Language Policies applied to the Teaching-Learning of Quechua and English in Peruvian Public Secondary school: The Case of Huacavelica

Abstract

Peru has a compulsory educational system from kindergarten to secondary level according to the Peruvian Political Constitution (1993). Given that Spanish is the official language in Peru, education is provided in the language that is perceived to have more prestige according to the term used by Charles A. Ferguson (1959). Even though Spanish is the language that has more privileges not only by the citizens but also by the government and in many other aspects, it is not the only language that is used along the country; there is a vast variety of indigenous languages distributed in the whole country. In 2011, Law (N°29735) was approved, and it regulates the use, maintenance, development, revitalization, promotion, and dissemination of the Indigenous Languages from Peru. Furthermore, there are laws in Peru that ensure native Spanish speakers from communities will receive an education of an indigenous language as an L2 such as Quechua and/or for native Quechua speakers will receive their classes in their mother tongue, Spanish as an L2, what is more, people from these communities will receive classes of English as a foreign language. But what has the Peruvian government done about Language Policies in the Public Education system? And are these laws about language policies being carried through with the Quechua and English language in a public secondary school in Huancavelica? In order to get the answers for those two questions, I am following a qualitative methodology because interviews (open questions) were applied in a public secondary school in Huancavelica thus, they are going to be presented in the following chapters for the analysis.