A MUST-WATCH film for us as teachers! 98% of children are born gifted and only 2% remain so when they leave school. Something went wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVe5yVMIGqM&feature=player_embedded

NATIONAL BILINGUALISM PROGRAM IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

 

  The Colombian government established The National Plan of Bilingualism in 2004 under the leadership of ex-President Alvaro Uribe Velez. Due to globalization any country which wanted to keep up with these new conditions had to strive to reach the level of the current process.

That’s why Language got a lot of attention; a monolingual community (Spanish) had to learn a foreign language: English.  And what about those minority communities where nor Spanish neither English was spoken?

 

These communities played an important role in this National Plan of Bilingualism; this plan was in charge of 3 sectors: Teaching and Learning English as a foreign language, Teaching and Learning English as a second language and finally; Ethnoeducation (languages ​​of cultural identification, Spanish as a second language, Spanish in boarders and other languages). (Plan Nacional de Bilingüismo, 2004)

 

  Indigenous communities in Colombia began to have the first contacts with settlers since the 50’s when people from Antioquia, Santander and Tolima arrived to their lands due to the violence for those years. The incorporation of the indigenous communities into the national education system with the imposition of unicultural and monolingual Spanish schools in these zones was one of the most significant influences that settlers brought to them with their arrival.

It was only in 1978 when indigenous leaders began to claim for having a bilingual and bicultural education; this became more evident in 2004 with the National Plan of Bilinguism.   The National Plan of Bilinguism has had serious criticism due to the inefficiency of their programs in the real world; it appears to be simple to apply such a policy in the Spanish schools but the results has shown us a very discouraging outlook. This program faces a bigger challenge by hosting other contexts which are much more complex and richer in languages: Spanish in boarders and other languages; the government must deal with a multilingual culture.

 

Nowadays in those regions there are two-language schools ​​with different conditions and status, the teacher speaks Spanish and the student speaks his/her native language; they confront two semantic universes: the teaching of languages ​​(Spanish /native language) and the language of instruction (Spanish).

 

One of the main problems is that government translates the National Spanish program into the native language without taking into account their culture and believes; this is not a bicultural and bilingual education, this is just a translation of the “little brothers academic system”. The problem is even more complex; According to Jurado (2009) the Ministry of Education does not design teaching methods and programs consistent and coupled with the multilingual and bicultural objectives, there is a risk of acculturate the child in the own language.

 

The Ministry of Education is not ready for talking about bilinguism in Indigenous communities because there are several situations that will have to face  before teaching Spanish to those communities;  Trillos (19969)another difficult situation is that just in La Sierra Nevada exists more than 6 native languages, so a child who  speak wiwa, goes to the “bilingual school” for taking classes from a “little brother teacher” who speaks Spanish, nevertheless, there are other child who speaks kogui and other who speaks arawak with him; there must exists an excellent official program for such a variety of language and culture in which must be taking into account the students diversity and the excellent preparation of the teacher; not just in the cultural aspect but also in this rich multilingual context in which he is teaching.

 

Another issue to be taking into account in this pretense of teaching Spanish to the Indigenous Communities in Colombia is that most of those native languages does not have writing system; they are just spoken by the Indies in a 90% and a 10 % is left for a kind of draws and signs. Instead Spanish is taught in its writing and reading system. It is said that this knowledge (writing and reading Spanish) is not used outside the classroom; although they are learning Spanish as a second language they do not have the obligation of speak in Spanish in their social lives because they go home and they continue using their native language for communication. So it demonstrates that children do not use Spanish as a language for communication; it is just a Government Spanish schools requirement.

 

 As a conclusion it can be said that indigenous communities have fought for keeping their native language through news generations; nevertheless they have worked for the bilinguistic change (Spanish/Native Languages) in their schools and community in general. But an adequate and well prepared program is not ready for carrying out this important job. Teachers are not well prepared and the National Program is not suitable for being applying in those multilingual communities.

 

An issue in which The Ministry of Education must know and take into account is that those communities have shown motivation for learning and teaching their own native language, as well as they are working on drawing their own alphabet for each native language and writing rules for being used in the schools. In this way; they can learn new knowledge in their own language avoiding being acculturated, and at the same time those native languages can be expanded and enriched grammatically; opening space for these languages to ​​become stronger and also an official language in Colombia someday.