Breakfast by the Lake

Friday, november 30th

Aleja: pan de bonos
Beatriz: muffins
Samuel: drinnks
Sol: fruit
Juan: buñuelos
Jefferson: cheese
Andrés R. dessert
Andrés A. surprise
Kathy: napkins, plates.

Sample questions

Questions "Why I write" Joan Didion 

1. Why does the author consider writing "aggressive"?

2.  What is the relation that Didion establishes between "the tangible" and "abstract ideas" in terms of "academic writing" and "being a writer"

3.  Why does the author define grammar as something that has "infinite power"?

Questions about "Developing Authority in Student Writing through Written Peer Creitique in the Disciplines"

1. According to the authors, three roles are adopted by students in academic writing: the layperson role, the text processor role and the professional-in-training role. Describe them and say how they relate to the concept of authority in student writing.

2.How do students temper their authorial voice and what are the implications of this proccess?

What are the implications of using the concept of "practices" in the realm of "literacy studies"

Define "Literacy shaming" and illustrate the concept with an example.

BRAKING THE SILENCE:

1.  In situating the experiences the author mentioned four diffrent litreratures, which are pertinent to her project.  Explain one of t hem and tell waht bi it about.

2.  What does the author refer to with the 'Ivory Tower'?

3.  How does she relate this term  'Ivory Tower' with the neoliberal university? 

concept map

concept map

Concept map

 Clarissa Vaughan 2001

Clarissa goes to buy some flowers because she is going to have a party at her place to celebrate that Richard, her friend, got a prize for the book he wrote. She asked Richard not to miss the party and she left.

Louis water is Richard ex-boyfriend and arrives to visit Clarissa. She argues with Louis because he left Richard. She believes that is one of the reasons why Richard is in such a terrible situation. However, Louis thinks leaving Richard is one of the best decisions he ever made. Finally, they make up because Clarissa says she was just stressed about the party and Richard´s situation.

Clarissa goes back to Richard's place and they start talking about their relationship. Then he jumps off the window and kills himself.

She was very sad, went back home and started throwing the party's food away. Her daughter and her friend, Sally, are helping her. Then, Richard's mother arrived to Clarissa's house and they started talking about Richard, Laura tells Clarissa she abandoned Richard and that she regrets it, she justifies herself saying that she was unhappy with the life she had and now was so hard to deal with the guilt.

Virginia Woolf ( Part II )

After this she escapes her house because she is overwhelmed. She goes to the train station, her husband follows her and they argue because she feels trapped in Sussex and wants to return to London. Although it's making her sick, she says she prefers to die instead of being buried alive. He agrees to return to London and she goes back with him.

She writes a suicidal letter for her husband and then she goes to the river and kills herself putting rocks in her pockets and going to the deepest part of the river.

Laura

Laura Brown is sleeping when her husband arrives with flowers for himself because it's his birthday. She wakes up, she looks at the novel 'Mrs. Dalloway' while her husband is making breakfast. When her husband is making breakfast she tells him she has a surprise for his birthday. After he leaves, she tells her son Richard they are making a cake for daddy.
She makes a cake with her son who is really excited for making a cake. Later on, her friend Mrs. Barlowe comes over. They talk about Mrs. Barlowe's problem to have children and her new found illness. Then they kiss and after Mrs. Barlowe leaves, Laura throws the cake away and tells her son they're baking another one. Later, she gets to the cabinet and grabs a bunch of pills, she gets in the car with her son and tells him she's going to drive him to Mrs. Latch because she has something to do. Laura drives to a hotel and gets the pills thinking about committing suicide but finally, she decides not to kill herself and goes to pick up her son.
Laura drives Richard back home, the celebrate Mr. Brown birthday, he's very grateful for the surprise and starts telling Richard how he met mom. At the beginnig, Laura seems kind of unconfortable but then she agrees. Finally at night, Mr. Brown lays down in bed and asks Laura, who is in the bathroom, to get in bed, she is crying and looks very sad but she keeps on telling her husband she's going to join him in a minute.

