Pasifika Stories App Series
Choose your immersion experience in Samoan, Tongan or English, and be captivated by the sweet voices of our older Pasifika tamaiti who share some magical stories of their imagination.
This is a collection of short stories written, illustrated and told by our tamaiti, for tamaiti.
A great interactive resource for any beginning language learner, or as part of an education environment. There is fun to be had as your practice alongside our tamaiti, hear each word individually, or break down the sounds phonetically.
Look out for all three apps in this series.
Pasifika Stories
Samoan, Tongan, English
The first app from our Pasifika Stories series, this app is a treasury of short stories, told by our 3 and 4 year olds.
Bugs, Insects & Sea Creatures
Samoan, Tongan, English
The second app from our Pasifika Stories series, this app is a treasury of short stories told by our 2 and 3 year olds
Now I'm 5
Samoan, Tongan, English
The final app from our Pasifika Stories series, this app is a treasuring of short stories told by tamaiti who have graduated from Tino e Tasi
Background
Pasifika Stories series, are the second generation of Pasifika language apps brought to you by the tamaiti of Tino e Tasi Preschool.
With the support of the Toloa Community Fund, offered by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples our tamaiti produced these apps from conception through to delivery.
During our brainstorm phase, there was an explosion of creativity, imagination and storytelling happening at our centres both in Christchurch and Dunedin.
We observed our tamaiti organically initiating and engaging in Samoan dialogue over English.
This strengthened their Samoan language abilities even for those children who may not have the fluency in the Samoan language.
This is a treasury of short stories written, illustrated and told by our tamaiti, for tamaiti.
The most significant challenge during this phase was trying to narrow down which stories to include in the final applications.
We then took our kids into the recording studio so they can have a go at narrating their own stories. This space can be quite daunting with all sorts of equipment, computers, screens, buttons and many rooms. But over time, the kids became very familiar with the recording process and took real ownership of their performance.
Now that all these elements have been put together and tested, the Pasifika Stories series is now ready to be shared.
This journey has provided an opportunity to celebrate our tamaiti's own ideas around their identity, language and culture and share stories that are familiar, meaningful and authentic.