Authorities have failed to promote the adoption of an effective pedagogical approach to ensure that indigenous students develop cognitive and linguistic skills in their native languages and Spanish, said Dr. Joan Marie Feltes, stated the first visiting scholar as part of the Sylvia Schmelkes del Valle Chair for Educational Justice.
In Mexico, the low quality of education that indigenous students encounter in their community schools and the intense pressure to assimilate into the national culture result in the loss of native languages and cultures and the poor academic achievement of indigenous students, she remarked.
The above, during the webinar “Learning equity for students of indigenous peoples” held by the Research Institute for the Development of Education (INIDE) of the Ibero-American University (IBERO) Mexico City (CDMX), in order to share experiences and analyze the challenges of education faced by indigenous peoples.
After offering an introduction to the topic, the researcher in intercultural bilingual education explained that thousands of intercultural bilingual schools have been founded in Mexico in recent years to meet the educational needs of indigenous students in rural and marginalized communities.
She added that most indigenous teachers have not been trained in effective bilingual teaching methods that would empower them to offer their students an intercultural education with high quality learning experiences in two languages.
She indicated that the prevailing bilingual pedagogy in most indigenous schools in Mexico is the translation method: the teacher dictates the lesson in Spanish, and simultaneously orally translates the content and major concepts into the native language of his or her students.
“Although this method allows students to access curricular content, translation pedagogy in indigenous schools is a double-edged sword: most indigenous students do not develop high-level linguistic and academic skills in Spanish, nor in their native languages,” she said.
Dr. Joan Marie Feltes explained that this situation causes students not to pay attention during instruction that occurs in their second language and wait patiently for the teacher’s translation in their first language.
She added that this causes years of schooling to be lost, given that indigenous students complete three years of preschool education and six years of intercultural bilingual primary education and graduate from basic education without being able to speak, read or write what would correspond to their grade level in Spanish.
Original text by Luis Reyes published in Ibero on June 11th, 2025.
Photos: Conafe Teopisca.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.