Elaborating teaching materials for Baure: When teachers are learners

This paper presents the first steps in the elaboration of teaching materials in Baure, a language on the verge of extinction, spoken in Bolivian Amazonia. The Baure speakers are all elderly people and fully bilingual in the dominant language Spanish. In Bolivia, indigenous language teaching in schools is promoted, but unfortunately none of the Baure teachers is a native speaker, and no teaching materials are available. This paper discusses the process of developing the teaching materials for a moribund language. It pays special attention to the fact that the teachers are at the same time learners themselves, and to the inevitable loss of complexity of the language in the teaching and learning process.