Te reo Māori researcher and lecturer Kelly Keane-Tuala (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, Rangitāne me Ngāpuhi) has embarked on a new qualification for each of her four children. The passionate te reo advocate lectures beginners’ te reo Māori in Te Kawa a Māui—School of Māori Studies at Te Herenga Waka, as well as running word-of-the-day service Kupu o te Rā and online te reo Māori provider Te Awa Māori.
Kelly was brought up in the Māori culture but didn’t learn the language as a child, due to intergenerational trauma caused by her nana being punished for speaking te reo. “My kuia Maata Hīrini was a staunch advocate of te reo Māori throughout her life and her taonga was passed through my nana and mother to me.
“While I was always passionate about te reo Māori, I had to go on my own journey to learn my language. Having my first son at 19 years old was my driver to go and sort out a career for myself, so I came to the University and did a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Te Reo Māori and Education.”
With the support of her husband and whānau, Kelly went on to complete a Graduate Diploma and Master of Arts in Linguistics from Te Herenga Waka and this year has embarked on her doctorate to investigate the pedagogy of teaching te reo Māori online.
Kelly was still on her own language-learning journey in 2005 when she and a whānau from Ngāi Tahu she was tutoring in te reo came up with the concept of Kupu o te Rā. “It was a real learning curve. We started with just the word, then had a lot of requests to go deeper. We went on to create different kupu [word] cycles, adding grammar and suggested sentence uses.”
She recalls celebrating 100 subscribers. Now the service has more than 30,000 active subscribers, thanks in part to social media making it easier to market the offering.
“With my PhD, I am looking at all the different access points for Māori learners and how we can strengthen these. I want to understand how we can sustain resilient kaupapa Māori ways of teaching te reo online and see what that looks like.”
While studying towards her Master’s, which examined homophones in te reo Māori, Kelly moved to Australia. She had been teaching te reo Māori at Te Herenga Waka and missed it so much she decided to begin Te Awa Māori, an early online course for te reo Māori.
“I emailed the subscribers to Kupu o te Rā and asked them who was interested in learning te reo Māori online, and dozens responded. At the time, we were one of few organisations offering online courses, and we quickly became very popular,” says Kelly.
“I love having a space where my passion can be free. I feel honoured to be a part of others’ learning journeys and to help them overcome their whakamā [embarrassment], to help them begin to understand their own language trauma or language anxiety by sharing my own lived experience.”
It was through the growth of online teaching and learning that Kelly realised how little was known about the pedagogies of teaching online from a kaupapa Māori experience, something that became clear during COVID-19. She was concerned she was missing the whakawhanaungatanga (relationship building) aspect of teaching when doing so online.
“With my PhD, I am looking at all the different access points for Māori learners and how we can strengthen these. I want to understand how we can sustain resilient kaupapa Māori ways of teaching te reo online and see what that looks like.”
Kelly is proud to be at the University as construction of the Living Pā begins and sees it as the fruition of the hope of kaumātua (Māori elders). “I think about them, how proud they would be. The waiata tautoko that is sung at Te Herenga Waka marae contains Ruka Broughton’s final instructions before he passed, one line of which is translated, ‘arise young men and women, raise the posts of your whare, Te Herenga Waka’. This is the continuation of our predecessors’ work.”