A Case-based Reasoning Approach to Validate Grammatical Gender and Number Agreement in Spanish language

Across Latin America 420 indigenous languages are spoken. Spanish is considered a second language in indigenous communities and is progressively introduced in education. However, most of the tools to support teaching processes of a second language have been developed for the most common languages such as English, French, German, Italian, etc. As a result, only a small amount of learning objects and authoring tools have been developed for indigenous people considering the specific needs of their population. This paper introduces Multilingual–Tiny as a web authoring tool to support the virtual experience of indigenous students and teachers when they are creating learning objects in indigenous languages or in Spanish language, in particular, when they have to deal with the grammatical structures of Spanish. Multilingual–Tiny has a module based on the Case-based Reasoning technique to provide recommendations in real time when teachers and students write texts in Spanish. An experiment was performed in order to compare some local similarity functions to retrieve cases from the case library taking into account the grammatical structures. As a result we found the similarity function with the best performance

IMPACT: The Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning. Volume 5, Issue 2, Summer 2016

Impact: The Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning is a peer-reviewed, biannual online journal that publishes scholarly and creative non-fiction essays about the theory, practice and assessment of interdisciplinary education. Impact is produced by the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning at the College of General Studies, Boston University (www.bu.edu/cgs/citl)

Seriousness, Irony, and Cultural Politics: A Defense of Jorge Portilla

This essay discusses Jorge Portilla’s phenomenological analysis of values and freedom in his essay, “The Phenomenology of Relajo.” Portilla argues that genuine freedom requires seriousness and sincerity; it requires wholehearted participation in cultural practices that one finds truly valuable. To support his argument, Portilla examines the ways that values and freedom are undermined when cultural practices are disrupted and break down as a result of the antics of the so-called "relajiento," a kind of “class clown” figure in Mexican culture who refuses to take anything seriously. Carlos Sánchez has criticized Portilla's rejection of the relajiento, suggesting that the relajiento’s disruptive behavior may be a liberatory act of defiance against the legacy of colonialism. I argue, however, that Portilla was right to see the relajiento’s behavior as counterproductive in the fight for liberation from oppression

MAYAN LANGUAGES EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY: A CASE STUDY OF KAQCHIKEL AND K’ICHE’ EDUCATORS IN GUATEMALA

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and analyze how Mayan language instructors in the Faculty of Humanities at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala use technology in their classrooms. In this research, indigenous professors shared their experiences as Kaqchikel and K’iche’ language instructors at the higher education level. A narrative qualitative case study was applied to discover the practices and insights of two Kaqchikel Mayan language instructor and one K’iche’ Mayan language instructor by addressing the following questions: (1) How do the professors use technology while teaching IDI3 Mayan Language in the Faculty of Humanities at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala? (2) In what ways do indigenous language speaker professors describe their experience of teaching their language and culture to Spanish language speaking at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala? (3) In what ways do students engage with the use of technology for the purpose of acquiring language skills in the Mayan language as a third language? The findings showed that teachers know how to use technology and why they don’t use it in the classroom. These findings reveal Mayan instructors’ experiences and remembrances of teaching Mayan language and culture to undergrad students who are mostly Spanish speakers. Furthermore, the participants agreed on how students’ engagement increased by combining a variety of class activities and technological tools to learn the language. These results suggest that there would be value in the creation of a variety of workshops of how to use technology in the classroom. This may be possible by providing different professional growth opportunities. Advisor: Edmund \u27Ted\u27 Haman

Interpreting and Implementing Interculturality: EIB Educators and In-Service Teacher Training Programs

Built on the premise that there is a gap between policy design and policy implementation, this paper seeks to understand how Peruvian teachers make sense of and implement Intercultural Bilingual Education (EIB) policy. EIB policy, introduced in 1991, recognizes the linguistic and cultural rights of marginalized indigenous students in schooling. This paper explores how in-service teacher training workshops influence teachers’ interpretation and implementation of interculturality by looking at experiences of the teacher training workshops run by Fundación HoPe Holanda Perú (HOPE) and Asociación Pukllasunchis in Cusco, Peru. Through this analysis, the paper shows how in-service teacher training workshops can contribute to the ways in which teachers reproduce and/or challenge the historical marginalization of indigenous languages and cultures. It also shows that although in-service teacher training workshops influence the actions of teachers they do not determine them, as individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, and past experience, as well as the socio-historical context in which teachers find themselves, also come into play

Keys to indigenous youth and adult education in Latin America. Lessons learned in the pursuit of social literacy

