This newsletter and the Secondary Student Achievement Professional Learning and Development initiative is funded by the Ministry of Education. The providers are The University of Auckland and Te Tapuae o Rehua consortium.

National Newsletter: Learning LanguagesInformation and resources for middle leaders in secondary schools | Term 4 2013

We look forward to

Secondary Student Achievement Professional Learning and Development - National Newsletter

Tēnā koutou! 你好! 안녕하세요 Kia orana! Bonjour! Guten Tag!こんにちは。Salvete! Faka’alofa lahi atu! Talofa lava! ¡Buenos días! Malo e lelei! Taloha ni!

Professional learning and development opportunities continue this termThis term, we continue with workshops and regional clusters. These PLD opportunities are Ministry-funded and there are no registration costs for participants. See page two for details.

Details of the workshops including the venues and links for enrolment will be available shortly on the TKI Secondary Middle Leader portal: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Secondary-middle-leaders/Professional-learning-and-development

and on the Learning Languages PLD wiki: https://learninglanguagespld.wikispaces.com/

Please contact us if you have any queries. Our contact details are listed opposite.

Lea Faka-Tonga achievement standards and Pasifika successTakitaha tali hono vaha’a ngatae

This saying starts the section ‘Why Learn the Tongan Language?’ in Ko Fakahinohino ki he Lea Faka-Tonga, The Tongan Language Guidelines. It seeks to communicate that despite different language backgrounds, learners of Lea Faka-Tonga can succeed with support and guidance.

The Ministry of Education, with NZQA, is developing achievement standards for Lea Faka-Tonga supported by a group of Lea Faka-Tonga teachers who have been involved in trialling the standards and associated resources for NCEA Levels 1 and 2. These resources will be available for schools to use in their programmes in 2014, with Level 3 available in 2015 when Tongan will become an approved subject for University Entrance.

The development of the standards includes the provision of: assessment resources for Levels 1, 2, and 3 internally-assessed

standards conditions of assessment documents for the internally assessed

standards at all levels resources with examples of tasks for verification for the

externally assessed standards for Levels 1, 2, and 3 information about the verification processes for the externally

assessed standards

(Continued on next page ...)

assessment specifications for the externally assessed standards annotated samples of student work links to the Learning Languages Teaching and Learning Guides

at www.seniorsecondary.tki.org.nz/Learning-languages/Tongan links to Ko Fakahinohino ki he Lea Faka-Tonga at

www.pasifika.tki.org.nz/Pasifika-languages/Tongan

Lea Faka-Tonga achievement standards support the vision of the Pasifika Education Plan 2013 – 2017 which aims to ensure that all Pasifika learners can participate, engage, and achieve educational success, secure in their identities, languages and cultures. Achievement Standards give more equitable outcomes for learners, and students in Lea Faka-Tonga programmes will now be able to access quality language learning pathways.

Teachers involved in the trial report that their students challenged themselves in terms of their levels of thinking and effort in order to achieve with Merit and Excellence. Community, parent and student interest in learning Tongan has increased in anticipation of the

PLD: Northern/Central North regionsNational workshopsLeading to Success in LanguagesHamilton, TBCTauranga, 13 NovemberAuckland, 15 November Napier, 18 NovemberRotorua, 25 November

Regional workshopsCreativity and ICT in Learning LanguagesHamilton, TBCNapier, TBC

Regional clusters

National Co-ordinators Learning Languages

Northern and Central North regions

Dee Edwards Faculty of Education The University of Auckland T: 09 623 8899 ext. 48724 M: 027 588 0488 E: de.edwards@auckland.ac.nz https://learninglanguagespld.wikispaces.com/

Central South and Southern regions

Jo Guthrie Te Tapuae o Rehua University of Canterbury T: 03 367 0750 M: 027 483 5510E: Jo.guthrie@canterbury.ac.nz

Secondary Student Achievement Professional Learning and Development - National Newsletter

assessment specifications for the externally assessed standards annotated samples of student work links to the Learning Languages Teaching and Learning Guides

at www.seniorsecondary.tki.org.nz/Learning-languages/Tongan links to Ko Fakahinohino ki he Lea Faka-Tonga at

www.pasifika.tki.org.nz/Pasifika-languages/Tongan

Lea Faka-Tonga achievement standards support the vision of the Pasifika Education Plan 2013 – 2017 which aims to ensure that all Pasifika learners can participate, engage, and achieve educational success, secure in their identities, languages and cultures. Achievement Standards give more equitable outcomes for learners, and students in Lea Faka-Tonga programmes will now be able to access quality language learning pathways.

