Purpose Statement
This learning area equips students with the linguistic, cultural, and sociolinguistic knowledge needed to communicate in an additional language.
Learning Languages provides students with the knowledge and practices to interpret meaning, adapt communication for different audiences and situations, and communicate purposefully in increasingly complex contexts. It also supports literacy development by strengthening students’ understanding of how language works, how meaning is communicated, and how spoken, written, and signed language are used in different contexts.
Through learning additional languages, students develop understanding of the cultural and social contexts in which languages are used and recognise that language reflects and upholds the values, stories, and practices of different communities andmcultures. This enables them to contribute meaningfully to New Zealand’s diverse society and increasingly interconnected world.
Learning Languages exposes students to new ways of thinking about themselves and their world. It can deepen understanding of their first language, strengthen cultural connections, contribute to the vitality of languages, and build confidence in communicating with others in a range of contexts.
Learning Languages prepares students to further develop their language proficiency in Years 11–13 in the language they have studied, including Te Reo Māori, New Zealand Sign Language, Gagana Sāmoa, Gagana Tokelau, Lea Faka-Tonga, Te Reo Māori Kūki ‘Āirani, Vagahau Niue, French, German, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, and Korean.
Learning Languages - Spanish Years 0-10 curriculum
The Learning Languages - Spanish Phase 1-4 (Years 0-10) curriculum is now available and can be downloaded from the File Downloads section below
Our priority is to get this information to you as soon as possible, and the PDF is the fastest way to do this. However, we understand that an online format is easier for you to work with, so we are working to make full html pages available later in the year.
Word or phrase | Description |
|---|---|
Additional language | Any language learnt in addition to a person’s first language (or home language) |
Alphabetic writing | System of writing where letters represent sounds in a language (as opposed to ‘script’). |
Cognates | Words in different languages that share the same origin and have a similar meaning, pronunciation, and spelling. |
Communication | Process of sharing information, ideas, thoughts, or feelings. Refers to all modes of communication: signing, watching, and interacting in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL); and listening, speaking, reading, writing, and interacting in all other languages. |
Compound noun | Noun made up of two or more words. |
Cultural exploration | The process of learning about, experiencing, and developing understanding of the cultures associated with the target language. |
Cultural practices | The customary ways people in a cultural community behave, interact, communicate, and participate in social life. |
Cultural understanding | The capacity to understand, respect, and engage with the values, beliefs, practices, and perspectives of different cultures. |
Formulaic expression or language | Chunks of language that follow a fixed pattern and are learnt as whole units. |
Grammatical gender | A system in some languages where nouns are classified into categories, often called masculine and feminine and sometimes neuter. Other words, such as adjectives or articles, change form to match the gender of the noun. |
Imperative | A verb form used to give commands, instructions, requests, or advice. |
Impersonal verbs | Verbs used without a specific subject and are commonly conjugated in the third person singular to express general conditions or occurrences. |
Indigenous language | A language that is native to a particular region and spoken by the original people of that area. |
Infinitive | The base form of a verb (e.g. ‘to eat’). |
Intercultural communicative competence | The ability to communicate effectively, appropriately, and respectfully with people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. |
Linguistic knowledge | The understanding of how a language works, (e.g. formation of signs, vocabulary, articulation, pronunciation, spelling, grammar). |
Phonetic | Words written or represented based on how they sound. |
Productive skills | The ability to sign, speak, write, interact, and present. |
Receptive skills | The ability to understand signed, spoken, or written language. |
Reflexive verb | Verb where the subject and object of the action are the same, as in the sentence ‘I hurt myself’. |
Regular and irregular verbs | How verbs change form when used in different tenses. Regular verbs follow a predictable pattern, while irregular verbs do not. Also called weak and strong verbs. |
Romance languages | Group of languages that evolved from Latin, including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Catalan. |
Social norms | The unwritten rules, expectations, and conventions of behaving within a particular cultural or social group. |
Sociolinguistic knowledge | The understanding of how social factors (e.g. age, gender, race, class, location) influence language use and how language shapes social identity and relationships. |
Subjunctive form | A verb form used in Spanish to express wishes, requests, recommendations, commands, possibility, or uncertainty rather than concrete facts. |
Target language | The language a student is learning. |
Tasks of a concrete type | Practical, everyday situations where someone needs to use a language for a specific purpose (e.g. asking for assistance, reading bus timetables, filling out a form). |
Text | Signed, written, spoken, or visual materials that students use to understand and practise the target language (e.g. passages, dialogues, recordings, posters, menus). |
Time markers | Words or phrases that indicate whether something happens in the past, present, or future. |
Transactional communication | Using language to get things done (e.g. buying something, making plans with someone). |
Vitality of a language | How strong and actively used a language is within a community. |
About this resource
This page provides the Years 0-10 Learning Languages learning area of The New Zealand Curriculum. This content is proposed to be made by the Minister of Education as a National Curriculum Statement under section 90(1)(a) of the Education and Training Act 2020. Once made and published in the New Zealand Gazette, it will set the requirements for the teaching of Years 0-10 Learning Languages in state schools and schools will be required to start using it from 1 January 2027 for Years 9-10 and from 1 January 2029 for Years 0-8. This page will be replaced with the official version made under the Act and published in the New Zealand Gazette once that has occurred.
File Downloads
No files available for download.