Sam- Virginia Woolf 1949 part 1

Virginia Woolf 1949 part 1

She started to write a book called Mrs. Dalloway. She had a fight with the maid because Virginia wanted to skip dinner. She left the dinner table and went back to her writing. then her sister arrived with the kids, they went to the yard and her niece found a dead bird. there is when Virginia decides that one of the characters of her book has to die. Her sister told her she's crazy about that book and that she has to take care of herself.

Are these key concepts?

1. Non-traditional student Academic literacies stance 2. Conceptualizes student writing as 3. Socially situated discourse practice 4. AL has yet to be developed as: theory and practice 5. Different levels of dialogism 6. Illustration of the way they are and are not enacted currently in student writing pedagogy 7. Critical language awareness 8. Three leveled model for theorizing approaches to student writing in higher education 9. Skills 10. Socialization 11. Academic Literacies 12. Creative self 13. Expression 14. Socialization 15. Academic literacies approach 16. Writing in official discourse 17. Critical language awareness 18. Dialectic 19. Social power relation 20. Levels of dialogue/dialogism in Bakhtin 21. Dialogue as a given 22. Dialogue as something to struggle for 23. Authoritative Discourse 24. Internally Persuasive Discourse 25. Addresivity 26. Chain of communication 27. Monologism 28. Dialogism 29. Utterances 30. Dialogue 31. Dialogic 32. Addresivity 33. Ventriloquate 34. Rhetorical practices Critique. Design. Life-long learning. Meaning making

Please excuse me, I did not know how make it better

THE MANIPULATED WORLD OF INFORMATION

BY

Caicedo, JEFFERSON          A Foreign Language student at Universidad del Valle

jefferson.caicedo@correounivalle.edu.co  

                                                  

Have you ever stopped to think how much believable is the information media brings to you? Have you ever reflected on how much people depend on information and technology in today’s world?  These two questions make part of the main topics that the American author Ray Bradbury presents in his book Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953 and according to—http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/summary.html—one   of Bradbury’s most popular and widely read work of fiction.  

My aim in this paper is to work on the development of the two topics that are strongly referred in Bradbury’s book, namely: the constraint of media on human’s life and the lack of knowledge as means of enslavement.  To do so, first, I will present a short overview about people’s need of information and I will also give some examples of how people benefit from information; secondly, I will attempt to propose a dialectic rhetoric about these two subjects by using some quotes from the book and by presenting the point of view given about the topics by literature student Amatoga Jérémy, linguist JoEllen Simpson and Anthropologist Beth Bartlett who were interviewed during the time we were reading Bradbury’s book in 2012.

Historically, humans have had the need to use information.  It has been used for many purposes: merely for being in contact each other, for being updated about what happens nearby or in a very remote place, and also as a mean for accessing knowledge.  Some examples of these ways of benefiting from information are seen when someone writes a letter to be sent to someone who left to a different place, when people contact each other to talk about the health conditions of a relative or about good news that just happened.  In terms of knowledge, people benefit from information by reading books, magazines, etc.    

So far, we have highlighted a positive side of the use of information but now we are going to focus on the other side of the bridge.   Information has been use in a manipulated way in order to constraint people from the access to knowledge and practically to enslave them.  These two aspects are core of our discussion in this part.

The perspective regarding information as a tool to constraint people, we discuss here is not something new; it has been a strategy used since long time ago.  In an interview with Amatoga Jéremie held in 2012, she claimed that in the American context during the American slavery African-Americans were not permitted to read, to may how to read, to may how to write; therefore, they did not have access to books or education.  So important it is, information is a mean to constraint both, either by giving too much of it or by prohibiting its access.  Referring to this, Jérémy continues:

“[…] at TAX University since the 1960s, there have been students who’ve been trying to fight for an African studies department.  An African studies department allows for all students to kind of having alternate view of how the world works.” […] “And finally, we’ll see that the African-American department has been established but during the period when we didn’t have it, it was…it was inaccessibility to certain kinds of knowledge because the university did not want to challenge the status quo.”  These testimonies presented by Jéremie give us a clearer and a specific vision of how banning information has been applied historically and what for it has been done.   

