Intercultural bilingual education

This week I participated in a conference on intercultural bilingual education (EIB) in Peru. The two-day conference consisted of lectures by renowned specialists and panel discussions. Among the speakers was my boss Mariska who gave a talk on the intercultural curricular proposal ARTEPERÚ, elaborated by Warmayllu, that integrates communal knowledge and intercultural education through the arts in the official primary school curriculum. As a student in linguistics, I found the conference very interesting and have even begun to consider writing my thesis on EIB in Peru.

Since the event was organized by the Regional Academy of the Quechua Language, the focus was on quechua (spoken by 4 million Peruvians, according to official statistics, and probably by many more). In theory, all 43 of Peru’s indigenous languages are official and their speakers have the right to use them when dealing with authorities. Children whose mother tongue is not Spanish should have access to bilingual education. In practice, however, linguistic minorities are forced to use Spanish, which millions of Peruvians people either do not know at all or are not fluent in.

In the Cajamarca region, quechua has lost foot in the past decades. Nowadays only the residents of Porcón Alto and Chetilla (communities close to Cajamarca) are quechua-speaking. Nonetheless, in Sexemayo and Cushunga, communities relatively removed from the city, people do use quechua, mixing it routinely with Spanish. When I ask one of the preschool students in Cushunga or Sexemayo what he is drawing, he rarely answers “oveja” (Spanish for “sheep”) but instead “wisha”. When it is cold, people say “alalay”, not “qué frío”. Instead of a “Buenos días, ¿cómo está?”, I am often greeted with an “Allin punchay, ¿Imashinam kangi?”

In many cases, quechua is seen as a more expressive language, so people recur to it for emphasis. It is also common to use quechua words for animals and everyday things. It is important that the teacher sees this code-switching as something that enriches the Spanish language, not as a deficiency. Sadly, the teacher is in many cases insensitive to local culture and traditions, and neither speaks nor appreciates the indigenous language spoken by the pupils.

During my time in Cajamarca, I have grown to understand that rural communities have inexhaustible reserves of knowledge on many things I know absolutely nothing about: medicinal plants, traditional cures, handicrafts, care of domestic animals, etc. I hope to have been able to teach my students something, but surely I have learnt a lot more from them and from their parents.