school teachers (PT ) and 42 per cent of secondary school teachers (ST ).
Additionally, teachers said that there is not much discussion about pedagogy
and pedagogical skills among themselves at school (PT: 60 per cent, ST: 40
per cent).
A journal article by Nabobo and Teasdale written over 20 years ago (1994)
explains why it is important to incorporate local culture into education in the
Fijian context, and describes some of the thinking behind the development
of a teacher education course to address this issue. It is important, however, to
avoid what Richardson cautions as ‘the imposition of inappropriate pedagogy
on students who are not part of the dominant culture’ (2003, p. 1633).
In a paper prepared for the Forum Education Ministers’ Meeting in 2004,
Dr ‘Ana Taufe’ulungaki notes the general Pacific style of thinking and
learning, which is assumed to provide the foundational base for pedagogical
choices in Pacific classrooms.
In Pacific cultures, which value respect, generosity, loyalty, cooperation,
sharing, humility, and fulfilment of mutual obligations, among others, the
nature, forms and structure of knowledge are perceived differently, which,
in turn, give rise to different speech rules and communicative behaviour
and consequently, teaching and learning strategies. The thinking of Pacific
Islanders is said to be right-brain dominated, which tends to be creative,
holistic and spatial; divergent instead of linear logical; interpersonal, which
favours group activities, spoken over written language, and demonstration
and doing rather than verbal direction; and kinesthetic, which lends itself
to physical activities. Such thinking styles are manifested in a number of
ways in Pacific culture (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2014, p. 13).This assessment is reiterated in a New Zealand study of Pacifika students in
tertiary education. Chu et al. (2013) present the argument that that Pacific
styles and contexts of learning are critical to supporting student academic
achievement. They call on teachers to reflect on whether their teaching
practice connects with the learner. In Fiji, the lack of research into teacher
practice means that there is limited understanding of how well-versed and
willing teachers are to develop and apply contextualized pedagogies. Existing
research findings can therefore only provide a ‘snapshot’ of teacher’s beliefs,
understanding and practices.
The researchers observed code switching and group work, but the study
found that some teachers made no real effort to go beyond conventional