National Newsletter No 8 July, 2019
Tēnā koutou! 你好! 안녕하세요 Kia orana! Bonjour! Guten Tag! こんにちは。Salvete! Faka’alofa lahi atu! Talofa lava! Buenos días! Malo e lelei! Taloha ni!
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Welcome to the Term 3, 2019 NZALT newsletter, part of the Ministry of Education’s funding package under the Networks of Expertise.
If you are aware of language teachers who are not receiving this newsletter, please email coordinator@nzalt.org.nz
Focus of this newsletter:
- Networks of Expertise funding for Learning Languages 2019-2020: NZALT Awards – Exploring Effective Practice; Inquiry Clusters; Online webinars
- 2019 LangSems: Auckland and Victoria term 4
- 2019 NZALT Membership subscription
- NZALT AGM to be held at Victoria LangSem
- NZQA National Assessment Facilitator - Learning Languages
- 2020 NZALT National Conference: Friday 3 July - Monday 6 July 2020, Queen Margaret's College, Wellington
- National Events
- Useful Links: Future Learning Solutions; NZQA - material for Internal and External Achievement Standards
Networks of Expertise funding
This funding is enabling NZALT to support all Learning Languages teachers, including te reo Māori, Pasifika and NZSL. This support provides a newsletter every term and support for teachers to attend PLD and inquiry clusters as well as other initiatives such as the LangSems in 2019.
The Exploring Effective practice awards continue this term. To date, we have made awards to six teachers. They provide secondary teachers and primary teachers with up to $1,000 to explore effective teaching practice, for example, by visiting other schools with successful language learning programmes. There have been some changes to how the funding is paid to streamline our systems. Travel and relief will be paid for directly by NZALT and other expenses will be refunded on receipt of an invoice. Further information about the criteria for applications is on the Exploring Effective Practice Awards Application form. The deadline for term 3 applications is 12 August, 2019.
Inquiry Clusters
The NZALT Inquiry Clusters are continuing to run in Christchurch, South Canterbury and the Hutt Valley and final meetings will be held in term 4.
If you are interested in joining one of these clusters or would like a new cluster to be set up in your area, please contact Jeni Lemberg.
Online Webinars
NZALT is pleased to offer free online webinars for Learning Languages teachers that are tailored to your needs. These will be delivered via Zoom Web conferencing, for which you will not need an account to join.
The first webinar will be held on Wednesday 31 July from 3.30 pm till 5 pm. Our online PLD facilitator, Madlen Kunath, will contact those people who have already enrolled. This webinar will focus on student-centered learning and collaboration in a Learning Languages classroom. If you wish to enrol for this webinar or further webinars of your choice, please use the Google form link below.
Fill in this Google form to let us know what topics you would like for the webinars or to enrol for the webinar on Wednesday 31 July. Topics can range from the use of e-tools in the classroom to language teaching pedagogy.
The Google Site Integrating e-tools into the languages classroom gives an overview of a selection of e-tools, including vocabulary tools, tools to organise your online resources, Google Apps and more. The website is a work in progress and will be updated on a regular basis.
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the webinars or the website, please contact us at onlinepld@nzalt.org.nz
NCEA Review of Achievement Standards
As you are aware the review of NCEA Achievement Standards has started to take place with subject-specific groups. Two of four meetings have already been held and planning is underway for the next steps in the process. There will be advertisements in the Gazette for Subject experts later this year. These subject experts will draft the new Standards in 2020 which will then be trialled in 2021. Teachers will be asked for feedback four times between April and September 2020, so it is important that you do this. From September to December 2020 schools will be asked to trial the Standards in 2021.
NZALT will be offering specific online webinars to support teachers as the changes to the NCEA Achievement Standards start to take place.
2019 NZALT LangSems
Four very successful LangSems have been held so far this year in the Otago, Canterbury, Massey, and Waikato regions. It was superb to see so many language teachers giving up their Saturday to participate in an amazing variety of workshops.
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 Photos from the Massey LangSem at Woodford House. Our thanks to Karl Wixon for a superb keynote presentation on culturally responsive pedagogy in a languages classroom and to Sue Pommarede for hosting us.
Further LangSems will be held later in the year for the Auckland and Victoria regions.
