With the support of UNESCO, traditional Mapuche educators strengthen their linguistic and pedagogical skills

In three Chilean regions, traditional Mapuche educators participated in four meetings as part of a pilot project for linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical immersion initiated by UNESCO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education of that country.

Initiated by the UNESCO Office in Chile and the Bilingual Intercultural Education Program (PEIB) of the Ministry of Education, the National Institute of the Mapuche Language Mapuzuguletuaiñ developed four linguistic immersion meetings, called koneltun. A total of 135 traditional Mapuche educators participated in these four koneltun, in the Biobío, Araucanía, and Los Ríos regions.

The goal of the koneltun is to develop situated and meaningful learning of the language and culture in traditional educators, who teach the subject "Language and culture of ancestral indigenous peoples" in state-subsidized establishments with at least 20% indigenous students. This initiative is expected to contribute to the rescue, revitalization, and strengthening of languages, according to the linguistic vitality, territorial and cultural particularities of the Mapuche people.

In each koneltun, members of the National Institute of the Mapuche Language Mapuzuguletuaiñ led sessions for traditional educators teaching the aforementioned subject to share and discuss their culture in Mapuzungun and also dedicated spaces to strengthen the teaching methods of these educators.

After the events, the director of the Mapuzuguletuaiñ Institute, Alberto Huenchumilla, reflected: "There are many factors that have caused the loss of Mapuzungun, but discrimination has undoubtedly been one of the important ones. I think more status needs to be given to the language; there is a lack of public policies to advance the recovery of Mapuzungun."

The president of the Institute, Paula Huenumilla, stated: "Returning to an immersion space makes the language more vital in people." She added: "Although we have been working with koneltun since 2015, this is the first time we have worked only with traditional educators, people dedicated to teaching and transmitting language and culture in schools. It was a great challenge because most of the participants were speakers, from territories, living in Mapuche communities. The training consisted of helping them teach the language in a school context."

Teacher Héctor Millanao, from the Intercultural Department of the Bicentennial Polyvalent High School of Lonquimay, commented on his experience as a participant in a koneltun: "For me, it was very interesting to participate in these activities, since these meeting spaces between traditional values are often not available, and considering the vast territory that is Wallmapu, this makes it often difficult to generate meeting spaces among Mapuche people from different territories. It was quite positive; a lot of experience from the various works being carried out in the territories was shared."

Adela Quiñilao, an educator from the Villa Coihueco school in Araucanía, noted the importance of exchange within her own culture. "We gathered four Mapuche territories; the experience is super important. We compile Mapuzungun as it is spoken in different communities or territories. We learned to speak other things in Mapuzungun, as spoken according to the territories," she says.

Following the realization of the Mapuche koneltun, a systematization of the experiences is projected to develop a model of linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical immersion that is replicable and sustainable over time, available for use and adaptation by various entities wishing to undertake such experiences, in order to contribute to the strengthening and recovery of indigenous languages in Chile.

In 2024, plans are underway to carry out linguistic immersion experiences with the Quechua and Aymara peoples.