Reflection week 2

This week was the most brutal of the week I had before. After all the work I had added up and kumu told us that the amount of knowledge we know no and the quiz we are going to have on Friday. It is a whole quarters worth. At first I was like no kumu you must be crazy, this has to be a joke, it can’t be true. The hard reality was all of it he said was very true. The day we came back we had a quiz. It’s not like a didn’t study or anything (which I didn’t) but I got an F. Of course I didn’t look on the bored cause it would have said what we were supposed to study. Then I tried studying the other days but it didn’t help. Finally I got to get average grades on my quizzes and it started to get easier, but the olelo Hawaii was not as easy. It felt like we learned I knew pepeke or something to do with a pepeke every day. It started off with the simple one right next to pepeke aike he. Which was pepeke aike o which was the next thing to a pepeke aike he. Instead of being a regular statement pepeke aike o was to describe what the noun was. Like instead of saying you are the teacher. Pepeke aike o steps up the sentence. By creating you are the Hawaiian language teacher, or that is a green pen. It didn’t make sense at first like everything else that was introduced to me. Again practice, practice, practice but this one was hard and I still have trouble doing this pepeke. Then during this week we learned a chant or oli how u say it in Hawaiian. Kumu told us the reason to oli wasn’t only for entering and exiting but it is also for historic purposes. You can oli when you are at the pali. Some of us forgot what the pali was about. The pali was the last war before Kamehameha the great joined all the islands. So now every day before we enter class and after the 20 minute break we have to oli. Our oli is called kunihi. He put this on the test as well just so we can remember it and says it louder than the other Hawaiian language classes. We have the words down but still need some help on projecting our voice. P.I.N.K is very important for the pepeke structure which is both two new things we learned this week. I know and this is only half of the information we still have some more pepeke sentences. P.I.N.K is an acronym for papani, ioa, nonoa, and kikino. Papani like you know is a pronoun. There are eleven papani which is au `oe `o ia. These are the singular pronouns which is I, you and, he or she. Kumu tells us there are problems always in the English and he is right. After two weeks I get more and more confused when I let go of my English mind little by little. Anyways and ioa is a proper name. There are two types i`oa paku and maoli. Maoli is a person’s name while paku is a place name. Not chuck e chesses or leonards but an actual region name. For example Las Vegas or pali. Nonoa is for possession and there are six of them. We call them the fab six. These six words are ko`u, ka`u, kou, kau, kona, and kana. The first two ko`u and ka`u is for mine or my. You use ko`u for your name, parents, grandparents, basically you generation and up, and anything you can get on top or in to. Ka`u is for possession basically everything else except for any word that starts with hoa. That is where u put ko’u. Your kids generation and down is not ko`u it’s ka`u. Last but not least is the kikino which is a common noun. We call it P.I.N.K for short. Wait there is still more. If I didn’t know this class would be so brutal I might have just stayed home. The pepeke structure is based on a he`e or octopus. This is the basic for any pepeke sentence it has a po`o (head) piko (body) and awe (leg). The pepeke structure is based on an octopus cause of how many legs an octopus so can a pepeke sentence. There has to be an `ami to every awe cause that is what makes it connect to the piko. The po`o is what contains the description, action, or verb. While the piko anything P.I.N.K can go into it and the awe is the add-on to what it describes the sentence. There are one more pepeke we reviewed for the very long test. It was pepeke `a`ano. This is a descriptive sentence. An example is he is a smart student. This is the pepeke I had no trouble at all. Only for the sentence structure I was completely fine with this. Also on the test we also had to ho`ole the pepeke we wrote. Ho`ole is to make the sentence a negative. To do that was what we call the golden rule. The golden rule means in order for the sentence to be a negative. We have to take any papani that stands alone and put by `a`ole which means no in Hawaiian. Other than some more counting that was our entire week with the quiz. After the quiz which took the whole half the day we went outside to make tea leaf leis, learn yet another pepeke. Which is a locational pepeke and we had to work in the tiny lo`i patch. Kumu was sorry for giving us all this work. It felt to me that I was getting pounded by waves and waves of olelo Hawaii. Again I didn’t know the next week will be sooooo much worse.