2019 NZALT Membership Subscriptions
It is great to see how many of you have joined NZALT recently. Thank you for your cooperation with our new system. Please remember to pay the invoice which you will receive once you have signed up. Members of NZALT who attended the AGM at conference will be aware that we debated a new, individual membership fee structure to replace our existing multi-level structure. The idea was ratified at a special general meeting on 21st February, and our new member rate has been set at $50 (including GST) per member. In schools with more than 10 languages teachers, all teachers over 10 will be able to join at no extra cost. This replaces the former school membership.
If you want to become an NZALT member, please go to our website and follow the sign-up instructions - https://nzalt.org.nz/sign-up/individual-member. An invoice will be sent to you automatically once you have completed this step. Since this will be your first registration on the site you will be asked to select a password. Please be aware that we now have a new bank account - this will be clearly displayed in the invoice. Payment by credit/debit card and PayPal is also possible.
HODs please note: If your school has 11 or more teachers, and you wish to have the capped rate of $500 (10 x $50), please email vicepresident@nzalt.org.nz to advise of your school’s circumstances (11+ members). You and your teachers will still need to click on the SIGN-UP button and complete the individual registration process, but we will take care of invoicing for your 11th and subsequent teachers.
The NZALT AGM will be held during the Victoria LangSem at the end of November this year. This will be your opportunity to give us any feedback about the new subscriptions as well as hear about further improvements which are being made to the constitution to ensure that we are meeting the changing needs of Language teachers in New Zealand.
NZQA Contract Vacancies
Lauren Crowe is our National Assessment Facilitator or NAF at NZQA. She oversees the external examinations and as such advertises through NZQA for a variety of positions around the writing of the NCEA external examinations for all languages. At present, she is looking for someone to be the German Scholarship examiner. You can email Lauren at lauren.crowe@nzqa.govt.nz if you are interested in this position.
Vacancies are advertised at the following link https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/about-us/working-at-nzqa/contract-vacancies/
We are looking forward to welcoming Lauren to our 2020 NZALT Conference next July in Wellington.
Contact Details
NZALT President
Regional Officers
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2020 NZALT National Conference
The dates for the 2020 NZALT conference have been set. We will open the conference on Friday 3 July, 2020 at 18.30 in te Marae, te Papa. It will then take place on Saturday and Sunday at Queen Margaret's College and be followed by Language Specific sessions on Monday 6 July.
We have made a change to the dates based on your feedback from previous conferences. We hope that by opening on Friday evening and then having two full days over the weekend that this will then make it easier with planning your holidays. We kept this in mind particularly for family activities, for example, the Matariki celebrations will be taking place at this time. This also follows the model used by other subject-specific conferences.
There will be Early Bird registration of $450 for NZALT members available later this year.
We are finalising accommodation offers at present, but there will be a variety of options available from $80 per night, including breakfast, in a shared dormitory at Queen Margaret's College.
We look forward to welcoming you on Friday evening at Te Marae in Te Papa.
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Events Calendar
Excellent links to various activities and resources for the specific language weeks and cultural events can be found at National Events.
It is time to celebrate several of our Pasifika language weeks this term and there are a lot of resources on the above page to support you with this. The Dual language resource kits are an excellent way of developing listening and reading skills and are available online.
As you promote language learning within your school, look at the following resources about the value of language learning. There are two documents here for parents, principles, and teachers.
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Useful Links
For support with language teaching and learning, resourcing, planning and much more contact the Centre for Languages at Future Learning Solutions www.futurelearningsolutions.nz
Remember to check the NZQA Subjects page for all the information on the Internal and External Achievement Standards for your language at https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/subjects/
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The Learning Languages Community
This is your portal to professional learning opportunities and support for the Learning Languages area of the New Zealand Curriculum.
The site contains information relating to pedagogy and assessment, and includes relevant resources and key links.
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Tapasā - Cultural Competencies Framework for Teachers of Pacific Learners
Tapasā is a resource for all teachers of Pacific learners. It is designed to support teachers to become more culturally aware, confident and competent when engaging with Pacific learners and their parents, families and communities. It aims to contextualise quality teaching and planning within a Pacific learner setting by providing a Pacific lens to the Standards for the Teaching Profession and the Code of Professional Responsibility.
http://pasifika.tki.org.nz/Tapasa
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NZALT Networks of Expertise Newsletter, July, 2019
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