This paper examines the health of the four largest Polynesian Pasifi ka languages in Aotearoa/ New Zealand (New Zealand). It presents perspectives and interpretations from the researchers and writers who are at the same time, parents and grandparents of Pasifi ka children of Tongan, Samoan and Cook Islands ancestry. It examines: fi ndings from the 2006 Census; a major sociolinguistic study examining these four languages in New Zealand's most multicultural city between 2000 and 2008; and insider community sources. These indicate that Pasifi ka languages in New Zealand show signifi cant signs of language shift and loss, with several languages unlikely to survive unless urgent maintenance and revival measures are adopted. It seeks reasons for the shift of Pasifi ka families to using more English. It argues that the discourses of family language for private use, and English for education and public use, emerged in the Pacifi c, came with the migrants and is now deeply entrenched in New Zealand. The paper suggests that expanding the role of Pasifi ka languages into education and the public domain through Bilingual/Immersion Education is the prime strategy for future survival of these languages. We use initial capitals for the term Bilingual/Immersion Education in this article to indicate that this is a major world approach to education. Following Baker (2006), Garcia (2009), and May and Hill (2005), we use bilingual and immersion to cover all forms of fi rst language and second language medium education. This dual use is very important in New Zealand where until recently a rigid and artifi cial separation was made between Bilingual Education and Immersion Education (May & Hill, 2005, 2008).
Abstract-On the two hundredth anniversary of the Kildonan clearances, when people were forcibly removed from their homes, the Timespan Heritage centre has created a program of community centred work aimed at challenging pre conceptions and encouraging reflection on this important historical process. This paper explores the innovative ways in which virtual world technology has facilitated community engagement, enhanced visualisation and encouraged reflection as part of this program.An installation where users navigate through a reconstruction of pre clearance Caen township is controlled through natural gestures and presented on a 300 inch six megapixel screen. This environment allows users to experience the past in new ways. The platform has value as an effective way for an educator, artist or hobbyist to create large scale virtual environments using off the shelf hardware and open source software. The result is an exhibit that also serves as a platform for experimentation into innovative ways of community co-creation and co-curation.
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