A request was sent from teachers in the Kayapó villages to te Sociedade Internacional de Lingüística for teacher training and materials production for classroom use. Three institutions were involved: Secretária Municipal de Educação de São Felix do Xingu; Sociedade International de Lingüística and Missão Evangélica aos Índio do Brasil. The objectives were to orientate them as to the Kayapó language and culture and prepare big books and other materials in the language. I wanted to collaborate with the Secretary of Education of the municipal of São Felix do Xingu since they are responsible for the teacher training. The planning was initiated in 2002 and was actualised November 3-12, 2003. The trainers were a linguist, an anthropologist and a literacy consultant. Each of us were assigned a two-hour period each day, with an additional period for preparation of materials. Additionally, we had a series of videos, which were used for information, training, and awareness of what other municipalities were doing in Brazil regarding bilingual education. The department of education sent a representative and each entity gave an introductory remark, during the customary opening and closing sessions. The topics for the workshop that were requested were Kayapó orthography and how it works and why; Kayapó reading books and how to use them in the classroom; preparing big books in the "mother tongue" and other materials that accompany their use; social studies of the culture, health, math activities, and videos that included two cultures using bilingual education.
Results of the eight-day workshop demonstrated:
There was wide range of abilities in both the Portuguese and Kayapó speakers in the speaking and use of their languages. The actual level of education was low for the cross-cultural experiences and work they were doing.
For lack of cultural understanding, there had been little interaction between the teachers and monitors in the village classrooms. This experience offered them more confidence in their own abilities in the classroom.
At the beginning of the workshop the anthropological section was aimed at discussing the Kayapó categories of knowledge, who teaches who, how, etc. There was a great deal hee that could be applied to future workshops.
We completed the writing and translating of seven big books, little books, sequence cards, puppets, word mobles, etc. additionally, we began a Kayapó school seasonal calendar that could be used along with the web themes as a curriculum guide with the already translated primers.
A general request was made from the Secretary of Education and participants that they wanted continuous workshops. The team felt that we had a good beginning.