The influence of media on people’s life, the over-information, and the manipulation of data are bond to the Government action and it is been more and more noticeable; this is an issue that Bradbury foregrounds in his book as follows:

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one.  Better yet, give him one.  Let him forget there is such as thing as war.  If the Government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it.  Peace Montag.  Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year.  Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of “facts” they feel stuffed, but absolutely “brilliant” with information.  Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving.  And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change.  Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with.”  (Fahrenheit 45, page 68).

It is obvious that the goal of the system is to transform citizens in nonthreatening, non-interesting humans who can be easily led and manipulated through fear.  Likewise, in the next excerpt, Bradbury portrays how media manipulates people’s mind and makes them rely on a false rhetoric and fake reality.

‘The chase continues north in the city! Police helicopters are converging on Avenue 87 and Elm Grove Park!’  Granger nodded. ‘They’re faking.  You threw them off at the river.  They can’t admit it.  They know they can hold their audience only so long.  The show’s got to have a snap ending, quick! If they started searching the whole damn river it might take all night.  So they’re sniffing for a scapegoat to end things with a bang.  […].’  (Fahrenheit 451, page 155).

On the other hand, Amatoga’s statements are closely related with Bradbury’s point of view.  This manipulation of information by media and by the government seems to be applied in order to establish and keep a status quo.  Aligned to Bradbury’ modern ideas, JoEllen Simpson declared although she thinks it is not right, she agree that education is a way to establish a status quo, and that it is a new way to enslave people.

I think that even at the universities the type of education that’s given at the public universities is different than the type of education that’s given in the private universities.  And I think that part of that is to keep people stupid so then they don’t ask for more things.”  She continues.

Nonetheless, Simpson firmly points out the positive and relevant role technology has in the manipulated world of information which is a vision in opposition to Bradbury’s views.  She argues that fortunately though, with internet more and more information is available, so the people who are self - motivated can find the information themselves and they can overcome some of the limitations to the system.

Another important aspect to bear in mid in the manipulated world of information is the influential role of those who are in high-power or hierarchical positions i.e., media, politicians, scholars, doctors and so on.  They are authorities and whatever thing they say can cause a great impact on people’s mindsets and on their behavior; mostly in underclass people.   In relation to this, Jéremie states that for instance when you think on a politician, or doctor, or a researcher wherever knowledge they produce, people tend to believe them and they can control their mind in that way because people don’t have knowledge.  Jéremie continues arguing that political leaders distract with the bunch of statistics, they distract with things that are going to be, but they never tell you what they’re actually doing, or how are they actually solving the problem, but they keep on throwing more information  so thus you get lost in it.

 Beth Bartlett who we also interviewed during the time we were working on Bradbury’s book, states that she does believe having information is power absolutely.  That information for example provides people with the knowledge to know what they can do and where they can go in order to change perhaps circumstances of their lives; and she does also believe that people who don’t have access to information either purposely or just for the circumstance, are people who are really limited in their possibilities in life and they’re kind of dependent, in some way, on other people intervening in their life and helping them.  In Bartlett’s words people who don’t have access to information are “a kind of powerless.”   Bartlett’s point of view is in some way aligned to those of Jéremie, Simpson and Bradbury.  This rhetoric is related with what we have been discussing above.  Information is a mean to control, to enslave and to constraint others.

