Auckland, New Zealand- Pacific Area Principal's Conference

February and March have flown by! We have been so busy teaching BYUH classes and preparing for our presentation in Auckland. Last October we were asked to write a Literacy Plan for all the church schools in the Pacific with two other ITEP Missionaries.One couple is serving in Tonga and the other couple serves in Apia, Samoa. (The other Island) There are church schools in Fiji, Tonga, Kerabati,and Samoa. The church use to have schools in New Zealand and American Samoa but the church closed them when the government schools started doing a good job in the education of their own people. Samoa and Tonga have a long ways to go. The government schools in Samoa provide a very limited education for their students. Well, back to the Literacy Plan.

We worked by E-mail and phone conferencing with the other two couples all of  Nov. through Feb. and then we flew to Auckland a week before all the school principals were to come. We finalized the project and divided up the presentations.

Literacy Team at work in Church Area Office in Auckland

 We talked on fluency and comprehension. One couple talked on writing and using Sheltered Instruction to support English Learners. The other couple talked on Engagement Strategies and Explicit Instruction. I know, all that teacher jargon. The presentations were nerve racking because the heads of the Education department and Dean of the College of Human Development from BYUH were there along with the South Pacific Area office leaders. We left them with 9 Literacy Challenges. We are hoping to get the chanting and choral reading reduced and requiring the students to answer and think independently. Many teachers just say, "Do you understand?" and all the kids say "yes" and then the teacher moves on. They don't check for understanding and if you ask a student a question they sometimes just look at you. We have seen a growth in this area at Vaiola. They can all read English, just like we can read Samoan, but we have no idea what we are reading and they often are just reading words with little comprehension.

Cherri doing her thing

Me doing mine

 ITEP couples and Principals from all the Islands,  Department of Ed from BYU-H, Area Officers (Auckland and Salt Lake)

One of the fun parts is that they put each principal on trial and charged them with all the good things they were doing.  It was a good experience to see all the hard work that they were doing.  This is me and another Sister being on the jury.  Their punishment was to eat one of those big Hersey bars in one sitting.  I could go for that!!  There are only 7 ITEP Couple Missionaries in the whole church missionary system. We feel so privileged to be called to serve with them. They were amazing people to meet. We shared ideas and experiences and it lifted us up in spirit to be with them.

All the ITEP couples at dinner. 

  Enough of that school stuff.  In the evenings we had fun walking around Auckland and eating real food.  We drank real milk (not out of a box that says "made out of real milk) and went to a real mall and ate at real restaurants. It was an amazing break. We were even given a van and all 6 of us went touring around the northern island. New Zealand is really beautiful and has some beautiful beaches. The weather was a cool 75 degrees and we didn't feel sticky for 2 weeks. It was an amazing experience and we loved getting to know all the other ITEP Missionaries from the other islands.

 These pictures are from our whirlwind tour on our free Saturday.  The beaches in NZ are beautiful and the country side is very hilly because it is all volcanic. 

 This is a shot from above Cathedral Cove.  It is tucked back in the shore just left of the boat you see in the picture.  It was a 45 minute hike, and I mean a hike.  The problem was it is 45 minutes back all up hill.  They filmed some of Lord of the Rings on the beach at Cathedral Cove.

 Huge arch at Cathedral Cove

Part of the coast on the hike down.

                                            
Enjoying the beautiful day on one of the beaches and the group had to stop and eat real food.

Part of the rolling hills.  As you can see it is very brown.  They are having a drought this summer.

View of downtown Auckland from our balcony.

Coming home to Samoa felt good when all the students said they missed us and we got a lot of "We're so glad you are back" from the teachers. We started up again with classes. We teach Admin.507 on Monday evening and EDU 330- Classroom Management on Tue. and Thur. and on Wed. we have our student teaching seminar. Cherri spends her mornings in classrooms in the elementary while Jim spends his mornings doing observations in class rooms for the teachers that are Student Teaching.  With five observations for each teacher, it is more work than when we were working.  On Fridays we present EDU 326 SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) to the whole faculty. This plan will continue until Nov. with just the names of the classes changing. We have become masters at using Power Point for our classes, as it is important that we use visuals to help with the language barrier.  We have to stop and explain a lot of the words, because the teachers have no idea what they mean.  We hope to get 7 or more teachers certified or close to it. They are amazing teachers and it is fun to see them using some of the strategies we have presented. We also teach the Young Single Adult Sunday School Class every Sunday at church. The students are fun to get to know. We have someone leaving on a mission almost every other week and their love of the gospel and strong testimony strengthen us. It is nice to have 45 minutes of church in English. The rest of the time at church is only in Samoan so we have a translator but it seems like she says 4-5 words in English to 15 words in Samoan. Samoans speak in ideas and use a lot  of words to say just a few things but I bet it forms a better mental picture to whoever is listening. We love Sundays because we get to hear the Samoans sing. Everyone sings with such emotion and vigor. We could listen to them forever.

Off to another adventure.  Another post coming soon.  Love you all!!!