What the teacher told me

A friend who is a teacher attended a teachers only day the other day.

And was given the latest spiel from the ivory towers of the Wellington beltway on how to raise our kids.

In particular this surprising view of the official languages of New Zealand

Te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) are official languages of New Zealand. English, the medium for teaching and learning in most schools, is a de facto official language by virtue of its widespread use. For these reasons, these three languages have special mention in The New Zealand Curriculum.

In other words English is no longer an official language of New Zealand, according to the pointy heads of the Ministry but has to be used (unfortunately?) only because it is the one the majority of people speak and understand.

How long until Arabic joins the official list I wonder?

Update

The comment thread on this post thus far suggest that this is a storm in a teacup.

Perhaps the excerpt in the post just illustrates that our educational establishment is illiterate and the use of de facto is  a  malapropism  when they actually meant default.

Here is wikipedia's take on de facto languages versus de jure languages and interestingly enough they use New Zealand as an example suggesting that English is indeed a de jure language along with Te reo Maori and New Zealand sign.

According to this Government website

Official languages

New Zealand has three official languages,  English, Māori and sign language. Māori became an official language in 1987. New  Zealand sign language became a third official language in April 2006.

And Ruth Dyson also agrees that English is an official (de jure) Language as in this press release.

Perhaps English is not enshrined in Law unlike the other two and we have all just assumed it is (i.e. it is a de facto language as written above). What opportunities does that present to those who would remake New Zealand in their own image?

Language is an important part of culture - that is surely recognized so when our educators downplay the one we universally use it is worth pointing out.

Comments

[peter]

Just because I slip out of sight a couple of days, that does not mean this forum needs to go to the dogs!

Look Andrei, the site is purely trying to emphasise the value of the 2 alternative languages.

And English IS the default official language here because it is the one spoken by most people.

Arabic would presumably join the list if and when it became spoken by sufficient numbers or even most people. Assuming these people did not also speak English though, I suspect.

Sign language people do not have the luxury of too much choice. Society makes a commitment to see that there needs are recognised when dealing with education, etc

No different from the consideration we show to other people with diabilities. If we do of course

[dad4justice]

"Just because I slip out of sight a couple of days, that does not mean this forum needs to go to the dogs!"

Oh no Peter you are the sick dog !!

[Danger Mouse]

What a charming man that D4J is, always pronouncing on the psychiatric state of others.

[Jim]

Have to agree with Peter on this one, Andrei (Horror of Horrors!). All the site is pointing out is that the two languages (Te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language) have legal status in NZ. The default standard is English (because that's what everyone speaks).
All it means is that, if you are in court, you can insist that everything is translated into one of these two languages. Otherwise the default is (quite properly) English.
Technically you can get any official document translated into the other official languages, although you might battle getting something like the EFB translated into NZSL!

[Sean]

"How long until Arabic joins the official list I wonder?"

Andrei - why would you say this? Surely not a sign of your occasional blatant anti-Muslim bias?

I mean isn't there larger Chinese and Indian communities in NZ? If so the next on the official languages list would surely be Mandarin and Hindi..? But oh, no, you have to have your trademark dig at Muslims...

Shame you have to ruin your usually well-written posts with this nonsense. As you know it takes a lot of effort to build up credibility and very little to destroy it, but you are not doing yourself any favours with such unrelated bias.

[andrei]

A valid criticism Sean. That sentence was on reflection gratuitous within the context of this post.

However Arabic is not synonymous with Islam.

And there are those with the stated intention of creating a worldwide caliphate - a vision that neither you or I share I suspect.

How much damage those with this vision do and how much blood is spilled in furtherance of this ambition remains to be seen. A great deal has been already has it not?

[Ryan Sproull]

In other words English is no longer an official language of New Zealand, according to the pointy heads of the Ministry but has to be used (unfortunately?) only because it is the one the majority of people speak and understand.

How long until Arabic joins the official list I wonder?

HahahahahaWHAT.

[ropata]

I'd say Samoan, Chinese, and Hindi are stronger contenders than Arabic. And these 3 cultures fit in to NZ pretty well. I left Auckland 7 years ago, and the cultural mix seemed to rub along OK when I was living there.