Local Metaphors

a collection of quotes and notes from the NmInTheSouthPacific project which relate to the use of Local Metaphors in teaching in the South Pacific. These were collected from the site by Shalen Gounden

Foundation Students: Site Visit to Solomons Islands, NmSolomons

• "when topics they are talking about are not to my interest I fall asleep"
• "if they give us exercises to do, it brings our interest"

Admin Officer, Counseling Ed. Dept: Site Visit to Solomons Islands, NmSolomons

• Pidgin Slang: "head soa"
• Ngzugzu : god, carving on canoe, for headhunting, pearl shells on back, from western province but now used as a National Carrier, was on Solomon Airlines, not anymore.

Internal Recommendations: Nauru Site Visit, NmNauru

• "The exam paper had to do with Kava. It was like double-Dutch to us" -AK 30 Sep 2003

Interview with Ronald Kun: Nauru Site Visit, NmNauru

• "Most of the examples are very Fijian", and he has to make the examples more Nauruan on the fly, using local companies and topical Nauruan events as examples. "We don't have veggy markets, we don't have military management. I have to pick something we can identify with." -RK 1 Oct 2003
• another solution to localization would be to find examples that are common throughout the pacific, like fish or public sector -RK 1 Oct 2003

Interview with Winnie: Nauru Site Visit, NmNauru

• Clifford - put up a Clifford poster, renamed the dog Clifford, popularized the dog itself, and then the kids would start to read the Clifford books now that they identified with it in their own lives
• Pokemon is another character the children love, that can be used to make them read
• "I wanted to link reading to the real world, to relate books to an environment they can relate to"

Interview with Phaedora: Nauru Site Visit, NmNauru

• the war
• topside
• ROC Taiwan

Interview with Lyn, Director of Education: Nauru Site Visit, NmNauru

• Graphics Turtle (logo)
• using a character to draw the graphs worked great, and they did a map of Nauru with it
• "Students enjoy anything that’s hands on"

Interview with Formosa, Management Student: Nauru Site Visit, NmNauru

• the course materials make sense, but usually local management tutors have to change the examples on the fly to make them applicable to the local situation
• "the actual cooursebook is fine"
• she considers references to Kava, Dalo and other pacific but not Nauruan aspects to be "very good"

Frances Koya, NmFrancesKoya

• "Relationships play a key role... if they see how it relates to other things, especially to their own situation..."

Importance of inter-relationships, big in small: Spore 3 Brainstorm with SOH, NmParallelsAndSpores Brainstorm

• Sasa Broom: different strands show different parts of the whole picture
• Coconut Tree: "when you are a coconut, every part is useful"
• these metaphors are used to show inter-relatedness of concepts in a course
• "Instructional designers must hire local people to oversee... good training as well" -U
• perhaps create a library of local metaphors and icons with idea for use in courses
• these metaphors are used to show interelatedness of concepts in a course
• Sasa Broom: different strands show different parts of the whole picture
• Coconut Tree: "when you are a coconut, every part is useful"

Themes for Phone Interviews, NmThemesForInterviews

• Are local, universal, or western metaphors used to teach?
• please give some examples of local metaphors used in teaching
• Are local or western metaphors more useful/ appropriate?

Landbeck and Mugler, NmLandbeck

• "I try to relate it to my background because most of the work is not on the Pacific."(p. 29)
• "Understanding is greatly helped if students can relate what they are learning to 'real life' and their own experience... If a lecturer does not do it, student may try to make the connections themselves and may or may not succeed." (p 43)
• "I think if you really understand something, you can explain that to somebody, trying to make them understand you, like, in your own words"(p 43)
• "The understanding part comes in when you apply that knowledge"(p 44)
• "one of the most important factors in leading to a meaningful approach to learning is the ability on the students' part to relate what they study to their own experience, to the 'real world', and to apply recently acquired knowledge" (p 49)

FierConference

Local Context

L. Seru,Cultural Gap in teacher-student interactions in multicultural schools, 6 January, 2004

• must integrate traditional learning
• most teachers in multicultural schools overlook local culture, skills, and background