Monthly Archives: April 2010

With Justin's (left) help, Peter (center) leads Sarah in a game of "colors and numbers".

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 came up tonight, and coin several new techniques.

1. Technique “Craig’s List: For, How, Like…“

• The list of language structure, using a word similar to “for, how, like…”, that allowed Willem to ascend to the next level of language proficiency, particular to Chinuk.
• Willem could know understand most of the Superior speech of Henry Zenk, the Chinuk Wawa Potluck night’s “fluent fool“.
• Evan asks: “What are those key words, the key structures, in any language, the movers and shakers, after want/have/give/take?“

2. Technique “Where is…?“

• Peter comments that this new list comes after the “Where is…?” question.
• The order of conversational questions so far: “What is that?“, “Whose is that?“, “Who wants that?“, “Where is that?”…and now the “For, How, Like…” list.

3. Technique “Language Hunting“

• Evan and Willem strategized the first conversation of the evening around the new list.

4. Technique “We’ll All Get There Together“

• Having varying levels of fluent proficiency in the conversation, involving Peter (Intermediate-low), Evan (Advanced-high), Willem (Intermediate-high), Justin (Advanced-high), was instrumental in its success.
• Willem: “We will learn faster, by going slower”.

5. Technique “Role-play“

• Peter upped the energy of a conversation for everyone by beginning to “role-play” a silly exchange.

6. Technique “Pull ‘em through it“

• So tapped by the “For, How, Like” conversation, our band of intrepid language hunters drop the ball during a game with newbie Mary.
• They managed to course-correct and began “pulling her through it” through “copycatting” “just ahead” with sign, and using “read my lips” to mouth the words.

7. Technique “Teach a Teacher“

• Peter led a game for Mary and Donna afterwards, where they really showed a spike in their fluent proficiency – they began leading the game for Peter!
• Peter says that being comfortable with them, now that he knows them, made the game much more fun.

8. Technique “Set-up“

• We finally decide to kick the enormous ottoman into the garage during Chinuk night.
• We “set-up” the classic low table with tablecloth -  this accelerated the language play markedly.
• The room got so noisy with the sound of language play, it began to trouble our fluent elder.

9. Technique “Lunatic Fringe“

• Willem decides to run a previous idea for an experiment: starting a first time newbie (in this case, Palma) in the “lunatic fringe”, rather than one-on-one play.
• Willem and Thomas run a “goal conversation“/”modeling” game, going through “what is that?” and “whose is that?“, before turning the reigns over to Thomas to lead Palma in a game.
• There’s two reasons to be in the lunatic fringe: one is to be an Angel on Your Shoulder for another player, “pulling them through it“, but another equally important role is just resting and recuperating, “copycatting” as well as you can, but with no obligations beyond watching the game play.

10. Techniques “Make me say yes…“, “Make me say no…“

• Dustin’s way of describing these techniques as milestones of game play changed how Willem think about the roadmap of game play.

11. Technique “Copycat“

• WAYK is  not a learning game; it’s a “copycatting” game!

12. Technique “Slow/Fast“

• Why whenever we slow things down for newbies, it speeds up language acquisition for everybody? The world may never know.

13. Technique “Accordion“

• Having the same conversation, in full sentences, with as many attitudes and emotions as possible.

14. Technique “Sorry, Charlie“

• Hunting down the little hesitations, little (and big) confusions, and either applying old techniques to them, or innovating new ones, is the heart of WAYK.

15. Technique “the Walk“

• Evan says he had one of the best “Walks” he’s ever been on, led by Peter.
• Sarah talks about her experience, as a newbie, on “the Walk“.
• It was a shorter “Walk” than normal; only 20 minutes!
• The shortness of “the Walk” may have been the key to its success – it went only two blocks. Lots to interact with in two blocks!

16. Technique “Colors and Numbers“

• Peter ran a game with Sarah, designed to create a conversation about colors and numbers, using a pile of crayons.
• He started with “What is that?“, “Whose is that?“, “Who wants that?” (they forget to mention this one), and “Where is that?“.

17. Technique “Travels with Charlie“
18. Technique “Obviously!“

• Peter, Evan, and Sarah talk about the “set-up” of the crayon game.

