It started with a simple question, why is it so hard to find high quality, culturally accurate Pacific Language Educational Print resources for New Zealand classrooms?
For Nige and Ofa Lewis, the answer was personal. Ofa grew up speaking Tongan at home. When their children started school they wanted resources that reflected their culture, beautiful, accurate, something worth putting on a classroom wall. What they found was a gap. A big one.
That gap became Pacific Learners.
From Videos to Pacific Language Educational Print Posters – The Journey
Pacific Learners began as a free video resource, animated language learning content for Pacific communities across Aotearoa. Over 120 videos. More than 3.2 million views. Free for anyone who needed them.
But teachers kept asking for something more. Something they could print. Something they could put on the wall and leave there, a permanent, beautiful reminder that Pacific languages belong in every classroom.
So the team started building posters.
Not generic. Not AI-generated. Not copied from a dictionary and slapped onto a template. Every single poster in the Pacific Learners collection is built from verified vocabulary, cross-referenced against official language resources, NCEA vocabulary lists, Ministry for Pacific Peoples language cards and wherever possible reviewed by native speakers of each language.
The result is a collection that does not exist anywhere else in the world.
What Makes Pacific Learners Different
There are other Pacific language resources. There are other poster sellers on Etsy. But there is nobody doing what Pacific Learners does, and the difference matters.
Verified vocabulary. Every word on every poster has been checked against authoritative sources. When a Tongan parent looks at the Tongan Family poster, they see words that are right. Not close. Right. That trust is everything.
Cultural authenticity. The illustrations are not stock images or generic Pacific scenes. Each poster is designed with cultural specificity, the Tongan border is a lalanga woven mat pattern, the Māori border is a kowhaiwhai design, the Kiribati poster uses the deep red of the national flag. The posters feel like they belong to their communities.
Depth across languages. Most Pacific language resources focus on Tongan or Samoan, the largest communities in New Zealand. Pacific Learners covers nine Pacific languages plus Te Reo Māori. Rotuman. Tokelauan. Kiribati. Tuvaluan. Languages that almost nobody else is creating resources for.
Free resources behind every poster. Every poster in the collection links to free videos, quizzes and worksheets at pacificlearners.co.nz. A teacher who buys the Tongan Numbers poster gets more than a poster, they get access to an entire learning ecosystem that their students can interact with.
The Languages Nobody Else Covers
Perhaps the most important work Pacific Learners is doing is for the smallest languages.
Rotuman — spoken by fewer than 10,000 people worldwide, has a complete five-poster collection including an emotions poster. Nobody else is creating Rotuman classroom resources.
Tokelauan — with fewer than 2,000 native speakers globally, has six posters including a traditional prayer (Tatalo) and an everyday phrases collection, all verified by a native Tokelauan speaker.
Kiribati and Tuvaluan — Pacific island nations facing the very real threat of disappearing beneath rising sea levels — both have complete five-poster bundles. When the land goes, the language must survive. Resources like these are part of how that happens.
For the Realm languages — Cook Island Māori, Niuean and Tokelauan, New Zealand has a special responsibility. These are endangered languages where New Zealand is the country of residence for the majority of speakers. Pacific Learners has been funded to produce free resources for these communities. Every Cook Island Māori, Niuean and Tokelauan poster is completely free to access.
Building for Global Communities
Pacific languages do not stop at the New Zealand border.
There are more than 200,000 Samoans in the United States. Over 150,000 Fijians in Australia. Tongan, Cook Island Māori and Niuean communities in the United Kingdom. Pacific diaspora families raising children in cities far from the islands their parents and grandparents called home.
For all of them the question is the same ,how do we pass the language on?
A beautiful, accurate, print-ready poster on a child’s bedroom wall is part of the answer. It normalises the language. It makes it visible. It says, this language belongs here.
That is the real purpose of every poster Pacific Learners makes.
What Comes Next
The collection is growing. Te Reo Māori posters are now live, numbers, body parts, animals, colours and a whakataukī art print. Hawaiian language posters are in development. Tahitian, Chamorro and other underserved Pacific languages are on the horizon.
The goal is simple and ambitious, to be the first result when any teacher, parent or community member anywhere in the world searches for Pacific language classroom resources.
Not just in New Zealand. Everywhere.
Because Pacific communities are everywhere. And they all deserve resources that reflect who they are.
Our Etsy shop launched earlier this year, read the full announcement here and the response from Pacific communities across Aotearoa and beyond has been overwhelming.
How to Access the Collection
All Pacific Learners educational posters are available at our Etsy shop — etsy.com/shop/PacificLearnersNZ — with individual posters from NZD $9 and language bundles from NZD $35.
Free videos, quizzes and worksheets for all Pacific languages, including all Cook Island Māori, Niuean and Tokelauan resources completely free, are available at pacificlearners.co.nz.
Every purchase directly funds the development of more free Pacific language resources. When you buy a poster you are not just decorating a classroom. You are helping keep a language alive.
Pacific Learners — Free videos · Quizzes · Worksheets · pacificlearners.co.nz
Pacific Learners is now on Etsy — beautiful Pacific language posters for your classroom and home
