Resumen de Culture and Language Revitalization, Maintenance, and Development In Mexico: The Nahua Alto Balsas Communities
José Antonio Flores Farfán Ciestas
I will here present a general account of eorts undertaken in intercultural education issues as applied in various indigenous communities, particularly the Nahua communities of the Alto Balsas in Guerrero, Mexico. In this connection I will brie¯y introduce the ethnological and linguistic context of this area, one that oers suitable conditions for the development of proposals aimed at reversing the threat of linguistic loss, and also suitable conditions for discussion of methodology. In order to build on community strengths and cultural traditions, emphasis is placed on outside-the-school approaches: community members are actively involved in assessment, planning, and development; total-language-immersion workshops are conducted; established cultural traditions already utilized for socialization are incorporated (riddles, stories, pictorial crafts), and very modern technologies are employed to support the indigenous language (videos, a website). These methods will be adapted for use in additional indigenous communities in Mexico, always with careful attention to the local setting.
