The Where Are Your Keys? LLC Blog

In Dalan

Sky Hopinka wraps up the summer trip to China and discusses topics that have come up regarding WAYK, language revitalization, and decolonization.  Sky also wants to say that he is not speaking on behalf of Where Are Your Keys? These are just some of his thoughts about some stuff.

Part One of Two…or Three.

So it’s been quite a while since I last wrote a blog.  I’ll try to be quick.  I have returned from China.  Months ago, in fact.  The rest of the trip went well enough.  We continued working on the POW curriculum after returning from Dalan; David stayed in Beijing for another three weeks after that, where we wandered, loitered, navigated the internet and filmed some stuff for the project.  We also made it to the Peking Opera, which was rad.

After David left, I stayed in Beijing for another three weeks.  I got a job being a private tutor, and I got to teach one on one using WAYK five days a week, twice a day; an hour an a half each go.  It was scary, we blew through the USC we worked out for POW within the first three days, after that it was a lot of mad science and really realizing how interesting English is as a language.  I’m still working on getting everything down on paper, but basically it came down to setting up the prepositions and function words and all the weird times that you’re supposed to say one thing and not the other.  It was fun.  We also started doing TQ: The Walk during the last week of the sessions.  Since the heat was atrocious, we did a short, quick walk in the student’s living room.  It was semi spacious, but a really nice set up with a long couch, a short couch, four chairs around the table, seven chairs total in the house, a tall lamp and a short lamp, and a nice little route around the room.  We got a lot of mileage out of it and would repeat the walk three times each session, reviewing and adding on more and more language as the student learned.

Also, here is the POW video that I made about the partnership between WAYK, BEAM, and the project this past summer:

Since getting back to the States, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel with Evan to many different communities and help out however I can.  It’s really encouraging to see so many people passionate about their languages and doing whatever it takes to ensure its survival.  Yet there are a lot of things that keep coming up; namely politics, identity, race, and colonization.  Yes, those are pretty weighty and heavy, and substantial topics and issues.  But I think that the more that we talk about them and work through them, the sooner action is bound to happen.  To be completely honest, there have been many times while I’ve been working with indigenous languages that I just want to quit.  And I haven’t even been doing this for that long.  But I didn’t, and still haven’t.

I’d rather not go into the political part of this, as it is a little too personal.  But I do want to note that by “political” I am referring to both the governmental, sovereignty based issues and the more individual “politicking” aspects of language revitalization.  It’s a pain in the ass, but it’s there and something that needs to be worked through, for everyone involved.  Teamwork.  Yeah.  We’ve been working on Techniques (TQ) for this.  Not yet contracted, though.

The big concepts that seem to cover all of those issues are:

Colonization.  Decolonization.  <=Those guys.

I became aware of decolonization as an academic term five or six years ago, and mainly through terms of decolonizing pedagogical methodologies.  (There is a collection of essays called Decolonizing Methodologies that I recommend, among many others.) In the past few years I’ve really noticed a surge of voices who are taking this idea to the next level.  It’s great.  Right on.  However, in terms of WAYK, it’s recently become a topic of conversation as far as how can we improve the system to accommodate decolonization efforts.  The discussion involves really making clear what these Techniques can do, and in the next post I’ll share more ideas that I have about decolonization.

But first,

I’ll start with the USC.  The good ol’ Universal Speed Curriculum.  Old reliable.  One thing that needs to be clarified is that the road map that is the USC, is only a suggestion, a conversation starter.  It’s the linguistic equivalent of small talk at a cocktail party: boring and not something that your language particularly wants to be wooed by.  I’ve never been to a cocktail party, but I can imagine.  I can say with almost a lot of certainty that no language will follow the English USC exactly.  And that’s a beautiful thing.  Take the USC, look at it once, put it away, and hunt those fuzzy concepts that the USC represents, not the words.  If there are concepts in the USC that don’t exist in your language, then it’s perfectly fine to change the USC.  That’s when it stops being the universal speed curriculum and starts becoming the Your-Language-Here Speed Curriculum.  Concepts such as want/have/give/take, mine/yours, etc, that are part of the foundation of the USC are still just concepts.  If politeness, norms, or mores occur in your culture that are opposite that of what is in the USC, by all rights, make adjustments to the USC and change it, adapt it, and run with it.

