Dean of Postgraduate Research Vice-Chancellor’s Office Extension: 7285 Email: lucy.johnston@canterbury.ac.nz Summer Research Scholarship Scheme 2015-2016 Project Application Form Please complete and submit the application form as a WORD document and send to summerscholarships@canterbury.ac.nz The Project Title of Project (max 30 words): Tuhinga Māhorahora Project – analysing children’s writing in Māori Project Leader(s): Jeanette King Host Department/Organization: NZILBB/Aotahi Other persons involved in this topic/activity: (List other significant members involved along with their affiliation to the research project.) Name Affiliation to project William O’Grady International co-ordinator, University of Hawaii Other summer scholar working on the Comparative Language Input Project Brief outline of project Describe the proposed research project – maximum of 400 words (box will expand as you type). Note that this information will be published on the web in order to attract student applicants and therefore be mindful of any Intellectual Property issues We know very little about how tamariki are using te reo Māori in immersion schooling situations. This has a massive range of consequences for teaching: from supporting learning in individual classrooms through to the nationwide production of appropriate written material for use in kura. The Tuhinga Māhorahora project is building a corpus of children’s writing in Māori to answer the following research questions: How do our tamariki use te reo Māori? How does their use of Māori develop over time? How can we support and improve the use of Māori by teachers in classrooms? The Tuhinga Māhorahora project is addressing these important research questions by collecting 1 samples of children’s written Māori from participating immersion schools. Nearly 1,000 pieces of writing from 76 children in Year 1-5 kura classrooms have been transcribed and tagged using the TEI editor Oxygen. These files have been uploaded to the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour’s (NZILBB) web-based LaBB-CAT software. The summer scholar will work in LaBB-CAT to establish and conduct a number of analyses on the dataset, including: word counts, standardised type/token ratio analyses. Another analysis will be to determine the number of words the children use from already determined frequency lists (Brown, 2009). The power of the LaBB-CAT software will also allow for analyses over the time range, between genders and between children of the same age, for example. The scholar will also work with a summer scholar on an allied project (the Comparative Language Input Project (CLIP)) where the speech of teachers in Māori immersion classrooms is being transcribed and uploaded into LaBBCAT. The analyses determined for the Tuhinga Māhorahora project will also be applied to the CLIP data and the scholar will assist in training the other scholar in this task. The summer scholar will also be involved in writing up analysis protocols and helping to prepare the results to give feedback to the classes and teachers involved. If the project involves work away from the University campus (e.g., at fieldwork sites) please detail all locations. If the student be required to work outside of normal university hours (8am-5pm) please provide details Benefits student will gain from involvement in the project Describe the research experience and skills that the student will acquire through involvement in this research project – maximum of 100 words. You will also become a highly familiar and competent in working with LaBB-CAT software in performing linguistic analysis of writing and speech. You will gain experience in making decisions about data analysis and in working as part of a team. You will also gain experience in the writing up of research results to give feedback to schools and teachers. Specific student requirements Please provide details of all requirements you have for the student to work on this project – for example, if specific courses/experience are necessary. The student must be a competent Māori language comprehension skills (i.e. you will have studied Māori to 300 level at least). Familiarity with LaBB-CAT software is an advantage, but not essential. It would be expected that you have an interest in Māori language and/or the Māori immersion schooling environment. 2