There are many more aspects to point out regarding the world of information and media; however, we consider this realm too complex and too wide to be covered in this paper.   What I have done in this writing is to present my perception and that of some people I interviewed, about both sides of information; a positive one that helps people to communicate, to be updated, etc. and a negative one which is related to the way information is manipulated in order to constraint human’s life.  I also pointed out how lack of information, no access to information and excess of it are aspects that make people be powerless, dependent and aimless when choosing what information is really objective and reliable. 

In sum, we think that people must be responsible with information they work with in order to be objective and authentic.  However, we do believe that there will be always the risk of running into manipulated information inasmuch as most of the time there are particular interests; those who release the information are not always the first source, and as we read in Bradbury’s book media is always looking to catch the attention of an audience which is eagerly waiting for information.

References

Amatoga Jéremie (2012).  In: Interview held October 11, 2012: Santiago de Cali, Colombia.

Beth Bartlett (2012).  In: Interview held October 05, 2012: Santiago de Cali, Colombia.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/summary.html.  Last day of consulting: September 2, 2012 at 20: 52.

JoEllen Simpson (2012).  In: Interview held October 05, 2012: Santiago de Cali, Colombia.

Ray Bradbury (1953).  Fahrenheit 451: Great Britain, Flamingo Modern Classic. 1993- 68, 105.

My skype interview with Nabila Ghanem

 INTERVIEW THREE                      DATE: OCTOBER 11, 2012

INTEVIEWED:  AMATOGA JÉRÉMY                 INTERVIEWER: Jefferson Caicedo

Place: Universidad Del Valle- Melendez                Length: 14:25 Min.                 Hour: 11: 44am

 

Jefferson: Good morning.

Amatoga: Good morning

Jefferson: Nice to meet you.  Thank you for accepting this interview.

Jefferson: Amatoga is a Fulbright -scholarship -holder and she is majoring in Spanish and Literature.  She is from USA and this semester she is going to be with us helping us in our projects here at the Valle University.

Jefferson: Today we are going to talk about this book written by Ray Bradbury, called Fahrenheit 451.  This book was published in 1953 and this semester we are reading it and I would like to outline, to point out some interesting aspects about the book that I found. 

Jefferson: I would like to begin asking one question:  No accept to knowledge can be assumed as another way to enslave people, is it possible to perceive this.

Amatoga: Well, considering that I did not grow up in the Colombian context and I don’t have enough/any historical or political background, and, on the topic I’m going to speak generally about this.  So, do I think that…um ignorance or the lack of enlightenment can be assumed can be used to enslave people? Yes I do because it has been done.  In the American context during the American slavery um African-Americans were no permitted to read to, to may how to read, to may how to write; therefore, they did not have access to books or education.   The education system for Africa-Americans slaves started in 90^th early 20^th century.   And so yes I do think that it can be used to enslave literally, so when it comes to the Colombian context.  And, metaphorically speaking unn it wherever see inaccessibility to books, unn or a lack of education can be used to kind of sedific, right.  To make them ----------, to make them afraid of---------------------------or thinking critically about their world and about their life because when you read it opens up your imagination and introduces you to-------- views.

Jefferson: What you said is really interesting.  I would like give or to say to what extend or how can we perceive this?  Can you give some examples about it nowadays? (Particularly?) How people is being put away from the access to knowledge, how people is been forbidden the access to knowledge.

Amatoga: OK.  For example umm at TAX University since the 1960s, there have been students who’ve been trying to fight for an African studies department.  An African studies department allows for all students to kind of having alternate view of how the world works. So everything is forming American U.S. central point of view.   For example when you learn about ancient history or is not about ancient history now. But this will be a very good opportunity for students about civilization in the East.   Asian civilization, as well as African and central Asia, some Russia and other places.  And finally, we’ll see that the African-American department has been established but during the period when we didn’t have it, it was…it was inaccessibility to certain kinds of knowledge because the university did not want to challenge the status quo.   They wanted to keep the curriculum the way it is because once you start learning that ancient reason room was not----------------right.  What happens?  You feel like someone has been lying to you and that you’ve deceived.  So that’s, that’s a very confused example.  Also books banning still continues in the United States.  There are list of censured books.  (Jefferson):  OK, don´t move ahead form the topics, (Amatoga: It just was to give two examples) thank you, thank you so much.

