Are you wondering how you can help support WAYK efforts in language revitalization? Write a guest blog post for us! Writing a guest blog is a great to get involved, check in with the WAYK team, and share your experience with the global language revitalization movement.
Not sure if you have something to say? If you have a WAYK-based story that you consider inspiring or informative, then it will certainly be of interest to others. We want to hear about fluency milestones you’ve reached, ways your community has come together for language, situations you’ve struggled with, surprises you’ve encountered, and problems that WAYK techniques have helped you solve. We want to hear about any successes, no matter how small, you or your community have experienced as a result of your engagement with WAYK!
The ideal blog post will be 3-5 paragraphs long, but it’s great if you end up writing something longer. Many readers enjoy a meaty topic now and again. We also love multiple posts or a short series if the story requires it, for example “My Adventures Learning French: Part I” or “My First Four Weeks of Teaching: Week One.” Write the whole series of posts and then send them to us in bulk so we can weave them into our posting rotation.
Here’s what to include in your post:
An Introduction (1 paragraph)
Tell us who you are, where you’re from, what your connection with your language community is, and how you know about or have worked with WAYK. If your community is currently engaged in a larger language project, tell us a bit about it!
Your Story (1-3 paragraphs, but don’t worry if it’s longer!)
Tell us about your experience. Choose a specific anecdote, topic, lesson, or theme that’s connected with a WAYK workshop, training, technique or conversation. Describe how you encountered a difficulty or surprise, arrived at a milestone, or how you (or your whole team) used WAYK techniques to overcome an issue or solve a problem. What happened as a result? Avoid ranting or rambling and be as specific as you can be. The more real examples you can provide, the more likely it is that readers can identify with your post and apply the information in your post to their own situation.
A Conclusion (1 paragraph)
Wrap up your story, summarize your thoughts, and tie it all together! Tell us what you’ll remember about your experience, when you’ll next apply the skills you learned or the techniques you liked, and how you plan to stay engaged in the future.
You’ll also need to provide us with the following:
- At least one picture that illustrates your post.
It’s best if the picture you choose is a landscape orientation. Send us the original size (i.e. the highest resolution) of your picture—we will format it to fit the blog. This should be a picture that you have taken or that you have permission to post on the internet. Make sure to also get permission from everyone who’s in the picture! If you have several pictures, that’s even better!
- A video that complements your post. (optional)
If you have video of the event you’re writing about, or that enhances your post in another way, please include it. It’s easiest for us if you send us a link to a video that’s already posted on YouTube or Vimeo, but if you’d like us to upload the video for you through our Vimeo account, that’s fine too. If you do have a video, please include some background/context for the video in your write up.
- A short biography that we can add to our Contributors page.
This can be almost identical to the introductory paragraph of your post. Tell us who you are, where you’re from, and what your involvement is with WAYK and with your own language community.
- A photo of yourself to include with your bio. (optional)
Send your finished blog post and bio (as a Word document or in the body of an email), and your picture or video to info@whereareyourkeys.org. We will look it over, give it any necessary edits (for clarity and grammatical correctness), and decide when to post what you’ve written. Some posts are time sensitive, some require sequential posting, while others can be worked in anytime because of their “stand alone” nature. We like them all!
We hope that, through the contributions of guest bloggers, we can facilitate an exchange of ideas. Who knows what someone else will gain from reading your blog post? If WAYK players from all over the world are sharing their strategies for accelerating learning and their tips for teaching, then the entire global community will have better tools for saving time in the push and pull of learning languages. Every second counts for those among us who are working with endangered languages. We hope that the contributions you make will inspire someone else to write yet another post that complements or adds to yours.