Bilingual Intercultural Education Program in : Efforts and Challenges of Revitalizing the Language

Elizabeth Quintrileo Llancao Universidad del Bío Bío, Chile

The Mapudungun or ensure access to learning opportunities spoken by the Mapuche people in southern of Indigenous languages. The BIEP Chile is one of the thousands of severely is articulated from an intercultural education endangered languages in the world today. approach, and the Ministry of Education Despite some efforts by the Mapuche highlights the purpose of intercultural and the Chilean government to support education in terms of “rescuing and it, the language is threatened as fewer assessing the differences between culturally young people speak it. One of the diverse groups, and where specific languages ​​ efforts to revitalize Mapudungun is the and cultures acquire great relevance, since implementation of a Bilingual Intercultural it seeks mutual recognition among them” Education Program (BIEP). It began (Ministry of Education, 2011). in 1996 as a product of the promulgation of the Indigenous Law 19.253 that An analysis of the educational efforts established norms for the protection, contemplated in the BIEP shows three promotion and development of Indigenous important aspects: groups in Chile, and it created the National Corporation for Indigenous Development, 1) The teaching-learning process which in conjunction with the Ministry is student-centered, which means the of Education is responsible for the promotion BIEP considers personal experiences, of indigenous cultures and development identities, interests, tastes and realities of an intercultural bilingual program of all students who share the classroom, in areas of high Indigenous population, favoring intercultural dialogue; which in Chile are represented by the Aymara, Quechua, Mapudungun and 2) The community as a resource and source Rapa Nui. The BIEP has been gradually of knowledge. This aspect legitimizes implemented since its creation, starting the community as a source of knowledge in 2010 in schools with Indigenous and experience, valuing the knowledge enrollments equal to or greater than 50%. of the communities that speak the At present, its implementation is mandatory original language, especially the in in schools with an Indigenous enrollment participation of the elder members equal to or greater than 20%, which has in consultation and interaction with involved a transformation of the school students. It emphasizes that schools curriculum in Chile and a paradigm shift alone cannot assume the tasks of in relation to linguistic and planning recovering a language and strengthening policies, particularly with the teaching the identity, self-esteem and values of Indigenous languages. of the original cultures. Consequently, it is recommended to incorporate the Among the main features of the BIEP is family and other traditional authorities to establish Chile as a multicultural and of the community because they contribute multilingual country where diverse cultures with their experiences, values, advice and languages converge, which is a reality and knowledge from their cultural world. that schools should welcome in order to As a result, they transfer their experiences

14 NABE PERSPECTIVES ★ VOL. 41, ISSUE 1, 2018 to the new generations through speeches, stories, songs, dances and artistic A cooperative model focused on the development expressions, among others. Lastly, this second aspect highlights the contribution of communicative competence, should ask: of traditional educators in the training process, especially in the rescue and what does the student want to learn? revitalization of indigenous languages, an aspect that constitutes a significant advance in the vision of educational an intercultural education approach with program. The absence of the development policies from the Ministry of Education; emphasis on additive bilingualism combined of communicative skills is disturbing, with a communicative-semantic approach especially, considering their importance 3) The BIEP proposes the use of new to language teaching, one cannot ignore in a process of linguistic revitalization technologies in teaching, considering its lack of specific teaching methodologies (Quintrileo, 2017). their advantages in granting a greater and proposals that are not related to social status to the language, and the needs of each cultural context and In order to strengthen the weaknesses the possibility of using it in modern geographical area (Catrileo, 2010). identified in the BIEP, a more didactic technological means. Likewise, this In addition, there are few reports on the approach, based on McDowell (1983) didactic orientation is of interest development of communicative competence and Cassany (1999), is proposed. in the teaching of indigenous languages, in indigenous languages in Chilean They state that two main elements in since, from the discursive point schoolchildren since the implementation communicative language teaching must of view, it considers the different areas of the BIEP in Chile, which makes difficult be considered: First, the adaptation or communication channels, both to know the real impact of this program to the needs of the apprentice, and second, the traditional ones of orality and also in the school context. didactic activities located in a context the conversation and other forms of ‘communicative classroom.’ The first of interaction, as well as the A more detailed analysis of the pedagogical one follows a didactic design oriented communication through digital media. orientations of the BIEP reveals that even towards the interests, goals and requirements In this way, the teaching of indigenous though the communicative approach of each student. In a word, a cooperative- languages is situated in the era of to language teaching is the main based methodology could be proposed, digitalization and globalization, orientation in the proposal of cultural which in terms of Richterich (1985), considering the proliferation of digital content (indigenous languages), the actual would result in the participation of the technologies, which make possible communication skills do not constitute three entities involved in the training the existence of massive communication, an explicit or central didactic orientation, process: the student, the educator and entertainment and information devices since they do not explicitly appear in the the school. In Chile, each school designs (De Moraes, 2011). This orientation constitutes a step forward in the teaching of indigenous languages, since it fosters a vision equally situated in the new contexts of production and reception of discourse (Cassany, Group of Mapuche 1999), aligning with contributions totems at a park in from textual , sociolinguistics , Chile and pragmatics, among others.