Jefferson: And the other question I would like to ask you is: Books are a mean to acquire knowledge; can we conceive a world without books? And how would be that world, without books?

Amatga:  And can we in our ----- position conceive other worlds without books? No, but do a world without book exist? Yes; and does a world without books continue to exist? Yes, because there are many umm nations, groups of people all of the world who still depend on oral traditions and they do not write their names down and if they do, some of them on hieroglyphics for instance.  And paintings and drawings, ------and other things that we consider art work but it’s actually…. Even in South America, descendants of the Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, use key books umm they use other forms of umm, umm (communicating) communicating and convening for meetings.  So is this hard to believe? No because there are people who still live in this place; but, but us in academia, can we consider another world without books? No because we never had to leave-----.

Jefferson:  OK.  Thank you.   I’m looking for one excerpt from the book…uhm, here.  Eeh.  On page 125, I would like to quote something that the author says here.  He says.   “Well, the world can get by just without them” (referring to the books).  So Bradbury himself, I think that I don’t know; what’s your opinion about this excerpt.  Maybe he is considering that the world we live can get by without books or is eh a way to criticize the way…because as you know… I know you got to what the book is about.  And in the book they burn books.  It’s the main topic of the book.  Someone states here “Well, the world can get by without them” (referring to the books).  What is your point of view?

Amatoga: Um… Well, Is that a very hard question to ask, especially considering that Bradbury talked himself.  So out from high school he didn’t do college ------- it. And so He spent all his time in the public library; and so books were very important in his life.  And…I think that… I think that we will be able to get by without books.  Why? Because there is enough of us that already have knowledge from the books that we’ve already read and we can convey orally, but I also think that if there is an ephemeral time where we do not have books anymore, we still have enough to read and still think that people will read in secret.  So we avoid the accessing of books ---- to them? I don’t think so.

Jefferson: OK.  The last question I would like to talk about is:  Having information is a mean to have power, to control and influence others, in which way can we notice this?  How can we notice this ah, ah…way to control to influence others using the information or the knowledge? If you cn… I mean, generally or because…as we talked before; you are not very deep in Colombian context.

Amatoga: Yeah.  For example, un, yeah, for…Hun and I can’t be in context (Yeah but you can be more general) yeah.  Umm, it’s like a----- assumptions to me.  Assumptions about------…… Well, OK! So here how students and what higher education does, that it gives you the knowledge to be able to do more with your life.  So when you go to college you need enough in order to have a regular job; it’s like you’re not going to for instance, so tricky industry after college.  That is unusual ---what you to do, but you go one/want to be you know a business man, you’re going to be a doctor, you’re going to be a politician --- you know smarter who researchers or things like that/who think li that; and so what happens is that we… information that you have, the majority of the Colombians don’t.  So for instance when you think on a politician, or doctor, or a researcher wherever knowledge that you produce, people tend to believe you and you can control their mind in that way, right, because they don’t hove… For the most part, I’m not talking about individuals but for the most part, they don’t have the information to challenge you, right, but you do.  So we who are here; even though we don’t have the-----------, we still hold the right to power because of what we know.  What we know how Colombian government, Colombian politics and society.  That, the…Majority of people don’t know, right? So I guess that could be an example.

Jefferson:  It’s been said that, that eh… This information you are talking about uhm… Sometimes… We, we already talked about, the lack of ... there, the no accept to the information or the knowledge but at the same time there’s am, sometime there is a lot of information that can get you distracted.  It’s another topic that the author touches here in the book.  So I would like to quote uhm… one excerpt from the book…… OK. Here, OK.  He says “Betty yet give him none.  Let him forget there is such a thing as war.  If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it.  Peace Montag.  Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year.” So here the author is talking about how sometimes the government or the system use the power or the information to control or put a lot of information just to get people distracted or get concentrated in aspects that are not really such important.  What your opinion about this?

