You’re fluency hunting a fluent fool,  and choose the most common activity in that skill to start at the beginning with the simplest level of performance, that first bite-sized piece. For the context you find it in, and driven by a few of your favorite things, you create a set-up and build a same conversation… Read more »

You’re fluency hunting, and to maintain game flow and momentum, you call “How Fascinating!” every time you or another player gets stuck or struggles. You also call “How Fascinating!” to celebrate learning milestones as they whiz by. “Out beyond right doing, and wrong doing, there is a field – I’ll meet you there.” – Rumi… Read more »

[vimeo=19727433] In this video, you’ll see Willem mentoring RaVen in WAYK game play over Skype videoconferencing, in exchange for mentoring in ASL. Willem and RaVen are probably signing too fast for beginners to learn – but for ASL educators this video provides a good example of how to apply the game to American Sign Language…. Read more »

You’re fluency hunting with fellow players. In order to rapidly communicate team strategies in the form of techniques, you are all signing. You’re hunting a target language from your fluent fool, so you boost obviously! by using signing as a bridge language to carrying and remembering the spoken language. Gesture is likely the oldest and… Read more »

[vimeo = 19478895] In this video Willem Larsen sits down with Michael Ismerio, old time music fiddler and workshop leader, to discuss his recent workshop that they both boosted with an array of carefully chosen WAYK techniques. WAYK is a design system for generating and improving accelerated learning environments, not just a language fluency game!… Read more »

[vimeo = 19412787] In this video Willem and Holia explore doing a language trade, where Willem will learn Farsi, and Holia will improve his English, and also will be trained to rapidly teach and learn language through language hunting. Please keep in mind, that if you find this video confusing, then you probably need to… Read more »

You’ve found a fluent fool, and you want to fluency hunt their ability. So you start at the beginning, and during your hunt, whenever you get lost or confused, you simply start over – at the beginning. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Where to begin? A key element of… Read more »

You’ve set-up a series of same conversations with a fluent fool, for fluency hunting their language. You know you’re at your best if you’re Warm/Fed/Rested/Safe/Willing, and after playing for a while you begin to feel yourself becoming Full. No one knows you better than yourself. Many people trained in mainstream public schools have had their… Read more »

Finally, WAYK is planning to host an East Coast workshop, in Boston, MA this April 22nd-24th. Come experience 3 days of high-energy fun and accelerated learning! This is far from the WAYK home base of Portland, so this is a grassroots effort; please help spread the word by encouraging your friends and family to register…. Read more »

About a year ago we partnered with Dustin Rivers, to train him and his community in WAYK and support the revitalization of the Squamish Language. Squamish Nation is located in British Columbia, Canada. A few months ago Dustin began spear-heading weekly WAYK Squamish language classes. Dustin adapted the Zero to Intermediate scale to the Squamish… Read more »

You are considering “setting-up” a game to pull or push language. To do this, you need players and/or “fluent fools”. For the most satisfying game, you ensure potential players are “Warm/Fed/Rested/Safe/Willing”. Humans are animals with bodies, and are therefore subject to biological constraints. It may seem laughably obvious to make the above statement. But for… Read more »

Meet John Graham, a New Zealand player who has never met us in-person, but has learned WAYK through the on-line videos, podcasts, and blogs. Here you can see a short, off-the-cuff video with his japanese friend Mai, as they play in NZSL and English. Note that John has adapted the grammar of NZSL to act… Read more »

You’ve found a “fluent fool” in your target skill; you dive right in after “fluency”, by picking a common, accessible, “same conversation”, then “start at the beginning” by “copycatting” everything they do. “Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation” (Mason Cooley). According to research over the past couple decades, humans (along with some other… Read more »

To maximize the players’ experience of “Obviously!”, we intentionally “Set-up!” as much of the environment as possible, removing variables and distraction, focusing their attention on play.   “I don’t think we got set up, I know we got set up! I mean, really, seriously, where did all those cops come from, huh?” – the Usual… Read more »

  You’re “setting-up” a “TPR” environment, as close as possible to the real life objects and situation involved in your target skill. Yet starting with the real life, fully complex situation will overwhelm you and your players, so you “Limit” the scope of the environment and play to your current ability. The cost of information… Read more »

You’re looking at your “Set-up!”, working to make play as “Obviously!” as possible. You want the “Fluency” your players acquire to apply to the real world. To do so, you create a “Total Physical Response” amongst players through the actual physical objects and situation involved in using the skill.     If fluency is acquired… Read more »

We want to acquire a new competency, a new target skill. To do so we begin sharing and naming “Techniques” that will accelerate our acquisition of the target skill. The first principle for acceleration is to remove every barrier between us and the performance of that skill by “Obviously!” removing all ambiguity, uncertainty, and guessing… Read more »

  Once we agree to share accelerators that work through tq “Technique!”, it leads us to tq “Obviously!”: the mother of all other techniques. Every technique in the WAYK system exists to serve this primary principle. Success drives learning – failure undermines it. Many people in our culture are very familiar with negative feelings around… Read more »

  “Technique!” is the fundamental structural element of the WAYK system. With it players can name and share the techniques that will accelerate learning and teaching, incorporated as “rules of the game”.     The line between students and teachers is the biggest obstacle in education. The teacher is the boss. The students are the… Read more »

When explaining WAYK, we like to say, “There are a million specific ways to accelerate learning. We know 200.” This month we’ll be blogging 20 accelerated learning techniques, one at a time. These techniques are also known as “the rules of the game”, that we share back and forth, and through which we hunt language… Read more »