Bringing Oral Tradition to Written Tradition into the Classroom and Community: the Experience of Guatemala

• In Event: Highlighted Session: The transition from oral to written: Leveraging indigenous stories to create culturally relevant reading materials and a culture of reading

Proposal

Guatemala has significant ethnic and cultural diversity. Around 43.8% of the population is indigenous (National Statistics Institute 2019). Twenty-five languages are spoken, of which 22 are of Mayan origin, and the remaining three are Garifuna, Xinca, and Spanish. This means that it is complex to provide quality education that has cultural and linguistic relevance.

In Guatemala, oral tradition is part of people's lives and culture (García 2018), particularly in indigenous and rural communities. It is how seniors and grandparents share their beliefs and values with their families. Oral tradition is often the only medium that has been used for generations in certain language communities.

This presentation will share the methodology used to transition oral histories to written histories and how we have worked with the community, parents, and teachers so that these beliefs and knowledge are reflected in reading books for children and their families. This move from oral tradition to written tradition has contributed to valuing and preserving Mayan languages and linguistic self-esteem. We will also share how these resources have been used to promote literacy in national languages. We will also discuss how the transition from orality to writing made possible demonstrating the diversity of knowledge and types of text that one generation lavishes on another.

Language loss, shifting priorities and interests, work, and migration, among other factors, is leading to a loss of oral traditions, and bringing a traditional oral history to a book using ICT has contributed to collecting, perpetuating, and making available that ancestral knowledge in national and international contexts.

Technology has been used to facilitate translation and contextualization of the stories in other Mayan languages and Spanish. Narrated audio and comprehension questions were included in the books, generating greater interest and making these resources accessible to more people, following Universal Design of Learning (CAST, 2018). The use of these resources by the community has provided a means to develop oral and written language and take traditional knowledge into school (Saubich, X. & Esteban, M., 2011), promoting free expression, creativity, the habit of reading, and improving reading comprehension. Data will be presented that show that this experience expands the democratization of writing between teachers and students, converts orality into writing, brings oral culture to school, and allows the creation of new literature that responds to local contexts. This contributes to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particular the goals of quality education and reduction of inequalities.

Author

• Sophia Maldonado, Universidad Del Valle De Guatemala