19. Technique “Riddle-me-this“

• Sarah figured out that Chinuk Wawa treats the colors green and  blue in a funny way; this brings up a few cultural issues, that Evan speaks about.

20. Technique “44, 55, 66, 77, 88…“

• Evan describes the counting conversation he designed.

21. Technique “One-on-One“

• Are we now turning them into triads?
• Sarah coins technique “Learning Buddy“, to refer to the advantage of having a three person game (one person leading).

22. Technique “We’ll All Get There Together“

• Willem: “It was a night of turning corners.”

23. Technique “Copycat“

• Peter noticed Mary and Donna finally clicked into the role of “copycatting“, rather than trying to ‘learn and remember’.
• It’s a “copycatting” game, not a learning game!

24. Technique “No-grief Debrief“

• Sarah finds the debrief remarkable, as an indicator of the enormous amount of thought and reflection that goes into WAYK experiences.

25. Technique “Dictionary Addiction“

• Evan and Eric misunderstand Donna’s request, to great hilarity.

26. Technique “Teach a Teacher“

• The benefits of training everyone to teach. We had a roomful of teachers, ready to run games.
• We all feel that we’ve turned a corner, in revitalizing the language. This is what it feels like to turn the destiny of a language around.

27. Technique “Dictionary Addiction“

• Peter tells his Chinuk dictionary story, regarding Jim Holton’s book “Chinook Jargon”.

28. Technique “Pet Cemetery“

• Languages don’t come back the same, once all you have left of them is in books.

The first Squamish language WAYK "Walk"

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“
• He found a great table on site, to play on
• 7 people total in the game, including Dustin and crew
• There is a much tighter, more involved community in Squamish Valley, as compared to the city.
• Dustin muses on how funny it is to need so few tools (a handful of objects) to play WAYK
• Dustin begin using the color “blue”, in the form of a blue car and a blue pen.

3. Technique “Make me say no…“

• Dustin brings the group quite a ways, and wonders how he did it. Is he getting more skilled at leading the game? Is it because ofTiffany’s help, or the experience in the “lunatic fringe“?

4. Technique “Technique!“

• Dustin is getting more experienced at calling and explaining techniques.
• Dustin began with “Travels with Peter“, “Copy Cat”, “In Fours“, “Limit“.

5. Technique “Accent“

• Dustin deferred to Shirley’s Squamish Valley “accent“.

6. Technique “the Walk“

• Evan and Dustin had a previous, unrecorded conversation where Evan really hashed with Dustin how to make a really good, “obviously!“, packed “Walk“.
• A shorter “Walk“, with more stops, is a good “Walk“; less opportunity to lapse into English conversation.

7. Technique “No-grief Debrief“

• The conversation after Dustin’s game turned to the subject of fluent elders, with some really sad stories emerging.

8. Technique “the Drive“

• Dustin is working on a Squamish Language audio tour, going along the road up to Squamish Valley.
• Willem talks about the positive impact of recording games and debriefs.

9. Technique “No-grief Debrief“

• Evan suggests including Tiffany in a game-leader only debrief.
• How much time in WAYK is spent playing, vs. debriefs and technique talk?

10. Technique “What would you do differently next time?“
11. Technique “Modeling”/”Goal Conversation“

• With Tiffany’s help, Dustin “modeled” the “Make me say no” “goal conversation“.

12. Technique “Most Successful Moment?“

• Dustin describes the whole night as a real success. He’s been wanting to do it for a long time; he feels like language revitalization, now that he’s doing it twice a week, has become a big, successful chunk of his life.

13. Technique “Early Adopters“

• Dustin talks about Everett Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovations” theory, in terms of the diffusion of WAYK and Squamish conversation through his community, starting with the “early adopters“.
• Joshua Fishman: “Patience, and Prudence.”

14. Technique “Mine/Yours“

• Dustin begins talking about his Vancouver Squamish conversation night at his house.
• He had two attendees, Tiffany and Gabe.
• Because they  had no newbies, they really flew through the game, up to “Make me Say no: Mine/Yours“.

