Kia ora koutou, Kei te peha koe? Akoranga = learning.
The greatest impact of leadership development is on your personal capacities. Whether your ability to run great meetings, speak succinctly, or create alliances around innovative approaches is being developed, personal development for building professional capability is the key.
My current professional development is learning Te Reo. Why?
I wanted to learn because my grandchildren are bilingual and I don’t want them to have to think in English every time we interact. I hope to that by learning Te Reo I expand my relationships with Maori and find common ground rapidly.
I enrolled in a 30-Day Te Reo boot camp to help me. This is Facebook based and involves reading, writing, speaking, listening, watching and singing each day.
I am learning sentence structures, grammar, how initial words signal tenses, masses of vocabulary, asking questions, meeting, and greeting. There are 5 to 8 minute long videos on specific topics, and we watch Opaki, the Maori TV language programmes each day.
Small Messenger groups have been set up where we post videos of our homework and practice. Learning like this is exciting, overwhelming and involves all the senses.
Ko Grant Whitbourne taku kaiako. – Grant Whitbourne is my teacher.
With so much input and rapid learning my vocabulary has expanded extensively, and I understand so much more of what is being said in Te Reo.
What is missing?
My implementation. Who do I practice speaking Te Reo with on a daily basis? To implement my learning, I joined a practice group to go beyond the 30-day programme.
How often do you learn something yet fail to implement your learning as the systems to help aren’t in place?
Implementation requires practice, making mistakes, adjusting, and refining. Having the insight but failing to act on it, means limitations remain in the foreground.
What have you been learning, and how are you doing with implementing your learning? What results are you seeing?
Diana Jones ©