The article summarises a study on the situation of the education of indigenous youths and adults in Latin America. Although its scope pretends to be regional and comprehensive seven case studies are taken as points of departure for the analysis; those of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico, traditionally regarded as the \u27most indigenous\u27 countries of the region, in contrast with other two - Brazil and Nicaragua -, where the presence of indigenous populations is less influential in everyday social life. The lessons learned through the implementation of youth and adult literacy programmes in these countries open up possibilities for an analytical display of relevant issues and conditions that ought to be taken into account in youth and adult educational programmes and by extension in the education of Indigenous populations in general, at a point in time where, as a result of their struggle towards social emancipation, Indigenous individuals and collectivities are gradually becoming subjects of law, and the times when they were merely considered as objects of Latin American public policy are being overcome. It is argued that in such a context a further step needs to be taken where the education of indigenous populations becomes a national issue and thus implies the concern of everybody. This move would imply the interculturalisation of all Latin American nation-states and consequently of their educational systems. (DIPF/Orig.)In seinem Beitrag analysiert der Autor die Ursprünge der zweisprachigen interkulturellen Bildung für indigene Kinder, Jugendliche und Erwachsene im lateinamerikanischen Kontext vor dem Hintergrund der verschiedenen nationalstaatlichen Versuche, assimilierende bzw. kompensatorische Ansätze in der Grundschul- und Erwachsenenbildung durch genuin zweisprachige und interkulturelle Ansätze zu ersetzen, was er spezifisch am Beispiel von Literacy-Programmen verdeutlicht. (DIPF/Orig.

On Mexican Philosophy, For Example

In the first part of my work I consider the false opposition between abstract universalism and cultural particularisms. I propose to dissolve it by means of a nomadic thought and take as an example of such thinking the work of Luis Villoro. The second part discusses the disagreement between Manuel Vargas and Robert Sánchez on philosophy as a cultural resource. The third part explores the genuine opposition between arrogant reason and porous reason

An Investigation Into Identity, Power and Autonomous EFL Learning Among Indigenous and Minority Students In Post-secondary Education: A Mexican Case Study

This critical ethnographic case study draws on Indigenous and minority students\u27 process of learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Mexico. The study specifically focuses on students who enrolled in a program called A wager with the Future. The aim of the study is to identify and understand contributing factors in these students’ struggles with the process of learning English by focusing on factors that influence their investment in EFL. The research is framed by (critical) applied linguistics and post-colonial theories that favour the integration of an understanding of these students’ socio historical context in their learning of English, and question (unequal) power relationships between languages and cultures in Mexico. The methodology was designed to ensure trustworthiness by adopting multiple data collection techniques, and to decolonize the research process by using participatory methods that featured researcher/participant coanalysis of the data. On a macro level, findings show that students enrolled in the program experience a relationship with English that is rooted in Mexico’s colonial legacies (as expressed through discrimination in the EFL classroom), which has an impact on their subjectivities; specifically, they feel afraid and inferior in the EFL classroom. On a micro level, the programming adopted in the university’s Language Department does not draw on diverse students’ multi-competences in other languages. Nonetheless, some Indigenous students manage to invest in EFL by creating imagined communities, and appropriating English through the creation of autonomous pluralistic language learning strategies

Understanding Intercultural Bilingual Education for Education Equity among Indigenous Students in Ecuador and Peru

In this dissertation, I focused on education equity for Indigenous communities in Ecuador and Peru and the policy implications of intercultural bilingual education in the countries’ primary schools. The goals of the study were to (a) measure the extent to which intercultural bilingual education led to increased education outcomes for Indigenous students in Ecuador and Peru and (b) analyze how intercultural bilingual education was implemented in Ecuador by interest groups and how this affected its interpretation and success. Using a sequential mixed methods design, the study began with a longitudinal analysis of education outcomes among Indigenous and non-Indigenous students from 2006-2013 using standardized tests from the Second and Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Studies. Indigenous students increased their test scores in Spanish language over time; however, these findings were not solely attributed to intercultural bilingual education schools. Improvements among Indigenous students did not necessarily reflect increased equity, as low-income children and those from rural areas continued to underperform. In Ecuador, intercultural bilingual education reform from 2006-2016 resulted in divergent perspectives on the purposes and outcomes of this type of education between the government and Indigenous groups. Opposing interpretations of this education reform as a realization of Indigenous rights and equity as outlined in the 2008 constitution, and its subsequent implementation in Indigenous communities, led to differences in how to measure the success of the reform. Government adherence to a state-level system of evaluation and testing for all students and teachers in 2012 predisposed intercultural bilingual education schools to standardized testing that undermined the theoretical underpinnings of intercultural education

The Effects of Neocolonialism on Indigenous Peruvians

In this world, there exist histories that do not make it into textbooks or school curriculums. There are events that are born in the shadows of suppression, with victims stifled so much so that they have no means of telling their stories. Historical happenings do not always have the privilege of being accurately recorded where the pen meets the paper. Instead, these instances linger in the air, passed on from one generation to the next by storytelling and song, aging into myth. Colonization, or the act of settling into a foreign land and establishing dominance over the natives, has history extending as far back as ancient Greece, and now has spread like a disease to the far corners of the globe (Veracini 5). From New Zealand to Mexico, and many places in between, groups of native people have faced discrimination and erasure at the hands of colonists. Those who control history and how these occurrences are chronicled understand their immense power in this world, and continue to perpetuate instances of supremacy on a global scale. With the rise of modern technology, more and more of the horrors of neocolonialism (or modern-day colonialism) are being brought forth, into the sunlight, abuse and all