Intensive Summer K’iche’ Maya Program in Nahualá, Guatemala

Summer K’iche’ Maya Institute

The University of Chicago Center for Latin American Studies, in partnership with Vanderbilt University Center for Latin American Studies, University of New Mexico Latin American and Iberian Institute, and the University of Texas Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, offers a summer intensive immersion language program in K’iche’ Maya on site in Nahualá, Guatemala. In the summer 2012, the Institute offered instruction at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.

Summer Institute Information

The goal of the Institute is to help students develop proficiency in modern spoken K’iche’.  Instruction is offered for Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced speakers.  Beginning students will spend weekday mornings with linguistics and anthropology faculty from the Vanderbilt University, the University of Kentucky, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Texas in a classroom setting in order to develop a strong foundation in K’iche’ grammar and vocabulary. During the afternoons, each student will work one-on-one with a native K’iche’ speaker in a conversation workshop. Each student will be placed with a local home-stay family during weeks 2-6 of the program, for a genuine immersion experience. Weekly cultural demonstrations, including wood-carving, backstrap weaving, foot-loom weaving, and metate fabrication, will compliment the formal instruction.  During the first week of the program students will stay in a retreat house and meet with faculty to prepare for living in Nahualá, including practice of basic K’iche’ phrases. At the start of week 2, the course will move to the town of Nahualá, where K’iche’ is the primary language used by the majority of residents. Nahualá has a laundry service, an ATM machine, a U.S.-trained physician, and several locations for using the internet.  All students will receive 3 credits from the University of Chicago. Full class attendance is required.  The institute will next be offered in Summer 2014.

This program meets all requirements for Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships; graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to apply.

For a full description of the program, please see: http://clas.uchicago.edu/language_teaching/kiche.shtml

Travel and Arrangements

Students are responsible for their own airfare.

Additional Resources

An orientation guide with information about course logistics will be provided to all students enrolled in the program.