Just south of New Plymouth, 15 minutes down Surf Highway 45 you'll find Oākura School. Just shy of 400 students and catering from Years 1to 8, the school offers its senior students the choice of three languages. One of these is Mandarin with Lisa Wang, our Mandarin eTeacher. I called into the school and talked with students, their classroom teach Jay Smith, and the deputy principal Natasha Jackson who introduced Oākura School to VLN Primary nearly a decade ago.  

Ko Natasha Jackson tōku ingoa and we're here at Oākura School, beneath Taranaki maunga in the village of Oākura beside Oākura Matapu, that's our awa and we’re a coastal school, a beach village school, with a really tight community.

Mixed groups to whole class learning

Tash started off with VLN Primary in reciprocity model at Thorndon School in Wellington. She taught Japanese online for half an hour a week and students accessed language classes online for free. Part of the agreement when she accepted the position of Deputy Principal was bringing VLN Primary with her.  At first they chose the model where small groups of students were learning different languages. Over time the mixed group model became a little challenging as numbers in year 7 and 8 grew, and the school wanted to offer elearning of a language to more students, to engage more students. For the last three or four years a whole class at Oākura learns Mandarin with VLNP online.  

Part of our model here [at Oākura] is that every year 7 and 8 student learns, on top of their te reo Māori, a third language a week (Natasha Jackson, Deputy Principal at Oākura School)

The decision to select which language was through a survey and Mandarin was the one students most felt they were interested in. And again, at the moment it's one of the future focused languages for our students to be making Asia Pacific connections and all that sort of thing.

Digital and independent

You get to use Google Classroom and it tells you what you need to do there. It’s like a checklist. And Lisa’s really nice and she explains everything really well - Darcy, student.

All of the students have access to the GSuite so the tools for elearning are integrated into their everyday learning. 

Getting on to Zoom over the few years has made it much more accessible, easier. It’s a tool that we all learn and know how to use now. 

You can also choose things, like, choose things to work on. A bunch of different things. There’s a lot of flexibility. It’s not like do this ‘right now’ it’s flexible - Freya and Pearl, students

During lockdown Oākura continued Mandarin sessions with Lisa, maintaining a degree of structure for students. "We knew that’s what our tamariki loved and it's one of the things we worked really hard on", comments Natasha.

Becoming a part of the strategic plan

Oākura have a model of elearning that works for them and students really love learning a second language and culture.  

When I stopped teaching and we started paying for it it’s just become part of our budget and strategic plan because we do really value it. - Natasha Jackson, Deputy Principal, Oākura School

The students enjoy the learning, it opens their minds to different cultures, provides rich learning and future focused skills. Natasha fosters the ideas within seniors students that even if you’re not going to take the language any further, you’re exercising your brain, you’re opening your mind and making connections between your culture and another culture and that helps you understand yourself.