Dr Bec Neill, UniSA

Project Leader Professor Pauline Harris, University of South Australia (UniSA)

Project Officer Dr Bec Neill, UniSA

Project Consultant Dr Anne Glover, UniSA

Project's ResearchersProf Pauline Harris, Dr Elspeth McInnes, Dr Jenni Carter, Alexandra Diamond, Dr Bec Neill, Dr Cindy Brock

Project PartnersUfemia Camaitoga, Early Childhood ConsultantNational Council of Women Fiji - Key contact: Fay Volatabu

In-Country RA (Academic) Mere Krishna (formerly Fulori Turaga) Project MentorsSE ; ML ; RM & MJ

In-Country RA (Professional Support) Fifita Vuloaloa

Project’s External Reference GroupFiji Early Childhood Teachers Association National Council of Women Fiji Save the Children Fiji UNICEF Pacific Fiji Ministry of EducationFiji National University University of the South Pacific EC Consultants Adi Davila Toganivalu & Mrs Vasu TuivagaEC Consultants Adi Davila Toganivalu & Mrs Vasu Tuivaga

To develop …

• Shared understandings

• Local capacity

• Sustainable communityapproaches

… for fostering young children’slanguage and literacy in theirhome languages and English

• Critical participatory action research (Kemmis et al, 2014)• Co-Investigators• Dialogic encounters - talanoa

• Shared language in shared context• Developing practices from within traditions that shape them • Holistic• Children’s settings • Multiple pathways • Children’s voices and agency

Multiple pathways Children’s voices and agency

Reviewing key curriculum (eg, Na Noda Mataniciva

Interviews with EC

stakeholders

Case studies in Fiji

communities

•

••••••

Talanoa is a generic terms referring to a conversation, chat, sharing of ideas and talking with someone …

Talanoa is also used for different purposes: to teach a skill, to share ideas, to preach, to resolve problems, to build and maintain relationships, and to gather information.

As talanoa is context-specific, the language and behaviour used in talanoa can change with the context and the people who are involved in it.

But most importantly, talanoa is a skill, with associated knowledge about usage, form and purposes. The skill of the talanoa is embedded in the values and the behaviour that are associated with the talanoa, and it is the context of the particular talanoa that determines the appropriate behaviours and values for it.’

From: Johansson Fua (2014) Kakalaresearch framework. In ‘Otunuki, M, Nabobo-Baba, U. & Johansson Fua(Eds)Of waves, winds and wonderful

things: A dedcade of Rethinking Pacific education, p. 56. USP Press,

Suva.

Weaving meaning across points of happenstance and insight in talanoa …... Like wheelbarrow …

Objects - how they are labelled –what they signify in cultural settings

Meaningful Engagement

Many Languages

Agency

InclusionTrustworthy

Documentation

Talanoa as authentic dialogue for praxis is enacted through …

Deep Visible Listening

Appropriateness Natural Setting

ConsequenceInclusion Documentation Consequence

Meaningful Engagement

Many Languages

Agency

InclusionTrustworthy

Documentation

Deep Visible Listening

Appropriateness Natural Setting

Consequence

Meaningful

RELATIONSHIP

Talanoa as authentic dialogue for praxis is enacted through …

… reading, recording, talkingabout the environment …

Methodist Youth helping Melicreate his alphabet chart

Jone teaching Arietahow he created his alphabet chart

Maria reading her bookto her mother

Kuini showing her family her book & alphabet chart

create create hishis alphabet chart alphabet chart

• ADD IMAGES OF PUSSYLEVU etc and edit andlay out this slide

‘Back to these first words … They must be made out of the stuff of the child itself.

‘I reach a hand into the mind of the child, bring out a handful of the stuff I find there, and use that as our first working material …

‘And in this dynamic material, within the familiarity and security of it, the [child] finds that words have intense meaning to him.’

• Curriculum: Na Noda Mataniciva– pride; mandatory; initial PDsupport that was not sustained, therefore uneven and not widespread implementation

• Pacific Guidelines

• Suva Declaration 2005

• Educating the Child

• United Nations Convention onthe Rights of the Child

• Free schooling

• Literacy and numeracystandards and testing –concerns with standards

•Western imports• Skills focus• English•Cultural relevance?• Place of vernacular languages?

• Barriers and opportunities• Disparate viewpoints:

• Complexities of children learning languages and literacies invernaculars and English vis-a-vis spoken/written connections., as seen incommunity data sets

Prize local vernaculars Lament loss Resent erosion Resigned to inevitability

Advocate preservation – cultural identity &relations

Embrace many languages - global

Observe ostracism from not speakingvernaculars

Experience ridicule from speaking broken English

Words are raw materials with which we weave our meaning, children and adults alike. And is through weaving meaning, in dialogue with one another and their world, that children come to learn about words and what they signify and how words enable children to name, reflect and act on their worlds. Children learn what and how it means to be literate people in a complex world of meaning and wonder.

It is in how we develop and present our literacy programs, and how we engage with and respond to children and their voices, that children also learn what it means to be valued active citizens contributing to society.