focused on two groups of children in the ‘Over Twos’ area, along with their families. When the older group transitioned to the school’s bilingual unit, a new group of children and families was included.
The inquiry team used a Samoan research framework that it was familiar with from previous research projects (Podmore, et al., 2006) and included a parent with specialist expertise in digital technology.
What was the focus?
The project team identified digital technology as an opportunity to extend language learning across its community of learners at the centre and into the children’s homes. The team asked four questions:
- How can digital technology be applied in an ECE immersion environment to enable greater Samoan language learning opportunities for the children and to drive improved productivity for the staff?
- How can the use of digital technologies (audio and video) be used to improve the learning of second language students?
- How can the use of collaborative online environments increase the acquisition of second language learning in students by providing greater opportunities for exposure to the wider global community?
- How can we develop the skills of our students to develop and extend their vocabulary to communicate their ideas using images and video to tell stories in a collaborative way?
What did the teachers try?
The team introduced a range of new tools to their interactions with children. Often, these enabled them to co-create new language learning resources with the children. Simultaneously, they explored the deliberate acts of teaching needed to make best use of digital technology.
The deliberate acts of teaching the teachers focused on built upon those they already knew foster active learning, including language learning. They are acts that happen in a planned response and in moment-by-moment interactions with children. They include:
- extending talk and vocabulary through using open questions
- encouraging children to ask their own questions
- listening to and building upon children’s thoughts and interests
- using sources such as YouTube to follow up children’s interests and find new words to explain what will happen (such as when learning about butterflies)
- modelling language by deliberately introducing new words and using correct grammar
- fostering conversations between children
- encouraging children to try new words and speak in complete sentences
- offering children positive and informative feedback.
The new digital tools were used in a variety of ways. They include the following:
- The team used Seesaw to foster learning links between them, the children, and parents and families. Seesaw has a translation function. Faiaoga wrote comments in Samoan, used the app to translate them into English for family members who could not read Samoan, and then checked that the translations were accurate. They uploaded photos, audio, video, and examples of children’s work. Teachers and children shared holiday photos.
- The team introduced iPads with a range of apps. Children were encouraged to investigate the apps, talking with each other as they did so. The apps include a keyboard that children could use to write their own names. They drew pictures on the screen and talked about the stories in their pictures.
- The team learned to use Book Creator to make digital stories for and with the children.
- The team used Quick Response (QR) codes to share examples of activities and resources with each other and with a wider audience.
What happened as a result of this innovation?
The teachers coded observations of their interactions with children to understand their own progress and its impact on children. The coding took into account the deliberate acts of teaching they were trying to develop and the impact they were seeking on children’s language, cultural capabilities, and learning dispositions.
Overall, the team report that the project had helped them to become more deliberate in their teaching. It strengthened relationships, enhanced teaching and learning, built confidence, and helped extend the children’s learning of gagana Samoa.
More specific examples of impact include the following:
- Children became increasingly confident in using new technologies, and less inclined to ask for help.
- Children gained oral language skills as they engaged in conversation. They used more complete sentences, their vocabulary was enriched, and some actually created new words.
- Children developed greater confidence in expressing their thoughts and feelings and asking questions.
- Children learned to use digital tools to express themselves. They gained in literacy skills, such as the ability to write their own names. They could recognise the icons on the apps and give their Samoan names.
- Children used Seesaw to search for and re-visit their own work and to share it with their families.
- Using Seesaw to share holidays photos provided new words and extended children’s ideas about place.
- Children felt proud when they could hear recordings of them reading their stories and when the work they created was shared with other children and their families.
- Along with the children, the teachers found the digital tools a valuable way to create Samoan resources for use and reuse, at home and at A’oga Fa’a Samoa. These included books and recordings of songs. Together, they created a digital library.
- One teacher was amazed when a child learned all the words to a new song in just one night. The teacher had video recorded the song, written the words, and shared it on her Seesaw profile. The child had played the song on her mother’s phone, and both she and her mother had learned to sing it. Both mother and child learned new Samoan words.
- The QR codes were effective in helping teachers capture digital evidence of their changing practice.
- The ability to use videos and digital books to capture children’s learning supports assessment for learning by making learning more visible.
- Continuous communication strengthened relationships between teachers and parents. Family members, even those far away, were able to see what was happening for their children at A’oga, and even take part. Parents and grandparents said how much they valued this.
What did they learn?
Samoan is a precious heritage language. It is also the language of their future. By embracing the affordances of digital technologies, the project team found that children’s cultural knowledge and linguistic prowess could be strengthened. At the same time, extended families had new opportunities to partner in the task of growing children who are strong in their Samoan identity and have the strengths and skills of proud bilingual learners.
Inquiry team
The project team was led by Janice Taouma and included Ene Tapusoa, Shahranee Fa’avae, Ashley Stanley and Duane Stanley, a member of the Board of Trustees with expertise in digital technology and several faiaoga.
Expert support was provided by:
- Dr Patisepa Tuafuti (Tuafuti Services)
- Viv Hall (CORE Education)
- Dr Rae Si‘ilata (Va‘atele Education Consulting)
For further information
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact the project leader, Janice Taouma, at jan.aogafaasamoa@gmail.com
Reference list
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Te Kete Ipurangi: Digital technologies and the national curriculum http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Curriculum-learning-areas/Digital-Technologies-in-the-curriculum
Podmore V., with Wendt Samu, T., and the A’oga Fa’a Samoa. (2006). O le tama ma lana a’oga, o le tama ma lona fa’asinomaga – nurturing positive identity in children. Final research report from the A’oga Fa’a Samoa Centre of Innovation project. Ministry of Education. Retrieved from www.educationcounts.govt. nz/publications/ece/22551/22555.
Tuafuti, P., & McCaffery, J. (2005). Family and community empowerment through bilingual education. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 8, (5), 1–24.
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