TransAcquisition Pedagogy: Biliterate Teaching of Academic English in Māori-Immersion Schools of Aotearoa/New Zealand

• In Event: Pedagogies of Hope: New Trends in Bilingual Education

Abstract

1. Purpose
In this presentation, I draw on my doctoral research (Author, 2016) to describe the theoretical framework and the tasking procedures of TransAcquisition Pedagogy (TAP) for cross-linguistic transfer. TAP was theorised and its effectiveness assessed in the biliterate teaching of academic English in New Zealand’s kura kaupapa Māori immersion schools (kura). In kura, English instruction is restricted and in some cases excluded altogether (Hill and May, 2014, p. 161).

2. Theoretical framework
The three sequential phases of TAP use transacquisitional tasking where each consecutive stage of the tasking process builds on the linguistic and cognitive function of the preceding stage to accelerate bilingual and biliterate development. Transacquisitional tasking maximises Rata’s (2015) idea of conceptual progression to ensure that concepts are taught explicitly in an ordered, sequential way. This recognises Vygotsky’s (1962) claim that concept formation is “always part of a system of relationships, systematically built up over time to form hierarchical knowledge” (cited in Howe, 1996, p. 38). TAP actively teaches for two-way transfer of concepts, skills, and metalinguistic awareness across languages.

3. Methods and Data Sources
Qualitative and quantitative data was collected during an eight-week intervention with 24 Year 7 and 8 students in two kura. Reading running records were used as the standardised pre- and post-intervention assessment tool to compare achievement rates over the intervention period and to similarly abled English-medium students who formed a comparison group. The comparative findings will be presented to show how TAP prompted productive contact between the two languages to accelerate literacy development in English while enhancing the students’ pre-existing literacy in Māori.

4. Results
This research provides strong empirical support for a pedagogical framework based on bringing the bilingual student’s two languages into productive contact with each other. The findings show that the kura students’ academic language, academic understanding, and reading comprehension in English improved significantly as a result of the TAP intervention programme. The magnitude of the improvement was large and the rate of improvement very fast, well beyond what would be expected among similarly-abled English-medium students.

5. Conclusions
TAP provides opportunities for bilingual learners to behave as ‘language users’ to interpret, express and negotiate meaning in both their languages. TAP helps them to focus attention on meaning and on the symbols (i.e., words) to unlock the meaning to increase their conceptual understanding.

6. Scholarly Significance
TAP uses the entangled roots of kahikatea trees as a metaphor to depict the bilingual learner’s Interrelational Translingual Network (ITN). This expands on Cummins’ (1978) iceberg analogy of the language interdependence principle. The ITN is an evolving organic web of complex interconnected linguistic and conceptual interrelationships. It grows when the bilingual learner engages in cross-linguistic analysis to integrate new knowledge with prior knowledge for increased conceptual understanding. TAP uses the ITN concept to pedagogically operationalise Cummins’ (1984) Common Underlying Proficiency model in the biliterate teaching of academic knowledge. In New Zealand and elsewhere, TAP has the potential to radically re-align the current pedagogical approaches of emergent bilingual learners in public education to ensure that they and their families enjoy more equitable and inclusive educational outcomes.

Author

• Sophie Tauwehe Tamati, University of Auckland