Korero Season 9 scripts Episodes 1 - 50

BACKGROUND The scripts are situated in the broad field of television studies, within which sit the narrower fields of soap opera scholarship and educational broadcasting. As a dramatic series with an all-Maori core cast, specifically designed to enable a context for the learning of Maori language by second-language learners, the scripts address scholarly debate around the cultural diversity in the generic boundaries of soap opera and soap's cultural 'value', argued by Christine Geraghty, Robert C. Allen, Chris Barker and others, as well as scholarship specific to New Zealand serial drama (Trisha Dunleavy). Korero Mai puts practice to the theory of the borrowing and modification of soap opera protocols for educational purposes, specifically language acquisition. CONTRIBUTION Geraghty observes, "The argument that soaps have a capacity to present change positively may seem to fly in the face of common conceptions of soap opera" (1991). She goes on to propose that the apparent stability of soaps might mask the extent to which they are under pressure to respond to social concerns. In this way, these scripts contribute to "a very important genre - a Māori language learning programme specifically designed to meet the language learning requirements of Māori Television legislation" (Schuster cited in Rahoi-Gilchrist, 2010). My contribution to the Season 9 scripts (and the 8 seasons prior) was storyliner, co-writer (drama) and sole writer (presenter links). SIGNIFICANCE The writing of the scripts was funded by Te Māngai Pāho, the Crown Entity responsible for promotion of Māori language and culture by providing funding for Māori language programming on radio, television and music. Korero Mai was a finalist for Best Education Program in the Qantas Media Awards, and won Best Māori Program in the NZ TV awards. It spawned another language acquisition 'micro'-soap (Whānau) and is a leader in the field.