Abstract
The purpose of the chapter is to articulate a cultural practice of Ako. Pedagogically, Ako underpins a Maori, Tongan, and Samoan way of teaching and learning through diverse languages and cultures in the English Language Teaching Unit (ELTU) and Po Ako at Mt Roskill Grammar School, Auckland city. In Aotearoa, New Zealand, since the 1970s, parents’ interest in schooling and education for their children through their own language and culture has surged. This article studies what insights and practices are revealed for this surge through the experiences of a community of Ako that supports diverse language and cultural schooling. The insights and practices are tentative and, consequently open to critique, but these are the experiences and practices that made a difference for the better for the community of teachers—Indigenous Maori and Indigenous migrants from Samoa and the Kingdom of Tonga—and the migrant students; 1987 to 1995.
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Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the contribution and involvement of Dr. Linita Man’atu to the field of Indigenous and Migrant Education, the ELTU and the Po Ako. I acknowledge the contribution and involvement of the late Kathy Yuen, and Vavao Fetui, Ross Currie, Beverly Voisin, and Janet Clarke in the education and research undertaken in the English Language Unit.
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Kepa, M. (2019). A Community of Ako, 1987–1995: Teaching and Learning in the ELTU and Po Ako, Auckland, Aotearoa NZ. In: Kortekangas, O., Keskitalo, P., Nyyssönen, J., Kotljarchuk, A., Paksuniemi, M., Sjögren, D. (eds) Sámi Educational History in a Comparative International Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24112-4_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24112-4_16
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