Lack of resources in ml
Jan 8, 2015 11:20:57 GMT 9
Post by Martyna on Jan 8, 2015 11:20:57 GMT 9
Our minority language is a real minority here in New Zealand as well as back in the Cook Islands. As a result there aren't many resources in our ml in New Zealand or in the Cooks. Teachers in the Cooks end up having to create their own books as there are just not enough available.
How do others acquire resources/books for your minority languages when there aren't many ml books available in your home country or a rather pathetic selection available in your country of residence?
Adam's post on What to Do When It's Hard to Find Children's Books in Your Minority Language has been a great start for me but I still yearn to be able to have as many ml books & resources available as ML ones. I'm a teacher, books are quite a passion for me.
This is what I've done so far:
- acquired about 40 books from the NZ Ministry of Education for free through my work. (Schools in New Zealand can get around 20-30 copies of each book for free each year and they are unlikely to be used as it's such a minority here, but the Cook Islands schools have to pay for them. Not fair!!) These aren't in our dialect but close enough.
- bought an alphabet, colour and numbers poster from the one and only supplier in New Zealand.
- found a YouTube channel that has children's stories in Tahitian. Tahitian is practically identical to our dialect of ml. Hooray!
- started learning the ml so that once we have kids, we can speak ml at home.
- started getting my man to translate some basic English books into his dialect. Once I'm more proficient I'll be able to do this too.
- Pulled out my wordless picture books and some picture dictionaries from my teaching resources
- Recorded my man reading some of the books we got and made them into little movie type things with pictures from the book (so time consuming but will be worth it...)
What we plan to do:
- write our own books in ml based on experiences we had as children (eg. The time when my man and his brother had a race up a coconut tree but brother fell down and broke his jaw)
- the next time we go to the Cooks I'm going to ask the Aunty who works at the Ministry of Education to kindly gift me some of the ml books they have made themselves.
- put some Cook Islands music and recorded stories on CDs for the car/home
- track down some children's books in Tahitian.
How do others acquire resources/books for your minority languages when there aren't many ml books available in your home country or a rather pathetic selection available in your country of residence?
If you write your own books, how do you go about doing this? Are there any good websites that you use to do this?
How do others acquire resources/books for your minority languages when there aren't many ml books available in your home country or a rather pathetic selection available in your country of residence?
Adam's post on What to Do When It's Hard to Find Children's Books in Your Minority Language has been a great start for me but I still yearn to be able to have as many ml books & resources available as ML ones. I'm a teacher, books are quite a passion for me.
This is what I've done so far:
- acquired about 40 books from the NZ Ministry of Education for free through my work. (Schools in New Zealand can get around 20-30 copies of each book for free each year and they are unlikely to be used as it's such a minority here, but the Cook Islands schools have to pay for them. Not fair!!) These aren't in our dialect but close enough.
- bought an alphabet, colour and numbers poster from the one and only supplier in New Zealand.
- found a YouTube channel that has children's stories in Tahitian. Tahitian is practically identical to our dialect of ml. Hooray!
- started learning the ml so that once we have kids, we can speak ml at home.
- started getting my man to translate some basic English books into his dialect. Once I'm more proficient I'll be able to do this too.
- Pulled out my wordless picture books and some picture dictionaries from my teaching resources
- Recorded my man reading some of the books we got and made them into little movie type things with pictures from the book (so time consuming but will be worth it...)
What we plan to do:
- write our own books in ml based on experiences we had as children (eg. The time when my man and his brother had a race up a coconut tree but brother fell down and broke his jaw)
- the next time we go to the Cooks I'm going to ask the Aunty who works at the Ministry of Education to kindly gift me some of the ml books they have made themselves.
- put some Cook Islands music and recorded stories on CDs for the car/home
- track down some children's books in Tahitian.
How do others acquire resources/books for your minority languages when there aren't many ml books available in your home country or a rather pathetic selection available in your country of residence?
If you write your own books, how do you go about doing this? Are there any good websites that you use to do this?
Very positive podcast review of my book Bilingual Success Stories Around the World at Kletsheads 
