Samoan language going global...

 Recently I've heard/read some comments on Facebook and individuals regarding some Samoan people not being happy about Samoan language being attested for NCEA National Certificate in Education Achievement or for NZQA New Zealand Qualifications Authority levels.

I think their positions are rather short sighted and not future thinking. MIT Manukau Institute of Technology is currently gathering data through on online survey to garner the interest in Samoan language being taught and assessed through their various levels for the Auckland community. There are some Samoans who think that this is a bad idea and that Samoans should return to Samoa to learn the language in an authentic situation which does make sense to me if we lived in an ideal world where that was possible for all.

However, we don't live in an idea world and there are many young people as well as adults who are ashamed and wished that they had learnt the Samoan language growing up but due to not living in Samoa or having access to travelling too and from NZ then that has not been an option for them. Also through colonisation (which is still happening today) some parents didn't even want to teach their children the language so that as a result through no fault of their own, children do not know how to speak the language and in some families it was only the  great/grandparents who can speak Samoan.

All the international languages that are taught in school eg. French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and also Samoan can continued to be studied at the University level. I remember many years ago in working with teachers of the Samoan language, the fight that they had on their hands to firstly get the language onto the curriculum framework and now we have large numbers of young Samoans learning and conversing in Samoan because they had the opportunity to learn it at school.

We only have to look at the example of Te reo (Maori language) in NZ to see that if we don't keep our younger generation learning the language as a child and throughout school that if a generation loses the language in it will continue through the generations until someone picks it up to learn it. As a result, Maori is taught in many places, through Marae courses, the Wananga, now through Kura (Maori Medium schools) at Early childhood centres etc. everywhere where there are Maori wanting to learn then opportunities are set up for them.

We need to take a page from their history and instead of having a meltdown because people aren't returning to Samoa to learn the language (although they possibly will be more inclined to visit having learnt the language) that we support whatever opportunities there are for our children to learn this amazing language and the knowledge that our ancestors passed on to us.

I, for one, will be endorsing and supporting any opportunity that our children and adults have to learn Samoan and I'll probably take up one of the courses to continue to grow in my heritage language, my first language because I may have degrees in English but my Samoan language is not reflected in my qualifications and maybe I need to go back to school/ing to learn this...