New Zealand Studies

This course examines the historical background of the different migrant communities which have made up New Zealand society and their relationships with each other. It covers the different experiences and perspectives of iwi, English, Scots, Welsh and Irish migrants and those from Europe and Asia arriving before the 1980s, and of new migrants since that time.

This course is an entry level course for those who wish to develop writing and speaking skills in Maori. Students learn an array of sentence constructions and vocabulary that will enable them to talk and write in several contexts about a wide variety of relationships and events in the present and the past. Students are exposed to cultural elements such as mihi, whakatauki and kiwaha, including a variety specific to Ngai Tahu. The course blends academic study of the language with a range of teaching techniques including language games, waiata and group activities.

This course explores the basic skills of performing and expressing the meaning of songs through actions, as well as the settings in which they are performed. Students perform a complete bracket of kapa haka items in front of an audience consisting of a haka powhiri, waiata, action song, poi, and haka. Furthermore, students introduce each item; name the composer(s) and history of the item; and demonstrate the individual compositions, appropriateness in powhiri (ritual encounter of welcome), and knowledge of Maori protocols. The course also examines the Maori creation story, significant Polynesian ancestors, and constituent parts of the marae and wharenui.

This course examines health and wellbeing from Māori and Pacific perspectives, including models and frameworks in relation to health, sport, human performance, and nursing.

This course is an introduction to listening, reading, writing, and translation techniques used in the composition, reading, and understanding of basic Maori. It is designed for students with little or no knowledge of the language and for those with some fluency wishing to understand simple sentence structure and composition. The class focuses on the basic structure of simple sentences in Maori so that students can compose, read, and understand basic Maori. Students also learn a set of terms which enable them to talk about and analyze the structure of Maori and many other languages. Another skill students acquire is the ability to translate Maori sentences and simple texts into English and English sentences into Maori.