Abstract

The article describes how the Mapuche language and culture is taught to indigenous and non-indigenous students from a school located in La Araucanía, Chile, in the implementation of intercultural bilingual education. The study is qualitative; the information gathering technique is participant observation, which allows describing the didactic procedure used by the mentor teacher and the traditional educator in teaching the Mapuche language and culture. The main results allow us to argue that in the pedagogical practices of both the teacher and the traditional educator there is a low use of the vernacular in the teaching and learning processes. Spanish predominates in the classroom with few spaces to practice mapunzugun. The teaching of the language is based on synthetic methods, to increase vocabulary, limiting orality and the understanding of the knowledge and the knowledge that is transmitted through it.