Te reo Māori for teachers: classroom phrases

The classroom phrases most teachers start with are Kia ora koutou ‘hello, everyone’, Whakarongo mai. ‘Listen to me.’, E noho! ‘Sit down!’ and Ka pai. ‘Good.’ This guide gives you a working set for the whole day, from the roll to the weather, with the grammar that keeps each one correct, and then the honest part: a list of phrases is a start, and the Teaching Council expects teachers to keep developing their te reo, so the last section sets out where to do that.

Updated 7 October 2026 · 9 min read

Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Māori examples play Papa Reo, the te reo Māori voice made by Te Hiku Media from recordings of native speakers.

What is expected of teachers?

Every certificated teacher in Aotearoa is held to the Teaching Council’s Standards for the Teaching Profession. The Council approved a new set in 2025: they are used for the Professional Growth Cycle from 2026 and come into full effect, including for re-certification, from 1 January 2027. Standard 1 in both the 2017 and the 2026 Standards is Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership: “Demonstrate commitment to tangata whenuatanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

The 2026 Standards spell out the language part in focus area 1.4:

The Council’s guide to the transition marks only the closing clause, from including in support of onwards, as new. Two words in the sentence matter for planning: practise and develop. Nothing in it asks a teacher to be fluent already; it asks for steady use and steady growth, which is what a short set of classroom phrases plus a real course gives you.

Greetings and the roll

Greet the whole class with koutou, the word for three or more people; the guide to Māori greetings explains why the number matters and gives the forms for one and two people.

Matua and Whaea are respectful ways of addressing an older man and an older woman, so a child can greet you with Kia ora, Whaea. or Kia ora, Matua.

Classroom instructions in te reo Māori

A command in Māori is usually the bare verb, and three small rules decide what goes around it.

• A short verb takes e. Te Aka: e is “used in commands before verbs of one long vowel or two short vowels”. So E noho! ‘Sit!’ and E tū! ‘Stand!’, but Whakarongo mai. ‘Listen to me.’ and Haere mai! ‘Come here!’ with nothing in front.
• A describing word takes kia. Te Aka gives kia as the particle for “commands involving adjectives (statives)”, with Kia tūpato ‘Be careful’ as its example. Kia tere! ‘Hurry up!’ and Kia kaha! ‘Be strong!’ work the same way.
• When there is something to act on, the command usually goes passive. Tuhia tō ingoa! ‘Write your name!’ uses tuhia, the passive of tuhi ‘write’, and the thing being written follows with no i in front of it.

Two traps. Kaua tells someone not to do something; it is not the not of a statement, which is kāore. And koa ‘please’ goes at the end: E noho koa., never before the verb.

Praise in te reo Māori

One caution with ka pai: Te Aka gives it a second, idiomatic sense, it serves you right, used to show a lack of sympathy. Said warmly after good work it means what you want it to mean, but it is worth knowing why a flat ka pai after a mishap can land badly.

Questions children need to ask

These are the phrases that let a child keep going in te reo instead of switching back to English, so they are worth putting on the wall.

The date and the weather

A question about what something is uses he aha; the answer names it with ko. That is the pattern of He aha te tāima? ‘What’s the time?’, and the day works the same way. i tēnei rā is today.

There are two sets of day names, Rāhina to Rātapu and the transliterations Mane to Rātapu, and two sets of month names. The guide to Māori numbers, days and months gives both, the ordinals a date needs, and which set modern learning materials tend to favour.

Classroom objects

Put te in front for one and ngā for more than one; the noun itself never changes: te pukapuka ‘the book’, ngā pukapuka ‘the books’. And Kua mutu te kura mō tēnei rā. ‘School is finished for today.’ ends the day.

Karakia and waiata

If your class opens or closes the day with karakia, or sings waiata together, this page does not reproduce them: the right words are the ones your school and its local iwi use, and the people to ask first are your school’s own kaumātua, kapa haka tutor or Māori staff. For a published set to learn from, Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry for Māori Development, publishes He Karakia, a selection of opening, closing and food karakia with English translations, made as a learning resource for its own staff.

Building real fluency

Phrases get a classroom started. They do not let you follow a child who answers back in a full sentence, and that is where most teachers stall. Fluency needs a course with an order to it, a lot of listening, and daily use. These are the options worth knowing, in the order we would try them.

1. Verbavia (our own course). The te reo Māori course is free on the web and works in any browser, including on a phone. It is hand-written from the first word to the end of B1, 311 lessons with no AI-generated lessons, and every example is voiced by Papa Reo, Te Hiku Media’s native te reo voice. Words arrive in frequency order, the grammar is explained in English, and each lesson has reading, listening and writing. It has no speaking section for Māori. A short ad plays before lessons unless you take Premium (US$4 a month, with a 7-day trial). The vocabulary test tells you where to start.
2. Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. Its introductory te reo programmes are listed with “No fees” and run online, at home or in a classroom, and applications for 2026/2027 were open as of October 2026. A class gives you something no app does: a kaiako and other learners to speak with, out loud, every week. The guide to free Māori courses compares this and the other free routes.
3. Kauwhata Reo. The Ministry of Education’s site describes itself as “a central place to find all te reo Māori educational resources”, and it is where to look for classroom material in te reo.
4. Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. The Māori Language Commission publishes free resources, including classroom posters of action words such as whakarongo ‘listen’, tuhi ‘write’ and waiata ‘sing’, and a beginners’ pack.

What happened to Te Ahu o te Reo Māori?

Many teachers will remember Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, described by one of its providers as “the Ministry of Education’s nationwide initiative” for the te reo of teachers and support staff, free to attend and taught at seven levels. In September 2024 the government cut $30 million from it to pay for maths resources, and RNZ reported that people already enrolled could finish their courses until the end of that year, when it would close. The government said at the time that it would work with wānanga, tertiary providers and private training establishments to keep similar courses available free of charge. If a colleague points you to it, check with your school or the provider before planning around it.

Daily practice that fits a teaching day

• Use the same phrases every day. A class that hears Whakarongo mai. at every transition learns it without being taught it, and so do you.
• Add a few a week, not a list a term. Learn the next handful only when the last handful comes out without thinking.
• Say it right from the start. The vowels and the macrons carry meaning, and children copy what they hear. The pronunciation guide takes ten minutes.
• Introduce yourself properly once. A pepeha is the formal Māori introduction, and writing your own uses the same simple ko pattern as the date.
• Know what comes next. How many Māori words you need shows how far a core vocabulary takes you and what to learn after the words in this guide.

Sources

1. Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand: the 2026 Standards and focus areas (A3 table)
2. Teaching Council: Transitioning from the 2017 Standards to the 2026 Standards
3. Teaching Council: Move to the 2026 Standards
4. Teaching Council: The 2017 Standards (in force until the end of 2026)
5. RNZ: Te reo Māori teacher training cut by $30m to fund maths resources (September 2024)
6. Takatū: Te Ahu o te Reo Māori
7. Te Wānanga o Aotearoa: te reo Māori programmes
8. Kauwhata Reo (Ministry of Education)
9. Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori: Kupu postcards
10. Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori: Give te reo a go! Beginner resources
11. Te Puni Kōkiri: He Karakia
12. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: e (in commands before short verbs; kaua e)
13. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kia (commands with statives; Kia tūpato!)
14. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tūpato
15. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tere
16. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: turituri
17. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: horoia
18. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ka pai
19. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tau kē (nei)