Amatoga: Well, I mean beside ----- mind the politicians, I mean it’s just a matter of the context, but I’m sure that you, your---- has heard uhm, ah … you may have listened to another’s president campaigns for instance.  Maybe other political leaders; and they distracted with the bunch of statistics, they distract with things that are going to be, but they never tell you what they’re actually doing, or how are they’re actually solving the problem, but they’re throwing other information ------ so thus you get lost in the information, right.  Uhm… what else? Advertisements for products.  Is very pretty the product, you know you’re gonna distracted by oh my God! It’s like if I… you know, I drink these pills.  I guess I’ll be skinny for instance and then you tend to forge the like whole problems that are associated; that’s just like an example.  So I mean in the Colombian context if/I think people will be most important will be like politics and how politicians distract you with all this information and they don’t believe on/they will be done.

Amatoga.  Thank you a lot for a lot for your time, for accepting this interview and hope to meet you in the future time.

Amatoga: Thank you for having me, bye everyone.

Essay Grading Rubric

Dear students, the following is the rubric I will ask Amatoga to use in order to grade your essay:

Sam's Bilingualism tag cloud

IDENTITY AND BILINGUALISM

Wordcloud Beatrz

Andrés R's Tag cloud

Juan's Cloud

Kathy´s wordcloud

E-learning Tagcloud

Andres A's wordcloud

Word Cloud

Hi! Beatriz.  Please do me a favor take my last version ot the essay from here because I lost your email.

Thousand OF THANKS.  

Wishing you the very best for this weekend.

Corrected version

IDENTITY AND BILINGUILISM IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION

By Caicedo, JEFFERSON

“People think that language is only words, that is not true, language is also culture; it is a way of being.”

Dany Laferrière.

Article II of Decree 3870 and Law 1064 allowed for the Colombian government to establish measures for supporting and strengthening non-formal and public educational programs. In addition, the Ministry of National Education published Estándares Básicos de Competencia en Lengua Extranjera in November 2004, which further outlines the measures to be taken by the Colombian government to make the country bilingual in Spanish and in English by 2019. This initiative is now known as the Programa Nacional de Bilinguismo (“PNB”). These events led to the adoption of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in 2004. According to the PNB, all high school students must achieve level B-2 in English upon graduation. However, experts in the field of linguistics, in the cultural sectors, and within linguistically marginalized communities view bilingualism as a mechanism of globalization that fails to recognize the so-called “minority” languages and their importance to the preservation and development of cultural identity.

 In the Colombian context, bilingualism in practice is a national development program that imposes English as the primary language of the political, economic, and socio-cultural world to the exclusion of native languages, even including Spanish. Furthermore, bilingualism threatens to uproot and subsume cultural identities that are intrinsically tied to these native languages.

             The government justifies the program by claiming that English means “progress”, “more opportunities” to improve one's socio-economic status, and is the overall key to participating in a globalized world. Notwithstanding, for communities such as Palenque de San Basilio, indigenous in La Guajira and parts of San Andrés who face the elimination of their languages, this is empty rhetoric. They argue that the government assumes that all Colombian citizens want to be bilingual. Although the mentioned community sees the benefit of learning English, they claim that more support should be provided to the development and legitimization of their languages as a primary language of the government, business, and education sectors.  For instance, the same way the government makes great efforts to introduce English materials in schools, television in English, teachers training and assessment, etc., this same way the government has to do efforts to create material, books, have translations of The Constitución Nacional and literature into these so-called minority languages. In sum, African descendants (Raizales and Palenquero from the Caribbean region of Colombia), Indigenous and Rom or Gypsy communities who have their own linguistic traditions, do not see any strong and serious measure implemented by the government to safeguard and guarantee the promotion and development of their identity.  

