"Te Whariki" promotes the use of te reo rangatira in English-medium early childhood education (ECE) settings. There is a growing body of work concerning the use of pukapuka pikitia (picturebooks) to support language learning, but there is very little, if any, research documenting how pukapuka pikitia can support te reo rangatira. This…

Although Chinese has become one of the most influential second/foreign languages in the world, teaching Chinese as a foreign/second language (CSL/CFL) abroad faces great challenges. M-learning and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) display great advantages to facilitate second language learning, including CSL/CFL. However, most research was…

It is essential that teachers are prepared to teach te reo Maori speaking children so that Maori tamariki enjoy equal and equitable opportunities to succeed as Maori (Education & Training Act, 2020). This article draws on research undertaken for my master's degree which investigated teacher preparedness to teach te reo Maori speaking children…

This study examined young learners' motivation and strategy use for Chinese-as-a-foreign-language (L2 Chinese) learning in New Zealand. A total of 1157 primary school students from 29 primary schools were recruited for the study. The results revealed that primary school young learners' overall motivation and strategy use for L2 Chinese learning…

This article provides an overview and critical analysis of "The English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP)" (Ministry of Education, 2008). Identifying main themes through critical policy analysis, this review seeks to place "ELLP" in context through a comparison with "The English Language Learning Framework: Draft"…

The interactional role of language use in the mathematics classroom is explored in the last few decades. This paper adds to the knowledge base by exploring different ways of talking that children and their teacher use in a New Zealand primary geometry English-medium classroom. Bakhtin's concept of speech genres is used for an analysing transcript…

Despite increased emphasis on the role of inclusive practices and materials in post-COVID-19 classrooms and warnings about implicit biases against disadvantaged groups, the textbook problem has rarely been approached with equity measures in mind. This multimethod study aimed to investigate to what extent L2 reading materials, locally produced and…

Classroom conversation between students is complex and used for multiple reasons every day. Student dialogue also allows teachers insight into student's learning. This article presents findings from a qualitative study that used dialogism, a branch of sociocultural theory, to investigate in depth student to student (inter-student) questioning…

Intercultural capability, or the ability to relate comfortably with people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, is increasingly recognised as a key twenty-first century competency. The importance of its development in the context of learning a language has long been acknowledged in the literature. However, practitioners worldwide…

The present study investigates the connections between macro-language policies, access to resources, classroom micro-policies, and teacher identities of three Pakeha ('New Zealand European') primary school teachers at three New Zealand schools. As New Zealand educators are increasingly expected to incorporate te reo into the classroom, this…

We examined the concurrent validity of the Preschool Early Literacy Indicators (PELI®) with 105 New Zealand (NZ) five-year-old children entering primary school. PELI® incorporates oral language and emergent literacy tasks into a picture-book that is administered as a shared adult-child read-aloud activity. In this study, PELI® administration and…

This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a study carried out in two English-medium primary (elementary) schools (years 1-6) located in the Otago-Southland regions between 2014 and 2015. The purpose of the study aimed to explore the educational aspirations whanau Maori (i.e., Maori family) want for their children, and to build better…

Developing students' intercultural capability is now an expectation within language programmes in New Zealand schools. This is a challenge, particularly as intercultural capability is still a new concept for many teachers. Drawing on data from a two-year project, this paper foregrounds student voices to reveal how beginner learners experienced…

Maori and Pacific learners in Aotearoa New Zealand have been identified as 'priority learners' by the Ministry of Education. The 'Pacific picturebook project' is ongoing research focussed on picturebooks selected to support the languages, cultures, and identities of Pacific learners in keeping with our government, Teaching Council and Ministry of…

This paper explores three multilingual students' (9 to 11-years-old) conceptual understanding of three-dimensional (3D) shapes as displayed through peer and classroom interactions in two New Zealand primary classes. Bakhtin's dialogic theory and Garfinkel's ethnomethodology inform the theoretical framework. The paper presents two excerpts from…