- •1 Introduction
- •Purpose of the Study
- •Research Questions.
- •Key Words
- •1.4 Significance of the study
- •2 Literature Review
- •2.1 Nahuatl
- •2.1.1 History Nahuatl civilization
- •2.1.2 Nahuatl grammar
- •Nahuatl in Puebla
- •Figure 2.2.2
- •2.2.1The Mixtec of Puebla
- •2.3 Education in Mexico
- •2.3.1 The history of the indigenous education in Mexico
- •2.4 Bilingual education at present
- •2.4.1 Benefits of bilingual education
- •2.5 Critical Pedagogy.
- •2.6 The role of the school and family in the bilingual education
- •2.6.1 Empowering Parents
- •2.6.2 How oral tradition can be used to teach academic skills
- •3. Methodology
- •3.1 Subjects
- •3.2 Instruments
- •3.3 Interviews
- •3.4 Activities
- •4. Findings
- •Answers of interview made to adults.
- •4.2 Answers of interview made to teenagers.
- •4.3 Answers of interview made to children.
- •4.4 Results of activities applied to children
- •5. Conclusions
- •5.1 General overview
- •5.2 Implications for further study.
- •5.3 Limitations of the study
- •5.4 Directions for further research
- •Appendix 1: Poster used to let people know about the conference.
- •Appendix 4: the questionaire administered to parents
- •Appendix 5: the questionaire administered to teenagers
- •Appendix 10: legend of the lagoon of xochiltepec in spanish
- •Appendix 11: legend of the lagoon of xochiltepec in nahuatl
Figure 2.2.2
2.2.1The Mixtec of Puebla
Now we will talk about the Mixtec nation which will be the focus of our particular study. This region is located in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puebla and has an area of approximately 4 million hectares. It Consists of 256 municipalities, with approximately one million 222, 000 inhabitants.
Nahuatl is preserved in many of these municipalities. However, this language is undergoing major changes over time. As it was shown in the above statistics provided by INEGI, half the percentages of speakers of this language are older than 60 years. This means that the language is in decline. The question is why? What are the reasons that lead young people today to not want to use the Nahuatl language as a communication tool? Some of the reasons are fear of rejection or discrimination from the rest of society. As Baker (2001:60) points out, one of the social causes of language loss is an ethnic identity associated with it which denies people social mobility due to racism which also leads to a lack of pride in the importance of the language.
This is complicated by the fact that language loss is accelerated when the people of the area want an education only in the majority language or at least that there be an emphasis on the majority language in the school which is also the prevalent belief in the area under study here (Baker: 2001:61). An important answer to solve these questions would be a good education in the minority language in order to “enhance ethnic awareness” (Baker: 2001:61). Yet a good education in the minority language cannot exist unless there is a standard written form of it and a tradition of literacy in the community. Thus a non-standardized form of the language is actually one of the linguistic factors that leads to language loss (Baker 2001:61). Education contributes greatly to value what we are, our culture and our language. No one can argue that a good education is the key to opening many doors to society regardless of origin but it must be solidly based not only on socio-cultural factors that favor bilingual education but on linguistic ones as well.
2.3 Education in Mexico
Education is the pillar in every culture because through education the values, principles, attitudes, feelings are transmitted and they make every culture unique. In Mexico as in other countries education is a right. It was made possible by a process that started in 1940 when the socialist education ended, for the first time free textbooks were given. At first the aim of this change was not to use education as a tool of the transformation of Mexico, rather it was the instrument to unify the country. In 1943 Jaime Torres Bodet was in charge of the Secretary of Public Education and he modified the 3rd Article of Mexican constitution, eliminating the term socialist and including humanist, integral, secular and democratic. Education should help to end discrimination and privileges. At present the 3rd article provides that education must be free, secular and mandatory.