The objetive of this study was to describe the linguistic and deictic expressions that rural Mapuche and non-Mapuche students, from fourth grade of elementary school, used to refer to large spaces in a task of describing the school-home journey. The space was described mainly the system without coordinates, through linguistic deictics and gestures referred to the framework. The system with coordinates had less presence in the reports. The intrinsic spatial frame of reference was the majority in both groups, due to the implications of the task, although there were more absolute references in Mapuche students. The results indicate a gap in the group in the acquisition of more complex notions and spatial concepts linguistic, according to a geocentric and egocentric abstraction. The relation of everyday experiences and sensory information with the linguistic and gestural description of space is discussed, as well as factors of variability in representations and preference for spatial reference frames between speakers.