Raise the sense of belonging and spread the cultural wealth, part of the objectives of Indigenous Education.
Mérida, Yucatán (December 28, 2020).- The didactic strategies for the preservation of the Mayan language created by Yucatecan teachers, reached children throughout Mexico through national television, reiterating the commitment of the current state management to provide tools that consolidate the dissemination of the Maya culture.
The teacher Gonzalo Cumi Sonda, from the Directorate of Indigenous Education, took part in the classes given to students of the bilingual primary school “Jacinto Canek”, located in the south of Mérida, to the studies of “Learn At Home”, for fifth graders, from all over the country, so they can get to know the greatness of our mother tongue.
“In the Yucatan peninsula, Yucatec Mayan prevails and is a way of showing at the national level that we have more than 65 languages in Mexico and ours is the second most widely spoken, Nahuatl precedes it. This strengthens us, it gave us the opportunity to show that the language and our culture are still alive ”, he emphasized.
Working on specific content, such as the most representative legends of Yucatán, was gratifying for Professor Cumi, who has developed over 30 years of service a teaching system with a communicative approach, so that students develop a taste for the practice of the Mayan language.
“Each culture has its uniqueness. Working on the outskirts of the Yucatecan capital has given me the experience to learn better ways to teach Mayan. For example, we teach by speaking, we prioritize dialogue over literacy, and then we move on to reading and writing, which strengthens the learning process, “he said.
With the pandemic caused by Covid-19, the challenges for teachers have been important, however for Cumi Sonda, this distance education experience contributed to forging its vocation and continuing with the commitment to create content and adapt it to its groups of students.
“The Indigenous Education teacher is present and our work is arduous: we materialize the study programs in our context, we use the Mayan language as a bridge to teach content that is only available in Spanish, we have learned to work with approaches and now with this pandemic, we have become more sensitized to understand our reality and focus on promoting the Maya culture through education ”, Gonzalo Cumi Sonda concluded.