Reflection week 1

This morning in summer school kumu took us down to konia field to see how poi was made by pounding. He tested us on what poi was called in olelo hawaii then asked us if we wanted. I flew by the test but denied with manners, when the activity was done he asked why he did it so early in school. It took some time but at the end we found out it was for the connection from teacher to student.Then  when we got back to class and immediately received  bad news. Well news i'm sure no one wanted to hear but we were getting quizzed on five questions. It turned out to be pretty easy questions. Although in order to remember the questions and responses so it is stuck in our brains we had to test our class mates. When the clock was winding down and down to pau ke kula kumu Kalani took us down to Midkiff learning center. We were given a scavenger hunt and the meaning of the scavenger hunt was to look at the manual for infractions and dress code regulations. When we were done me and my classmates all thought "wow if the first day was like this I wonder how the whole summer school would be like" little did i know it would get better and better when we totally block out our "English" mind. The next day in the beginning of class we moved the desks out and put the mats down to read about the first born Haloa. Haloa was born from papa and wakea. He is the first born. The olelo hawaii was hard but manageable. Then like yesterday we all as a class helped each other study for the quiz outside. After our longest break that lasted 20 minutes we all got singled outside one on one with kumu. I didn't struggle at all with the quiz it was pretty easy when u listen for key words. Anyways after that kumu Kalani taught us a song that made us learn zero through ten, and again for those words to soak in our heads kumu played activities to make us remember. Personally when I first learned the numbers I got stuck from seven and eight, but when we had our final break I studied a little plus a couple more sessions in counting and I could manage. Later when class was about to be pau or finished. He put us in groups and my group was to find the meaning of pepeke aike he. It was easy this is a general statement that states something is a, are a, or am a. Thursday was all review for the test we had Friday. Kumu paired us up with partners yet again to go over everything. Yesterday we learned how to count from 1 to 100. When we were reviewing for the test or ho’ike we went over everything from the five questions we got quizzed, pronouns or papani, four rules for olelo Hawai,counting, and the keao rule for the word the. It was another day filled with information but again I could handle. Even though I was struggling I still could float. Friday was the day of the test tension rose. When the kumu gave me the test paper I was super nervous. Even though later on the test was pretty easy. Studying really made the Hawaiian click and it all made sense. During my study session I had a lot of “aha” moment where something just clicked in my head and it all made sense. Kumu was right when you let go of your English mind everything is so much easier. Later we had a surprise where we played jeopardy. Of course our class won because we are the bomb. That was an intense but yet very fun weekend I couldn’t wait for the next. 

Reflections 'elua (2)

In the beginning of class we moved the desks out and put the mats down to read about the first born Haloa. Haloa was born from papa and wakea.He is the first born. The olelo hawaii was hard but manageable. Then like yesterday we all as a class helped each other study for the quiz outside. After our longest break that lasted 20 minutes we all got singled outside one on one with kumu. I didn't struggle at all with the quiz it was pretty easy when u listen for key words. Anyways after that kumu Kalani taught us a song that made us learn zero through ten, and again for those words to soak in our heads kumu played activities to make us remember. Personally when I first learned the numbers I got stuck from seven and eight, but when we had our final break I studied a little plus a couple more sessions in counting and I could manage. Later when class was about to be pau or finished. He put us in groups and my group was to find the meaning of pepeke aike he. It was easy this is a general statement that states something is a, are a, or am a.

Reflections 1

This morning in summer school kumu took us down to konia field to see how poi was made by pounding. He tested us on what  poi was called in olelo hawaii then asked us if we wanted. I flew bye the test but denied with manners, when the activity was done he asked why he did it so early in school. It took some time but at the end we found out it was for the connection from teacher to student.Then  when we got back to class and immediately received  bad news. Well news i'm sure no one wanted to hear but we were getting quizzed on five questions. It turned out to be pretty easy questions. Although in order to remember the questions and responses so it is stuck in our brains we had to test our class mates. When the clock was winding down and down to pau ke kula kumu Kalani took us down to Midkiff learning center. We were given a scavenger hunt and the meaning of the scavenger hunt was to look at the manual for infractions and dress code regulations. When we were done me and my classmates all thought "wow if the first day was like this I wonder how the whole summer school would be like" little did i know it would get better and better when we totally block out our "English" mind.