Language learning using Pacific picturebooks in an Aotearoa New Zealand kindergarten

Abstract

Māori 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 Education expectations. This phase of the research was located in a kindergarten where teachers and children identify as Māori, Pākehā and from several Pacific Island nations. Teachers shared a selection of Pacific picturebooks with the children and recorded their own and the children’s responses to them over a kindergarten term. Thematic analysis of data showed that Pacific picturebooks were significant pedagogical tools for language learning, to support identity, and to contribute to the kindergarten’s emergent and localised curriculum. These findings clearly illustrate what pedagogy looks like when it is entrenched in key documents relevant to early learning in this country.