Even though, the BIEP considers the three relevant aspects explained above, its implementation has been subject to criticism, mainly because it tends to promote a static and stereotyped indigenous identity, which ignores the dynamism of social, cultural and ethnic identities, as well as the evolution of contexts, where language is an instrument of communication, interaction and univocal transmission of culture (Quintrileo & Valenzuela, 2013). Despite the fact that the BIEP is articulated from

VOL. 41, ISSUE 1, 2018 ★ NABE PERSPECTIVES 15 its own educational model, however there A focus on the needs of the student References are very few reports and evidences about should address their sociolinguistic profile, the incorporation of students in an according to each level and geographical Cassany, D. (1999). Los enfoque comunicativo: elogio y educational model. In a communicative context. In Chile, the challenge is enormous, crítica. Lingüística y literatura, 36-37, 11-33. Catrileo, M. (2010). La Lengua Mapuche en el Siglo XXI. approach of this nature, the teacher assumes because today we do not have clear and Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Universidad Austral a role of mediator, negotiating the interests key instruments measure the communicative de Chile. of the students and the establishment. competence of children, and obviously, De Moraes, D. (2011). La cruzada de los medios en América Latina: Gobiernos progresistas y políticas de comunicación. From this perspective, a cooperative a model with a communicative approach Buenos Aires: Paidós. model focused on the development should address dialectical diversity, McDowell, J (1983). Curs de formació de monitors. of communicative competence, should particularly in the case of Mapudungun. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya. ask: what does the student want to learn?, Ministerio de Educación. (MINEDUC) (2011). Programa de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe. Propuesta de Bases taking into account the specificities The second element related to didactic Curriculares Asignatura Lengua Indígena. of cultural content; Then ask yourself: activities located in a context of Quintrileo, C., & Valenzuela, C. (2013). Competencia How does the student want to learn? ‘communicative classroom’ is based comunicativa en el programa intercultural bilingüe en el attending to their communicative needs on participants and goals. The main sistema educacional chileno. Calidoscópio, 12(1), 32-38. Retrieved from http://revistas.unisinos.br/index.php/ (from the pragmatic point of view of question here is: does the activity have calidoscopio/article/viewFile/cld.2014.121.04/4071 language), sociocultural (topics of interest, a communicative purpose, in pragmatic Quintrileo, C. (2017). La enseñanza comunicativa de discursive genres) and didactic (learning terms? (say hello, ask, etc.). In this way, lenguas indígenas: El caso del mapuzungun en el Programa de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe de Chile. styles, methodological approaches and student knows and is aware of the Ponencia presentada en I Congreso Internacional sobre preferred activities). Finally, the cooperative reason for the activity. This point is also Revitalización de Lenguas Indígenas y Minorizadas Ponencia presentada en I Congreso Internacional sobre model should ask what are the eventual associated with the needs and motivations Revitalización de Lenguas Indígenas y Minorizadas, goals of the children, which would make of the student, contributing to the Barcelona-Vic, April 19-21, 2017. it possible to advance in the awareness metacognition of the training process. Richterich, R. (1985). Besoins langagiers et objectifs of the motivation processes of the students d’apprentissage. Paris, Hachette. themselves. This last point has special The incorporation of the needs of the importance owing to its implications apprentice and didactic activities located About the Author: at the level of the attitudes expressed by in a context of communicative classroom speakers and non-speakers of an indigenous are essential elements that can boost Dr. Elizabeth Quintrileo is a faculty member language, taking into account the low value Chile’s BIEP. However, the incorporation of the Department of Arts and Letters at of indigenous languages because of historical of these elements is not free from Universidad del Bío Bío – Chile. She is also circumstances, assimilationist public policies challenges, which is something all a visiting faculty at the Department of and ethnocentric and racist ideologies. Indigenous activists have always faced Educational Specialties at Northern Arizona The goals or motivations of the students when dealing with revitalization efforts. University. Her main field of research is applied could even contribute to remove attitudes The needs of the learners and linguistics, specifically, the area related to of rejection towards methodologies, styles contextualized didactic activities will endangered languages revitalization and and cultural contents. be part of a long-term project. teaching, focusing her attention in the case of Mapudungun language. Her investigation follows a community- based research, where members of speech communities take active The incorporation of the needs of the apprentice role in supporting the learning needs of heritage language learning. In addition, she studies the and didactic activities located in a context of effects of technology on Mapudungun language revitalization based on the discipline Computer communicative classroom are essential elements Assisted Language Learning and its contribution to language saving and documentation. that can boost Chile’s BIEP. Dr. Quintrileo can be reached at equintrileo@ ubiobio.cl.

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