- •1 Introduction
- •Purpose of the Study
- •Research Questions.
- •Key Words
- •1.4 Significance of the study
- •2 Literature Review
- •2.1 Nahuatl
- •2.1.1 History Nahuatl civilization
- •2.1.2 Nahuatl grammar
- •Nahuatl in Puebla
- •Figure 2.2.2
- •2.2.1The Mixtec of Puebla
- •2.3 Education in Mexico
- •2.3.1 The history of the indigenous education in Mexico
- •2.4 Bilingual education at present
- •2.4.1 Benefits of bilingual education
- •2.5 Critical Pedagogy.
- •2.6 The role of the school and family in the bilingual education
- •2.6.1 Empowering Parents
- •2.6.2 How oral tradition can be used to teach academic skills
- •3. Methodology
- •3.1 Subjects
- •3.2 Instruments
- •3.3 Interviews
- •3.4 Activities
- •4. Findings
- •Answers of interview made to adults.
- •4.2 Answers of interview made to teenagers.
- •4.3 Answers of interview made to children.
- •4.4 Results of activities applied to children
- •5. Conclusions
- •5.1 General overview
- •5.2 Implications for further study.
- •5.3 Limitations of the study
- •5.4 Directions for further research
- •Appendix 1: Poster used to let people know about the conference.
- •Appendix 4: the questionaire administered to parents
- •Appendix 5: the questionaire administered to teenagers
- •Appendix 10: legend of the lagoon of xochiltepec in spanish
- •Appendix 11: legend of the lagoon of xochiltepec in nahuatl
5. Conclusions
5.1 General overview
The purpose of this research was to discuss the reasons for the decrease of students in the elementary school of the community of Santiago Teopantlan and what can be done about it. During this process it was important to know the perceptions of Nahuatl by the speakers. How does this perception influence the role of Nahuatl in education? What can be done for increasing the number of students in the bilingual elementary school? In order to know the reasons for the decrease of the students, three questionnaires were applied to children, teenagers and adults of the community. In addition, a conference was given about the benefits of bilingual education. The results of the questionnaires for adults showed that people of the community do not think that Nahuatl is a language; they think that it is a dialect, hence for them Nahuatl is useless in education even when ironically they think that it is part of the culture and traditions. They want to preserve Nahuatl in order to keep the culture and traditions but people do not know how to do it. This perception makes parents feel that they don’t have the responsibility for the education of their own children, leaving everything to the school and the teachers. Parents are requesting a better education and better teachers but in order to it fill that need, it is also essential to empower parents and let them know that they should be involved in the education of their children.
The results of the questionnaires for teenagers show that a large percentage have a negative attitude about Nahuatl and they do not seem to be interested in it anymore. Most of them only use Nahuatl for talking to older people. They no longer use this language at school or with friends as they did when they were children. This is perhaps due to peer pressure or some other influence outside the home. Even the attitude that they have during interviews seems to reflect this growing negativity towards their native language. Although children are more motivated in using the language with family and friends, they do not notice the importance of Nahuatl in their education or the reason why they should study it. In fact they are studying this language as a subject but they do not have a clear focus in bilingual education. They know the language but feel ashamed in front of other children. This situation is the biggest problem to face. The lack of interest learning or preserving the Nahuatl language is an issue that needs more investigation. Even when they can understand and speak the language people do not know how to write it. According to the results the main causes for the decrease of the number of students in the elementary schools are that children do not think that they are receiving a solid bilingual education. They do not have the material that they need, and many parents do not think that education in Nahuatl is good enough. Once again it is perhaps empowering parents and making them aware that Nahuatl can be used as an academic language that could combat the supposed lack of motivation on the part of the parents.