Another issue is intonation.  It is very tempting to impose English intonation when asking and answering questions in the target language, and honestly it’s a hard habit to break, but it’s part of the process, and it can always be fixed with TQ: Accent and explained by TQ: Mumble.  So as you hunt, keep an ear out for intonation, run through the conversation with the fluent speaker and try and copycat along as best you can.  But I suggest not letting it be main focus of your first hunt, or second, or third.  You’ve got to TQ: Limit somewhere, and best to get some language under your belt.  A more advanced hunting TQ is purposefully testing a question with an English inflection to prompt the speaker to 1) confirm or correct what was being hunted and 2) to correct you improper inflection.  It’s easy to get everyone confused by doing this, so be careful.

Really, when you start packaging rides and teaching them off is when you want to go over intonation and make any accent adjustments.  Even if the realization of proper intonation comes when you’re halfway fluent it’s still okay to make that adjustment, and go back and download your brand new accent to everyone you taught.  It’s okay to unlearn.

Intonation and the malleability of the USC are a few issues that come up when discussing language revitalization and the process of active revitalization.  It’s a rational fear that occurs when we start objectively examining the language(s) that we’re trying to save, and are taking into account the obstacles that we face and how the influence that English and the dominant culture we live in affect that process.

Still, remember, that there are some conversations that you need to have about your language that you can only have in your language.  I’m of the Davidedwardsian school of thought that nothing translates.  Ever!  So get fluent.  It’ll be fun.  Then take Grandma to that coffee shop in Spain we’re always talking about.

As in language-learning, studying math involves plenty of rigorous proofs–you take what knowledge you know, and then you use it to find new knowledge. Luckily, language acquisition doesn’t have to be as complicated as this blackboard. (Credit: Clay Shonkwiler, Flickr, Creative Commons)

This post is fifth in a series of entries about WAYK techniques as they occur in everyday life, beyond language-learning.

How do you show someone you’ve learned something? Naturally, you repeat that knowledge to that person rather than simply stating “Yes, I’ve learned it.” You impress that person even more when you apply your newly-acquired knowledge in new, unforeseen situations; rather than simply blindly following instructions in preset environments–which are very convenient, but very rare in life–you show that your brain is flexible and that you’re truly aware of what you’re doing. The WAYK technique “Prove It” takes this element of daily life and applies it to language-learning. You use a bit of language–a word, a phrase, a sentence structure–that you recently learned in a set-up beyond the one in which you learned it. When you “Prove It”, you learn in what situations a piece of language fits and doesn’t fit, and you fix that piece of language more securely in your brain.

Proving your skills is more essential than at first glance. You may receive a diploma from high school or college and claim to have a set of knowledge and skills, but when you are hired, you must show that you, in fact, do possess a given amount of know-how in order to keep your job. You probably wouldn’t want your employers to think you’re a hack, that you got your diploma by achieving the bare minimum for it. If you’ve seen the infamous TV game show Are You Smarter than a 5th-Grader?, you’ve noticed a harsh truth about how grown-ups claim to have learned basic knowledge. Unfortunately for many of the adult contestants–and hilariously for us watching at home–they can’t prove they learned things in elementary school even though they clearly graduated from it. (Maybe they’ve forgotten simple math, science, and grammar, but it’s still basic knowledge.) The ultimate embarrassment is when contestants fail questions that kids answer correctly: the adults must then admit to the world, “I am not smarter than a 5th-grader.”

Life is full of opportunities to “Prove It”. Once, when I was driving a rental car, taking several of my dormmates from our campus to San Francisco, one of my dormmates asked me if I was a safe driver. Of course, I couldn’t rent a car without my license, but of course, that wasn’t enough proof. Many licensed drivers drive unsafely, moving too close to cars and not having both hands on the wheel at all times. I could only show my passengers I was being careful during the trip to SF. At the same time, I was paying attention to my driving as well, so I had to make sure I was, in fact, maneuvering with extra care. The experience helped me improve my future driving as well.

In school, the ways to “Prove It” are obvious: you finish homework, pass tests, and give knowledgeable presentations. They’re usually given with set deadlines. Typically, you can receive outside help on homework, with others “pulling you through it” if you’re having trouble. On the other hand, you’re on your own on tests and presentations.