            It is necessary to keep in mind that it is through and from the language that people manifest their existence, know and express their knowledge of the world.   This discussion is not merely a matter of identity but a matter of recognizing the existence of the other.  Therefore, these communities, from their otherness, have to be valued because they also make part of the historical construction of the pluri-ethnic, democratic and participative nation.

The paradox of the excluded 

Every year, universities all over Colombia has several events, such as  El encuentro de Universidades Formadoras de Licenciados en Idiomas, Cafés Francés, La Rencontre Nationale d’Étudiants Universitaires, Classroom Research Congress, among others.   At these events, topics of discussion include the process of teaching and learning, pedagogical methods and curriculum planning.  However, few or non- debates has been proposed regarding linguistic policies to integrate these so-called minority languages in the academic world and to promote awareness of their existence.  Similarly, in a meeting with Ambassador Peter Michael McKenley of the United States of America, held in Santiago de Cali in December 2011, he commented that he had visited some schools around the country and that he observed that little progress had been made in the English level of the students as well as of the teachers, which had made him feel great concern.   This could be seen as proof that the PNB is ineffected.   Nevertheless, Colombian government continues to promote the PNB as the main vehicle for progress despite its failure to uphold the objectives the program.  In sum, this seems to be an engine that nobody can stop, mostly when The Colombian government has just signed the already mentioned Free the Trade Agreement with the U.S.A.

It is true that measures like the release of Law 397 which regulates the arrangements about the cultural property; and Law 1381 of January 25, 2012 (released during the Ministry of Dr. Paula Moreno) about safeguard of the native languages; however, more efforts need to be done in order to have a strong impact on the promotion of the so-called minority communities.

If laws like the above mentioned were effective and efficient, the organization of events like National Encounter of Students of Native Languages, National Forum of Native Language, Congress of Universities trainers in Native Languages, or International Encounter of Communities with Special Linguistic Traditions would be less utopian.   Fortunately, not everything is negative.  Actions like the authorization to translate which is considered the most representative novel in the colombian literature “Hundred years of solitude by García Marquez” in to the Wayuunaiki language—spoken by more than 400.000 people in La Guajira and in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, can be considered a good example to follow in order to include these languages in the social life of the country.

Globalization is something unavoidable in today’s world; it is something undeniable.  It is inextricably necessary to introduce changes in order to be competitive, develop our country and get our economy stronger, albeit those changes must not be applied neglecting the nation’s cultural inheritance which is one of the most invaluable treasures a nation can have.

References

MINISTERIO DE CULTURA. Junio, 2007-Agosto, 2010.  Memorias de una gestión pública en cultura.  Colombia diversa: Cultura de todos, Cultura para todos.

CONGRESO DE LA REPÚBLICA. Julio,  2006.  LEY 1064 Julio 26 de 2006.

MINISTERIO DE EDUCACIÓN NACIONAL. Noviembre, 2006).  Estándares Básicos de Competencias en Lenguas Extranjeras: inglés.

CONGRESO DE LA REPÚBLICA. 1997.  LEY 397 De Agosto de 1997.

EL CONGRESO DE COLOMBIA. Enero, 2010.  LEY No.1381 del 25 de Enero de 2010.

GONZALEZ, T. HERMINIA. 2007.  Entrevista con Peter Wade.  AIBR. Revista de Antropologia Iberoamericana, Septiembre-Diceiembre, Año/Vol.2, número 003.  Antropólogos Iberoamericanos en Red.  Madrid, España, pp. 421-429.

MINISTERIO DE EDUCACION NACIONAL. Noviembre, 2006.  Decreto Número 3870 de 02 Nov. de 2006.

RODRIGUEZ MOLANO, M. IGNASIO. Noviembre, 2009.  Reflexiones sobre el Bilingüismo en Colombia: Entrevista a Adriana González Moncada.  Eleducdor.

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