Bayfield High School pupils Izaac Foster and Imogen Johnston have created a charades card game in te reo called Whakaari for a year 12 business studies project.
It was Izaac who initially thought of creating an original, interactive game to help promote learning te reo.
"I’ve been learning for about five, six years and found that learning te reo Māori through worksheets didn’t work too well with me.
"I found it more fun learning through games and having fun with each other and just being up and about."
The importance of learning te reo in an interactive way had been highlighted after the death of the school’s te reo Māori teacher Sheralyn Weepers.
She had been a great teacher and all the pupils had been "really close to her".
The school’s previous Māori teacher returned to teach the class for a short period after Ms Weepers’ death, but since then pupils had to move their studies to the online correspondence school Te Kura.
Learning te reo online had been difficult, Izaac said.
"It’s all the worksheets and not being able to read them face to face — that’s what I struggle with."
"I only found out my whakapapa Māori maybe three or four years ago."
Imogen felt Izaac and the game could help her "find out more" about herself.
"I am Māori, but I haven’t really grown up with a Māori household.
"I just thought I need to connect with that side of me, because I haven’t felt very connected with it before."
Their latest printing of Whakaari was for a te reo Māori language workshop at Ōtākou Marae where rangatahi were each given a pack of the cards to take home.
The cards have just been made available from various Dunedin outlets, as well as on the website found via the Purei Learning Facebook page.
Izaac explained they were "not in it for the money".
"We’re more about trying to make learning te reo Māori more accessible for everyone."
He hoped that in the future they could sell the cards throughout New Zealand and later create intermediate level cards and Ngāi Tahu dialect cards.
