Policy Guidance on Emergent Bilinguals receives favourable response from Government Minster
We were delighted to receive a response to the guidance note that we wrote to inform incoming government minsters and other leaders following the 2017 election. The Hon Kelvin Davis replied indicating that our research will inform government policy and practice saying, “I have passed your guidance note onto Ministry officials to refer to as part of the Ministry's wider work on language policy development.”
Previously in 2017 the project has also informed curriculum revisions to Te Whāriki, the curriculum for Early Childhood, and the introduction of the Digital Technologies Hangarau Matihiko (DT/HM) curriculum cautioning against the introduction of Computational Thinking earlier than Year 2.
This is our Recommendation/Kupu whakatau
Our overarching recommendation is to align government, education and community policies (formal and informal) so as to give all 4-6 year old children a better start by taking advantage of the linguistic superdiversity of Aotearoa New Zealand. In order to leverage this cultural and linguistic capital, the construction of guidance at multiple levels is required. There is already widespread support for such guidance[i].
Guidance should,
be informed by research
be co-constructed with educators, multilingual families/whānau and language communities
promote and value te reo Māori and NZ sign language as our official languages
include a range of effective language policies, resources and professional learning at national, regional, local and organisational levels
expand research, such as that underway within the National Science Challenge A Better Start, E Tipu e Rea, which is guided by Vision Mātauranga.
[i] Ministry of Education (2013). Pasifika education plan 2013-2017, Wellington, Ministry of Education; see also Asia New Zealand Foundation (2017). Starting strong: Nurturing the potential of our Asian under-fives, http://www.asianz.org.nz/reports/report/starting-strong-nurturing-the-potential-of-our-asian-under-fives/starting-strong-nurturing-the-potential-of-our-asian-under-fives/.
