Schooling in the Mother Tongue, Brazil

The seeds for this story were planted in the mid 1970s, when two linguists working for the Sociedade Internacional de Linguistica (SIL) initiated a pilot project in the Brazilian village of Cachoeirinha. There are 195 living languages listed for Brazil -155,000 people speak an American Indian language. One of those is Terena. Nancy Butler and Muriel Ekdahl began to train a group of Terena adults who were willing to work as part-time teachers in the community. For one year, the volunteer teachers spent two hours a day with both adult and children learners. Lessons focused on reading and writing in Terena, mathematics and oral Portuguese. Despite the obvious success of the programme and the significant progress made by all those involved, the government opted not to renew SIL's contract, thereby bringing the project to an end.

In the years that followed, there was no change in an education system in favour of Brazil's 15,000-strong Terena community of Mato Grosso do Sul. Tuition in state schools was exclusively in the dominant national language, Portuguese, meaning that children from homes where only Terena is spoken were at a disadvantage from the outset. Many were never able to achieve a complete command of Portuguese, and consequently spent many years languishing in first grade. In November 1998, a senior education official visited local schools in the area. He was shocked to discover that of the Terena children in first grade, 74 per cent could not read or write in Portuguese. Over the past six years, some 55 per cent of Terena students in eight Terena village schools were unable to reach the linguistic level necessary for them to pass from first to second grade. Many Terena students have overwhelmingly negative recollections of their school years -a time marked by struggle, frustration and feelings of failure. Drop-out rates were also startlingly high in Terena areas.

The situation was of great concern to many local people, especially those with children about to embark on their school career or already in the system. A young Terena couple, Laucidio Sebastiao and his wife Lindomar, decided to take matters into their own hands. Their own son was nearly 5 years old -the boy had just started at the local primary school and was attending classes solely in Portuguese. Laucidio was determined that his education should not suffer, and began to teach a small group of Terena children -among them his son- from his own village, Igua Branca. The children would learn to read and write in Terena, and classes would be held in parallel to normal schooling. Initial response to his project was sceptical and dismissive, and the young father received little encouragement from his community.

Nancy Butler was living in the area at the time, and Laucidio approached her for help and advice. Together, they developed ideas, materials and games to suit the ability, age and interests of this small group of children.

The community reacted with astonishment to the results of this experience -the bilingual system was working wonders, with children quickly learning to read and write in Terena. Far from hampering their progress in Portuguese, the confidence gained from tuition in the mother tongue facilitated learning a second language. Suddenly, parents began to sit up and take notice of Laudicio's success. Naturally, they were keen that their own offspring should benefit from the "experiment".

February 1999, and news of the venture reached the Education Secretary responsible for schools in the Terena area of Taunay. He approached Nancy Butler and asked her if she would head up a bilingual education project there. Would she be willing to give a four-day intensive course to a group of Terena teachers on contract with the local government? There was little time to spare. Once Nancy had put the teachers through their paces, there were just two days to cram some didactic material specifically geared towards teaching in Terena. Classes began on 22 February 1999, in schools in three village locations in Mato Grasso do Sul.

When the Education Secretary for Taunay revisited the schools in June 1999, his evaluation showed that 71 per cent of those children with previous learning difficulties were reading with ease and starting to write in Terena. The project has already yielded some fruit, but the way ahead is still dotted with obstacles. Its long-term aim is to equip Terena teachers with the necessary tools for eventual self-sufficiency, by giving them eight extra hours per week for planning and inter-group discussion, and enabling pairs of tutors to gradually take over the training of new recruits.

Two years on, and the Terena community of Brazil has grown in confidence and stature, as its members see others devoting time and effort to preservation and sustenance of the Terena language and culture. This is arguably the greatest achievement of the project -quite apart from the benefits gleaned on a personal level by all those involved. Teachers report that children are often arriving one and half hours early for class, and even skipping their lunch breaks in their eagerness to learn in their mother tongue. This unbridled enthusiasm has rubbed off on the older members of the community -a group of young Terena men in Igua Branca asked Laucidio if he would run a night school especially for them.

On 19 April 1999, the local government passed a law stipulating that bilingual intercultural education is now obligatory in all municipal schools in the Terena region. With their work, Laudicio, Lindomar and Nancy have succeeded in convincing the authorities that learning in the mother tongue is essential for the indigenous Terena community. In opening the minds of the doubters on all sides, they have improved the prospects for Terena youth in Brazil, and equipped them for a better future.