Teachers involved in the trial report that their students challenged themselves in terms of their levels of thinking and effort in order to achieve with Merit and Excellence. Community, parent and student interest in learning Tongan has increased in anticipation of the

PLD: Northern/Central North regionsNational workshopsLeading to Success in LanguagesHamilton, TBCTauranga, 13 NovemberAuckland, 15 November Napier, 18 NovemberRotorua, 25 November

Regional workshopsCreativity and ICT in Learning LanguagesHamilton, TBCNapier, TBC

Regional clusters

Skills and strategies: Methodologies for listening comprehensionResearch suggests that a number of strategies are important for effective listening, including predicting what the passage might be about (Goh, 1998), deciding to ‘listen out for’ certain words or phrases (O’Malley accuracy of interpretation (Young, 1996; Goh, 2002); and inferring the meaning of unknown words with the help of different clues (Goh, 2002).

Field (1998) calls for a rethinking of the purpose of the listening lesson and advocates that teachers take a strategic approach to listening with an emphasis on skills development rather than simply practising it. The recommendation is that that the skills are taught explicitly and singly. Strategies for practising listening skills are relatively easy to design and many involve some form of dictation, a widely-used technique for improving listening.

The strategies identified below can be used to address the following issues in listening and reading comprehension:

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Further information on comprehension strategies to scaffold students’ interactions with texts is available on TKI at

Latest ERO national report is useful for self-reviewERO publishes a number of national reports every year and these are available on their website. In August this year ERO released a report called Increasing educational achievement in secondary schools plus a two-page summary of this report. The summary has a list of self-review questions for schools. While some of these questions refer to school-wide systems and procedures, the majority are ideally suited to a department level review, e.g.

What processes do we have in place to identify and support students if they fall behind on NCEA assessments?

To what extent do the parents of our students understand the pathways and goals of their child?

These questions would form a very useful framework for department review in term 4 and framing goals and an action plan for 2014.

Student numbers per subjectEducation Counts is a Ministry of Education website where statistics and research reports relating to education can be found. The July school roll return provides data on student numbers by subject: The downloadable file Secondary School Subjects 2000-2012 allows you to track patterns of language learning in New Zealand over the last 13 years.

Achievement data more readily availablePublic Achievement Information (PAI)The PAI is a Ministry of Education project which represents key statistics from ECE to age 18 for each region. The Ministry hopes this data will act as a stimulus to improve the range and quality of information available to the sector at regional and national level – to parents and whanau, schools, boards, PLD providers, regional Ministry, national Ministry, government, tertiary providers, business, and stakeholders. The downloadable A3 pages present education data at national, regional and local level.

NZQA statisticshttp://www.nzqa.govt.nz/studying-in-new-zealand/secondary-school-and-ncea/secondary-school-statistics/

Most middle leaders will be very familiar with the NZQA statistics page and how to access information about their school and their subject results. If you haven’t done so, it is well worth taking the time to read the Annual Report on NCEA & New Zealand Scholarship Data & Statistics. This report includes a wide range of NCEA-related information for the previous year, along with comparative data from earlier years. This ranges from big-picture overviews of student achievement by gender, ethnicity and school decile, to information on certificate and course endorsements, scholarship, and administrative processes.

Regional FacilitatorsLearning Languages

Siliva GaugataoFaculty of EducationThe University of AucklandT: 09 623 8899 ext. 48134M: 027 555 4655E: s.gaugatao@auckland.ac.nzW: http://www.teamsolutions.ac.nz

Jeni LembergUC Education Plus Te Tapuae o Rehua ConsortiumUniversity of Canterbury DDI: 03 546 0587E: jeni.lemberg@canterbury.ac.nzEducation Plus Web Site Mau ki te ako website

Details about 2013 language weeksFijian Language Week 7-13 October

Niuean Language Week 13-19 October

Tokelauan Language Week 28 October – 3 November

For more information on Pacific Language Weeks visit the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs website and facebook page.

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