When the community we planned to start working with in late May 2014 had its funding temporarily delayed, Evan and I decided to make the most of our free time and the +1500-km drive I had made from Edmonton to the Pacific Northwest. I met him in his hometown in rural Oregon, and we spent the next 10 days using Where Are Your Keys? Techniques to… Read more »
We Took the Long Way Home and The City Country We had a day of recovery before we were set to go to Fangshan for the week. David and I took that opportunity to go jog around the Haidian district in the morning. Judging by the looks of people on the street, running through Beijing isn’t that… Read more »
[vimeo 14724207] This is a video of “the Walk” Unangam Tunuu curriculum, generated by and for the campers at the 2010 WAYK Unangax Language Camp. Note that there are no translations or subtitling, as this is meant as a refresher for attendees.
[vodpod id=Video.3749780&w=425&h=350&fv=] We thought we’d share another video of “the Walk”. In this video you’ll see 7 year-old Jackson playing along with us on “the Walk”. Though for this “Walk”, you’ll only see one youngster, Evan runs this same walk with large groups of young children at other events besides Chinuk night. Keep in mind,… Read more »
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 later, Evan and Willem discuss how the evening of Chinuk Wawa games went. 1. Technique “the Walk” Joel experienced “the Walk” for the first time,… Read more »
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 another newbie has zoomed through language acquisition, but not mastered basic WAYK techniques. Peter then describes “the Walk” that he led, as documented in this… Read more »
1 hour, 50 minutes, and 53 seconds. [direct download] Evan Gardner, Willem Larsen, Peter, and Joel interview each other on Chinuk Wawa Night (Chinook Jargon). Though this episode is almost two hours long, we really encourage you to hang in there and soak it all up; many vital issues came up that should further illuminate… Read more »
[vodpod id=Video.3646521&w=425&h=350&fv=] The WAYK method/mentoring language generates an ever-growing (and complexifying) collection of “Same Conversations”; reliable, familiar, and consistently repeating back-and-forth dialogues of language play. The “WAYK?” core conversation, the specific conversation about the pens, stick, rock, around the low table, is the primary laboratory, and first “same conversation”, for learning and applying WAYK. I… Read more »
[direct download] Evan Gardner interviews Justin Robinson, Mary Wydell (a steadily progressing new “speaker-teacher”), and others about the most recent Chinuk Wawa (Chinook Jargon) night. 1. Technique “Colors and Numbers” conversation Evan asks Mary about improving the props. Better crayons! 2. Technique “33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99“ 3. Technique “Total Physical Response“ Mary’s… Read more »
1 hr, 45 minutes, and 30 seconds. [direct download] In this really long episode, almost two hours long, we debrief our Chinuk Wawa conversation night, and realize that we’re experiencing the feeling of turning the corner on the revitalization of the language. We bask in the glow for a bit, and address many issues that… Read more »
59 minutes and 24 seconds. [direct download] 1. Technique “Backup“ Dustin brought Tiffany and her toddler son with him, two regulars from his Vancouver Squamish language night Squamish Valley is located in the country, about 80 kilometers from Vancouver 2. Technique “Set-up“ The game took place in a community/rec center He set up a “Lotus“… Read more »
1 hr, 1 minute and 46 seconds. [direct download] In this episode, Evan interviews Peter and Pulikli, two Chinuk Wawa WAYK game leaders. Listen in on how WAYK “curriculum” design works, by joining this discussion about how WAYK players designed the Chinuk Wawa “family” conversation. 1. Technique “Set-up“ Peter describes the “set-up” – rigorously using… Read more »
1 hour, 15 minutes, and 51 seconds. [direct download] 1. Technique “Agile“ Why did we offer a WAYK workshop for IT professionals who belong to the Agile software development community? WAYK teaches “teacher-trainers”. WAYK is a pattern language; a mentoring language that (in an open source, ever-improving fashion) codifies the successful strategies involved in teaching… Read more »
49 minutes and 52 seconds. [direct download] We debrief Dustin’s fifth WAYK Squamish language conversation night, that he holds in Vancouver, B.C., with plans to start another in nearby Squamish Valley, B.C. 1. Technique “Accent“ Gabriel George attends – the grandson of the late Chief Dan George. Dustin speaks about his people, and the relationship… Read more »
48 minutes 47 seconds. [direct download here] If you regularly listen to our podcasts, you know by now how highly we value debriefs, and the tremendous insight and improvement that emerges from them. In this episode, Willem debriefs Dustin’s Squamish Language Night game, for the first time in a few weeks. 1. Technique “the Lotus“… Read more »
1 hr, 7 minutes, 6 seconds. [direct download here] [Note: This podcast isn’t designed to teach Chinuk Wawa. It is a demonstration of how to apply the WAYK method to an endangered language. By listening to it, you will improve your understanding of WAYK techniques, but you won’t receive any instruction in Chinuk specifically.] In… Read more »
[direct download here] [Note: This podcast isn’t designed to teach Chinuk Wawa. It is a demonstration of how to apply the WAYK method to an endangered language. By listening to it, you will improve your understanding of WAYK techniques, but you won’t receive any instruction in Chinuk specifically.] In this episode we debrief our most… Read more »
WAYK Podcast, Episode 6: Dustin Starts the Squamish Language Night. 52 minutes and 25 seconds. [direct download here] Dustin Rivers (@dustinrivers) talks about the first WAYK Squamish language night that he hosted at his house, following up from our visit there in North Vancouver, B.C. a week ago. This night is the first of a… Read more »
WAYK Podcast, Episode 4: Revitalizing Chinuk Wawa. 39 minutes and 41 seconds. [direct download] [Note: Chinuk Wawa is a very endangered indigenous language native to the Pacific Northwest. Please keep in mind that we make no attempt to teach anyone to speak Chinuk Wawa by podcasting about our Chinuk nights, and during the podcast we… Read more »
The WAYK toolkit doesn’t provide a preset curriculum for any particular language; it provides the tools for generating this curriculum. In a sense, for us, “curriculum” has become somewhat of a dirty word, because of its conventional connotation as a prepared-materials-heavy, top-down, mostly static delivery of subject matter. But, we have to admit, the WAYK… Read more »