WAYK is different: you’re tested constantly, but you’re tested only when you think you’re ready, not at pre-determined times. Most of the time in WAYK, your “angels on your shoulder” are “pulling you through it”. However, you’re only tested individually when you need to “Prove It”, whether you want to use just one new word or whether you’re being tested on your fluency on the ACTFL scale; only then will you be on your own. You set your own pace for learning, which makes learning more comfortable and thus a lot more efficient.

I hope you can prove that you know how to “Prove It”! And when you play WAYK with your friends, I hope you prove your knowledge of WAYK techniques and how and when to bring them up “Just in Time”.

In February I received a random email. Qwina said he watched the videos on you tube and vimeo and decided to take WAYK for a spin!  He taped the first sessions and sent them to me to look over.  I was astounded by Qwina’s ability to wield techniques and work through the USC’s first rides up through “mine/yours”.  I was even more astounded by Qwina’s willingness for me to critique his set-up and flow without ever having met me or ever having received any WAYK training.
I asked if we could post the video for everyone to see, and happily, he and his class agreed.  To be honest, they have been bugging me to post it for a few months now!
So for all you other community language classes who are shy… get out the recorder and give WAYK a shot!
Send the video unedited for me to look over and give you pointers, and then we can talk about posting an edited version if you and your community deem that appropriate. Either way we will have a great conversation. email to evan@whereareyourkeys.org

-Evan

Manahu (Hello), my name is Qwina West, I am the Inyo County Language Coordinator for the Nüümü Yadoha Program, and this is one of our Paiute Language Classes here in Bishop CA. This video is my second time teaching WAYK in Paiute, four out of the six student is their first time learning this technique. I seen this technique for a couple of years now on the internet, but every time I would see it, I did not understand it right off, so I would not watch them through. So I ran across the site “Where Are Your Keys” and watched this video (“Where Are Your Keys?” is difficult to explain but easy to demonstrate. Check out Evan Gardner, the game’s original developer, in this first-time players’ tutorial.)
The second time I sat down with my Fluent Speaker and told her this is what I want to teach, we sat down together and watched the video, and she loved it! This concept of teaching is similar to our old ways of teaching children. At this time,  I watch the video twice all the way through and made notes and used the Universal Speed Curriculum, and started teaching the first class only two of my students showed up the second class six showed up and they had FUN LEARNING LANGUAGE and that is very important to me.
I videotaped both classes and took up Evans offer about sending in a video. Evan watched them both and gave me advice on what I needed to work on more. If you need a change in your teaching or you see that your students are getting burned out, try this method and have fun with it. As our Elders would say, “Don’t be ashamed” just do it. Watch the video all the way through and copy/mimic everything you see, than watch it again and turn the sound down and do it in your language.

Alina, Stevie, and Melissa enjoy a serious teaching moment at Portland State University.

The best part of summer has to be no school and homework to get in the way of me focusing on Hunting Navajo and gaining fluency in Chinuk Wawa. My journey and first interactions with Where are your keys?, occurred at Portland State University. I was a transfer student from Utah State University the term before. Every day I truly second guessed my decision to transfer to PSU. I went from a school I had always known with friends and family, to a new school where it was grey skies ( the sun didn’t exist) , not a single person knew me , I had just changed my major (again),  and in every way possible was drastically different from Utah and New Mexico where I grew up.

For my new major I just so happened to register for a Native Language Revitalization class that fulfilled my requirement for graduation. I actually planned on dropping the class if I didn’t like it after the first week because 1. I had no idea what language revitalization was and 2. The brief description was boring and I couldn’t fathom why and how was it even important or relevant to my life.  Within the first week of the term one of the requirements for the class was to attend a language class, so I decided to attend the Chinuk Wawa classes everyone was raving about. Having never spoken a second language, learning languages was extremely new. I will always remember walking into the class, immediately greeted by everyone and invited to join a bucket taught by Melissa, the kindness, warmth, passion, knowledge, and techniques I experienced at Chinuk Wawa made learning so fun . That first day when I struggled or got frustrated I learned the technique, “Don’t think don’t suffer” just relax and head over to “the meadow” (where I might add there was free food, Yaay!:D).  The concept of using sign language as a bridge language was so intriguing and made absolute sense, especially when I was given the mouth dropping news, I would be totally immersed in the language.

