Learn Maori Via Ipod

Once you get to school, you generally have to stash your iPod. But that may change, as students learning Maori could soon be using their iPods to brush up their Te Reo Maori when they have a spare moment.

AUT teacher Associate Professor Pare Keiha, who helped develop the technology, says the idea is to make learning Maori more appealing to the Bebo generation. “It makes it more mobile,” he says. “It’s sort of sexy.”

AUT students will soon be able to download their homework as a podcast; watch animated episodes of Te Whanake, the popular Maori language series, online; and submit their homework online, too (an option that’s also going to make it much harder to ‘forget’ your homework).

School students can also dip into this new style of Maori language learning. Animated movies and language exercises — which give students instant spoken feedback — are available online at the Te Whanake website for free. If you’d like to do the AUT course later on, that’s free, too. It’s also taught in a marae setting.

Pare says the podcasts free people from the tyranny of tapes and having “to physically go to language labs, stop, press ‘record’, do it all over, find the right place …”

Other podcasts are also planned.  These will draw on a Maori television series presently in production.

The iPod learning project was developed over three years with help from New Zealand company Renaissance. Also included is an online dictionary, and audio files will be able to be attached in the future to help with correct pronunciation. Images could also be added, to further illustrate meaning.

The dictionary is already proving popular, with over 20,000 visits a month.

Other languages, such as French and Italian, are already available as podcasts, but Maori is the first indigenous language to be made available via mp3. Pare hopes this will lead the way for other such languages to be made available in this easy-learning format. He thinks it could also help other indigenous peoples retain their languages.

If you would like more information, you can contact AUT on: 0800 AUT UNI (09-288 864), or go to AUT’s website: www.autuni.ac.nz   Te Whanake can be found at www.tewhanake.maori.nz