This article explores the extent to which task-based language teaching (TBLT) as an emerging but increasingly popular language teaching approach can be used successfully for teaching te reo Maori as a minority and endangered language in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The article presents the experiences and perspectives of one beginning teacher of te reo in an initial teacher education programme. This teacher participated in a one-year course with a dedicated focus on TBLT, designed principally for teachers of the so-called Modern Foreign Languages (MFLs). The article outlines this teacher's initial struggle to see the relevance of the MFL course for her work as an intending teacher of te reo, and her ultimate embracing of her peers and the ideas explored in the course. The study raises issues for the pertinence of TBLT for strengthening and supporting New Zealand's indigenous language, and concludes that an approach such as TBLT may have an important role to play.