Abstract

BASTIANI GOMEZ, José et al. Measuring Knowledge with Items in Ch'ol and Spanish in Elementary School Children with a Bilingual Intercultural Educational Model. REDIE [online]. 2013, vol.15, n.1, pp.107-121. ISSN 1607-4041.

It is assumed that the preferential use of Spanish as language mediator in education, as opposed to an indigenous language, negatively impacts children's learning. In this study we explore the learning problems that are engendered in children through the use of a language other than their mother tongue in school. A test was conducted in Spanish and Ch'ol, with ten items that focused on linguistic and cultural identity, logic, mathematics, Spanish, history, geography and geometry. Three possible answers were offered, only one of which was correct. The test was administered to 53 fifth-grade children and the same number of sixth-grade students in the Indigenous Education Schools of the Ch'ol region. Between 50 and 70% of the students in both grades obtained six or seven correct answers in both languages. The results suggest that there is a deficiency in the level of knowledge and while we conclude that language does not appear to be a major limitation to learning, nevertheless we cannot rule out that the use of the mother tongue as a means of communication during teaching processes could facilitate meaningful learning.

Keywords : Measurement of knowledge; bilingualism; cognitive understanding; school performance; intercultural education.

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