Mālō e lelei!

Tongan Language Week / Uike Kātoanga’i ‘o e Lea Faka-Tonga takes place in 2017 from 3 to 9 September.

At the time of the 2013 census, there were over 60 000 New Zealanders who identified as Tongan. Currently, there are more Tongan people born in New Zealand than there are in Tonga, giving lea faka-Tonga (the Tonga language) and anga faka-Tonga (Tonga culture) a special place here. Tongan Language Week / Uike Kātoanga’i ‘o e lea faka-Tonga gives students of all ethnicities the chance to learn some basic lea faka-Tonga, and gives students who speak lea faka-Tonga the chance to be experts in the classroom.

Today we were lucky enough to have our sisters from Villa Maria College come to our assembly and sing for us. Our boys performed a great dance. After we all went to Middlepark Resthome to perform. One of the ladies there was taken right back to when she was at Villa Maria. One of the gentlemen asked where St Thomas had been hiding the girls because he had never seen any walking down the driveway before!

An excellent start to Tongan Language Week.

Links to The New Zealand Curriculum

Tongan Language Week / Uike Kātoanga’i ‘o e lea faka-Tonga supports the curriculum principles of cultural diversity and inclusion, and provides an opportunity for students to:

• demonstrate the vision of connection to a global community
• explore the values of diversity, community, and respect
• achieve learning outcomes described in the learning languages area
• make use of key competencies, especially using language, symbols, and texts, and relating to others.

Cheers ... Brendan Biggs