Love of language puts academic on path of success

Love of language and culture puts academic on path of success

Dr Rae Si‘ilata (Ngati Raukawa, Tuhourangi, Fiji) was already a successful teacher and facilitator, but in 2010 she was prompted to embark on a PhD. She did, and the results have been outstanding.

Rae graduated with a PhD from the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education at a ceremony on Monday. Her PhD, titled: “Va‘a Tele: Pasifika learners riding the success wave on linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogies” was one of just five to be awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis in 2014.

She credits her success to the faithfulness of God, the encouragement of her whanau, and the exceptional support of her supervisors, Professors Judy Parr and Helen Timperley.

“Helen and Judy provided excellent guidance and shared their time and expertise so generously with me,” Rae says.

“I am delighted that the judging panel endorsed the significance of the research through this award as an acknowledgement not only of my work, but also of theirs. Even more significant is the university’s recognition of the importance of Pacific knowledge within English-medium schooling.”

Rae’s interest in Maori and Pasifika education began in childhood. Her Maori father and Fijian mother taught her to value and nurture her cultural identity. Her family were members of ‘Mawai Hakona’, a kapa haka group in Upper Hutt, during the beginnings of the urban marae movement.

“They taught us to know who we were, to be proud of and to celebrate our cultural heritage and identity before it was cool to do so. They were ahead of their time.”

“I was always interested in language and culture, and I wanted to be a teacher to make a difference to the way schools catered for Maori and Pasifika learners.”

She went to Wellington Teachers College and taught in schools in Porirua and the Manawatu. It was the 1980s, prior to ‘self managing’ schools and Kura Kaupapa Maori.

“It was quite an interesting and innovative time to be embarking on a teaching career in Aotearoa, with a focus on creativity, language experience, and integration of Te Reo Maori across the curriculum.”

She moved to Samoa with her family in 1989, and in 1993 pioneered the establishment of a thriving school in Apia.

When the family moved back to Auckland in 1998, she taught in Mangere while also undertaking a Graduate Diploma of TESSOL and a Bachelor of Education upgrade at the University of Auckland. Not content to stop there, she then completed an MA in Language Teaching. She went on to teach in the Dip TESSOL and to direct a Ministry of Education professional development project for teachers and teacher aides of Pasifika learners.

Her study allowed her to address the barriers to Maori and Pacific achievement at school. Her thesis tells the story of Pasifika learner success through stories of teacher effectiveness, teacher improvement and reciprocal community/school partnerships by bringing together principles of effective practice from literacy, ESOL and bilingual fields.

“I’ve always believed we need systemic support for bilingual/immersion education, while also creating better outcomes for Maori and Pasifika learners in English-medium education, as that’s where many of them are.

“Traditionally we have tended to promote only one-way partnerships between schools and communities. Alternatively schools need to ask communities about the valued knowledge and literacy practices of home and to think about how to utilise these in meaningful ways at school.

“Often the system doesn’t always recognise or validate the linguistic, family and cultural knowledge that our tamariki are coming with.”

Rae says one example is how teachers might assume that parents need to be told about the value of reading to their children, not realising that Pacific families might also have existing literacy practices such as oral storytelling, recitation and song that can be used in meaningful ways at school.

In her thesis Rae uses the metaphor of the va‘a tele or double-hulled deep sea canoe as an analogy for the journey undertaken by Pasifika children as they navigate their way through schooling. One hull is said to represent the valued knowledge of school, and the other: the valued knowledge of home. Pasifika children need both to be successful, and teachers need be able to support children to make connections between the worlds of both home and school.

On completing her PhD, Rae directed another Ministry of Education pilot project focused on the design and utilisation of dual language Pasifika texts within primary schools. She has recently been appointed as a lecturer in biliteracy at the Faculty of Education.

ends

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