Four (Language) Fairies Worth Killing
One of my favorite things about WAYK is its desire to stay in immersion for as many minutes as possible by avoiding translation (e.g. TQ: Spare the Fairies). However, there… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Immersion
Introduction to WAYK Video Series
Time for some “new” videos! Back in 2015, Sky Hopinka made a terrific series of videos for Where Are Your Keys. This series was designed to be both an overview of the… Read more »
What it’s like to spend the summer with WAYK
One way to describe a summer with WAYK is that it provides the on-the-ground work experience that should be part of any training in language revitalization and documentation. In this… Read more »
Bubble Policy: How Can Immersion Bubbles Help an Indigenous Language Community?
In my last blog, I wrote about the obstacles to maintaining an immersion bubble. In this blog, I ask how the immersion bubble, as a kind of “language policy”, can… Read more »
Bubble Policy: Why Do People Break or Keep Up Immersion?
The idea of creating an “immersion bubble” is probably nothing new in language learning. Nor is it new within the field of language revitalization in the 20th and 21st centuries;… Read more »
5 Group Immersion Activities
Before I arrived at the St. Paul Unangam Tunuu Summer Language Intensive, I wondered what we would do on a typical day. I knew that there would be no teacher… Read more »
Relaxing in Immersion
Picture this: I grab a beautiful blue egg shell, a white feather, and two model birds, and join my group at a table in the back room for immersion time…. Read more »
Why Do We “Hunt” Language?
Why do we “hunt” language? I asked Evan why we use “hunting” as a primary metaphor for the Where Are Your Keys approach to language learning. We use the word… Read more »
The Danger of Putting Endangered Languages on a “Shelf”
What does it mean to revitalize a language? What does it mean to secure its existence for the next generation of speakers? What does this look like and why is… Read more »
Immersion Bubbles: Finding Comfort and Fun in the Uncomfortable
By way of the prior experience I’ve gained through my involvement in the language revitalization efforts taking place within my own community, the Pueblo of Pojoaque, I’ve been able to… Read more »
Report from the Road: Kodiak (Summer 2015)
This summer, a team of WAYK interns convened in Kodiak, Alaska to try something new: an intern house. The interns included Evan Amason, Dehrich Isuwiq Schmidt-Chya, Josh Higginbotham, Anders “Holla… Read more »
Learning a Language vs. Creating a Language Community
There are a lot of people doing good work in language education; and you can find many talented language learners and polyglots. There are countless resources to learn a… Read more »
WAYK Podcast, Episode 30: Taking 3-D Holographic Notes
58 minutes and 17 seconds. [direct download] Willem and Joel (a veteran of a Portland WAYK workshop), with Peter and Sara listening, talk over Joel’s experiences that Chinuk Night. Then… Read more »
WAYK Podcast, Episode 29: Mother May I?
27 minutes and 2 seconds. [direct download] Willem interviews Peter and Sara about the games they led for the most recent Chinuk Wawa (Chinook Jargon) Night. We discover that yet… Read more »
WAYK Podcast, Episode 19: Grandma takes the Linguist by his lapels
50 minutes and 56 seconds. [direct download here] 1. Technique “Where Are Your Keys?” What Evan means when he asks “Does she play WAYK?” 2. Technique “Fluent Fool“ Does Johann… Read more »