The next few weeks to come were probably the most life altering and has changed my life forever.  This was when I realized 1. What language revitalization was. Sitting there starring out onto the class, looking at everyone teaching and just having fun.  I Realized I was a part of it and I could see all of us wrapped and surrounded fully immersed in Chinuk Wawa, it was put into action changing our community. 2. It was everything but BORING and yes it was relevant to my life and others. When I was told I could use it to learn my own language the Navajo Language, I can’t lie, I WAS SOLD!:D lol. I could learn my language that I had only dreamed of speaking. A language so close to me while simultaneously so far away because I didn’t’ speak or understand.

I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason.  I know I was supposed to transfer to Portland State University that I was destined to register for that one Native language revitalization class where 3, Where are you Keys? Interns were my classmates.  I was meant to find my passion for teaching and learning languages.  I need to speak Navajo, no longer will it be something I merely wish for. I can’t wait for all my new Navajo experiences and Chinuk adventures because I saw the Native center at PSU change, due to the gathering spaces being filled with students/friends speaking Chinuk Wawa. I have been given the opportunity to go to California for workshops and see how it has changed and impacted lives of communities with only a few fluent speakers. Where are you keys?, changes lives and communities, it changed mine.

Alina, Stevie, and Melissa make WAYK Portland State University

Blog 1: What did WAYK at PSU give you?

I was a Senior at Portland State University in my second to last term when I decided to attend a Chinuk Wawa language class held at the Native Center. There were two passionate teachers, Sky Hopinka and Stevie Lemke that made me feel welcome even though I did not really have an idea of who they were or what this Where Are Your Keys?  was about. They both taught me the basic techniques and would spend extra time outside of class to speak Chinuk Wawa. When attending the Chinuk Wawa class, I noticed it was the first time in a language class where I did not feel pressured to know how to speak or forced to reproduce answers for a test.

I started out playing the game and quickly was told to teach, like many of the people who come at least once. After my first couple of classes I became interested in having an internship with WAYK to learn more about the methodology while receiving required college credits. I was able to witness and be a part of this Chinuk Wawa group that became a community of speakers, not only from PSU but other community members would attend. It evolved into Chinuk being spoken in the Native Center and having a home in the Native center 2 days a week for 2 hours. I learned how to teach a language and work with all different levels of fluency by using the techniques as guidelines. More importantly, I understood how to listen and help other people reach their goal of fluency.

 Initially, I knew nothing about Chinuk culture nor knew anything about the history of their language. I was fortunate to be able to ask people in the Chinuk Wawa group and many other knowledgeable community members about the many influences on Chinuk Wawa and it’s speakers. The most remarkable aspect of the class was how we all learned so much about the history of the Portland area and the people who resided there, even though we were not in a formal college class. Being a part of the Chinuk Wawa group resulted in me getting heavily involved in many of the activities at the Native Center. I ended up enjoying, volunteering, and attending events at PSU and through out the Portland community.

By participating in the Chinuk Wawa group, I was able to attend many workshops and conferences through WAYK. We were able to travel to California and other parts of Oregon to meet other people who were trying to revitalize their language. It was inspiring to hear the stories of language groups who were introducing WAYK to their community and adapting it to their language. The Chinuk Wawa group and WAYK showed me that I was passionate about language revitalization and how I want to pursue this work for my future career. I realized creating language communities is a goal for all groups and the struggle is finding a method that is fast and easy for all ages.

Being Passamaquoddy, I have always wanted to learn my language and the cultural traditions of my people by communicating in our language. Where Are Your Keys? (WAYK) was a teaching method that revitalized my hope and ambition to learn how to build a strong language communities while continuing the path to fluency. The reason why this teaching method works is because it is a game designed for all members of the community. Our philosophy is that we create “language teacher makers”, its the idea that every person must develop teaching skills while learning the language to be able to share the language and build a community of speakers. The game utilizes the strengths of sign language, various techniques, and props. The design is about reaching fluency as quickly as possible and modifying the lessons to achieving this goal. After nearly seven months of being a part of WAYK, I am ready to take this PSU experience and head back home to see how we can continue the movement in other tribes.

