ADULT INDIGENOUS

LITERACY: A CHALLENGE OF
LEARNING
Sara Elena Mendoza Ortega
Mxico

MXICO COUNTRY
Extension: 2 millions
Km

105 MILLIONS OF
HABITANTS
Indigenous people: 12
millions

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
12 millions: 11% of total population
More than 364 language variants
Illiteratte: 27.3% (National 6.9%)

POLITICAL FRAMEWORK
INEA, for more than two decades, has made
constant educative efforts, directed to the
population young and adult native of the
country.
Nowadays INEA develops an institutional
policy towards the indigenous population,
that takes shape in the Indigenous and
Bilingual Educational Model for the Life and
Work (MEVyT-IB)

WHAT CHARACTERIZES THE

EDUCATIVE MODEL

Includes three educative levels: initial,

intermedium and advanced
Offers two learning routes on initial level,
depending on the linguistic condition of the
people
Starting from mother tongue language
Emphasizes the intercultural approach
Incorporates bilingual and pedagogical
strategies
Allows to choose and transit across diverse
levels and modules
Favors the educative continuity

Curricular organization

MIBES route, Spanish like second

language:
Intermedium
monolingual people

level
MIBES 1

MIBES 3

Beginnig to read
Read and write
and
In my language
write in my language

MIB 1
MIBES 2
Speak
Spanish

Using the
writing
language
MIBES 4
Beginning to read (two languages)
and write
In Spanish

Initial level

MIB 2
Numbers
and
calculations

MIB
Lets live
better!

MIBI route: bilingual integrated: efficient

bilingual people

Intermedium
level
MIBI 1
Beginning read
and write in my
two languages

MIBI 2
Write and read in
my two
languages

Initial level

MIB 1
Using the writing
Language
(two languages)

MIB 2
Numbers
and
calculations

MIB
Lets live
better!

+
I write my
language2D
MIB 3

LITERACY

Initial level=literacy
Much more than only decipher and repeat
Notion of functional literacy focuses on how these
skills are applied in relevant ways*
Literacy as transformative: an active process of
learning involving social awareness and critical
reflection*
Literacy is viewed as a continuum of skills (wide
regarding)*
Basic education

Basic
Basic education
education

Inicial
Inicial level
level
*UNESCO. Literacy for life. 2006

SECOND LANGUAGE

The teaching of indigenous language contributes so much

to the learning of the second language (linguistic
transference)

Acquisition of the oral communicative competition of the

second language, is previous requisite for the acquisition of
reading and writing abilities in this language

The education of one second language in its oral and

written
aspects
depart
from
a
functional
and
communicative approach

The learning of the second language occurs like a gradual

process of communicative competitions development

When the learned write in the mother tongue language and

speak in one second language, then it is possible to read
and to write this second language

The competitions that allow a person to

communicate efficiently: to speak, to understand,
to read and to write, are developed in different
spaces and moments

The situations in which one or another language

as well as one or another code (spoken or
written) are used, are determined by the specific
context in which the persons lives and works

The learning of one second language is not

equivalent to the translation from a language to
another one, but that it implies the recognition of
the meaning and senses that keep the languages
in concrete situations.

THE METHODOLOGICAL WAY

To recognize the spaces of use of the

languages (indigenous and spanish) in real
communicative situations

To consider the structural characteristics of

the spanish and the indigenous language

To identify and to recognize the linguistic

elements of the second language, the
context in which it is used and possible
meaning of the words in the new language in
real communicative situations

CRITICAL ISUUES

The bilingualism can be

only apparent. Really,
many persons only use
elementary aspects of the
second language in some
practical daily situations
The persons need 4 or 5
years of study of the
second language to learn
in this second language in
efficient way*, but the
educational processes of
bilingual literacy cannot be
so extensive.

In the indigenous
communities do not exist
environments
*Inliterate
the meaning
of Cummins,

1994

We need simple but

very thin instruments
of valuation

We need both
languages with
simultaneous work in
an extensive
framework of basic
education

We need develop rich

literate environments
both mother tongue
languages and Spanish

CRITICAL ISSUES

There is sufficient
evidence about the
linguistic transference,
but the times of
literacy in mother
tongue language are
very small
There is sufficient
evidence about the
existence of different
ways of thinking and
different styles of
learning.
In cultural contexts
specific solutions are
needed, but the public
politics are orientated
to the massive
solutions

We need to re-formulate
the criteria of curricular
development and of
literacy evaluation, in order
to recognize it as a process
along the basic education
and to favor formally his
continuous development

Different styles of
education are needed to
deliver to every specific
person the possibility of
learning and of growing in
social and cognitive terms.

Bilingual programs must

be alert and sensitive to
social and individual
differences in order to
provide the most adequate
pedagogical assistance to
help persons acquire the
second language; they

THANKS!
www.conevyt.org.mx/cursos/indige
na.htm