Acquisition and teaching of indigenous languages as mother tongues. The experience with the wixárika

Abstract

The school can become a vehicle for strengthening and revaluing indigenous languages ”‹”‹through appropriate programs for teaching them as mother tongues at all educational levels. This implies adequate preparation of the teachers who are going to take on this task, teaching courses and developing quality materials. It is essential to adapt pedagogical models to specific realities from their very conception and design. Two are the axes of this proposal. The first is the contrastive method. The second is the monitoring of the ontogenetic development of the language in order to accommodate the content and pedagogical strategies. The construction of the language and the construction of a grammar must take place in parallel. 

Keywords. School, indigenous languages, ontogenetic development, contrastive method.