Thank you to Evan Gardner, a mentor and friend who encouraged me to take on the world. To Sky Hopinka, Stevie Lemke, and Alina Begay for always teaching me how to be a better human being. And finally, hayi masi pus konaway Chinuk Wawa tilicum uk kumtux pi wawa Chinuk Wawa.

Xianqi on a Train

Our next project was to go to a small town south of Shanghai called Dalan, or Dalanzhen, and work with a group of teenage volunteers who were running a three-week English summer camp in three villages surrounding Dalanzhen.  There were two or three volunteers assigned to each of the villages and each had their own way of running things.  We were showing up the last week of the program and not really sure what to expect.

We left for Dalanzhen Sunday morning, taking a cab to the Big Beijing Super Fast Train Station.  I’m not sure if that’s what it’s called, but that place is huge.  It was a five-hour train ride to Shanghai in a pretty nice, super fast train.  Along the way David taught me how to play xiangqi in Mandarin, so that was enjoyable  It’s a lot like western chess, but a few more quirks that make the game a little more interesting.  I didn’t win the first two, or three, times that we played, which I promptly blamed on learning the game in Mandarin, not English, but still it was fun and passed the time.

After we arrived in Shanghai, we transferred trains to one that would take us to Yuyao, which is about three hours by slow train.  On that leg we sat in a sleeper car with four other people.  David and I continued to play xiangqi and noticed this younger dude watching us.  After David beat me, we conversed in chinuk a bit about David asking him if he wanted to play.  After we agreed that it would be all right, David asked him and the competition commenced.  A quarter of the way through the game, David turned to me and, in chinuk, said that the guy was playing really badly and making some big mistakes.  We went back and forth really quick about what to do, and decided on just letting him win, to draw the game out, and to not be insulting.  The game went on for a while longer and both David and the guy were playing pretty horribly. It’s also worth noting that before while David and I were playing, this guy had a rubix cube and looked like one of those competitors who solved them in 20 seconds flat.  So it’s easy to assume he’d have a knack for games.  Then David turned to me again, and in chinuk, said that the guy might be trying to lose, so as to not insult the foreigners.  Seemed plausible, we agreed that might very well be the case, then David went ahead and won.  Or maybe everyone won?  I don’t know, but we maintained the peace.

It wasn’t that much longer before we arrived in Yuyao and were met at the bus station by one of the teenage volunteers.  He took us to a waiting car and we got on our way.  But first we stopped at KFC.

There’s something about KFC in China.  During the weekend after we got back from Fangshan, David and I went out and explored a bit and along the way got pretty hungry.  It was hot; the humidity here is insane, and just said to hell with it and went to KFC.  It was the most awkward experience I’ve had a fast food restaurant ever.  Beside the fact that I didn’t have enough language to order from a menu, it was intimidating.  They yell at you and everyone behind you is cutting in line.  David also had a hard time with it, and after some time we got through the ordeal and sat down and ate our food.  David mentioned how it was a bit of a humbling experience for him, like he didn’t know as much Mandarin as he thought he did, and this was a whole nother kind of language test.  Like a solid Intermediate-mid test.

In Yuyao we got a chance for redemption and stopped in for food.  It was just as bad this time around.  One of the cashiers was laughing at us and I think they hosed me on the fries.  We will be back…

We met up with the rest of the teenage volunteers, got to meet the girl that was organizing the whole project.  They’re doing cool things.  But they wanted to split the three of us up and send each of us to a different village for the week.  That didn’t really fit well into our plans or with what we were expecting before we got there.  It turns out that the volunteers didn’t know that we were coming until the day we arrived, so there was some awkwardness there, and we really didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes the last week of their summer camp.  We had some figurin’ to do.

It was an hour drive from Yuyao to Dalan, and by the time we got to Dalan we had it decided that Irene, David and myself would be staying in a hotel in town and going to the closest village the next morning, Monday, see the lay of the land and plan out the rest of the week from there.

Again, David and I were sharing a room and a bed; a routine we’d grown accustomed to the past week in Fangshan and the two weeks before in Bend.  We settled in and went to sleep.