15. Technique “Teach a Teacher“

• Tiffany wants to be able to lead games for her coworkers at the immersion kindergarten school.

16. Technique “Language Hunter“

• “Boredom” is another sign that a player isn’t getting enough experience “language hunting” on their own.

17. Technique “Modeling“

• What you want people to do, you must  “model“, and give them time to try it out with you. We wish it was different, but that just seems to be how people work.

18. Technique “the Walk“

• Dustin plans to revamp his “Walk“, and start out with just a silent “sign language” “Walk“.
• Dustin is thinking of his “Walk” in terms of three “phases”, of increasing complexity.

19. Technique “Set-up“

• Dustin built a rock pile for his “Walk” players to run across.
• “Mine/Yours” in Squamish requires a unique “Set-up“, because of the variety of possessive pronouns.

20. Technique “Most Successful Moment“

• Dustin has “contracted” different signs for Squamish parts of speech, to play through “Mine/Yours“
• Since he has started doing the nightly classes, Dustin says his abilities have skyrocketed
• He has begun to be able to just start speaking in some past tense

Justin leads Peter in a game of Chinuk Wawa "What's that?"

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 technique “limit“, for the first round.
• The second time, they worked on correcting our language use, with Evan’s help.
• The conversation went quite well when played later with the rest of the Chinuk Night attendees, with about 8 players total.

2. Technique “Sing-a-long Song“
3. Technique “Slow/Fast“

• Thomas called for “slow“, since Peter was leading the game a bit too fast.

4. Technique “No-pressure Refresher“

• Peter says the group game started a bit rough, due to the time that passed since they last played.

5. Technique “What would you do differently next time?“

• They agree that they could improve the conversation by blowing up the photos of Thomas’, Peter’s and Pulikli’s families.
• Color seems very important when working with photographs.

6. Technique “One-on-one“

• Peter’s first “one-on-one” with a total newbie (Nikki) to Chinuk night.
• Our wall poster, showing a short list of techniques, helped him lead the game.

7. Technique “Set-up“

• Where did they sit? What table surface did they use? How did they respond to the games around them?

8. Technique “Angel on your Shoulder“

• Peter didn’t realize he had the option to call in a “lunatic fringe” to help.

9. Technique “Lunatic Fringe“

• Pulikli explains how he learned to play, just by watching from the “lunatic fringe“.
• “The game is so simple…it’s like reading a Dr. Seuss book…”

10. Technique “Full“

• Peter watches Nikki, his newbie player, take really good care of herself by calling “full” early and often. This allows her to keep coming back, and keep playing.

11. Technique “How Fascinating!“

• Peter focused on “modeling” lots of “How Fascinating!” for her.

12. Technique “Language Hunting“

• Peter talks about how he has begun working his hunting skills, and what it’s like to hunt another “language hunter“, in his “rent” conversation with Evan.
• Evan hunts Peter for what he knows, and doesn’t know, as he in turn senses what Peter wants to hunt from him.

13. Technique “Push/Pull“

• The rhythm that emerges between two “language hunters“, a relatively effortless back and forth conversation, discovering new words and language structure along the way.

14. Technique “Bridge Language“

• Sign language helped Evan read Peter’s mind in the context of Peter’s “what I did in Molalla over the weekend” conversation.

15. Technique “Shared Experience” vs. “Same Conversation”

• The difference between these two techniques.
• Each technique added, one by one, accelerates language acquisition – each technique describes a very specific, contextual accelerator.

15. Technique “Bob and Ray“

• Pulikli coins a new technique – guessing the word a “language hunter” wants from you, as soon as you can fill it in.

16. Technique “Memory Room“

• Using physical objects to tell stories, as inspired by Martín Prechtel.
• Applying techniques “TPR” and “Obviously!” to the Jesuit/ancient Greek Palace memory system.

17. Technique “the Walk“

• Pulikli commits to leading the next “Walk“.

The “Universal Speed Curriculum” is a way of transcribing the core WAYK conversation, designed to go up to “want/have/give/take” transactional conversation in the target language. We have several examples of this online; the original English version, Estonian, and Spanish.

Dustin Rivers has been hard at work, improving the Squamish language Universal Speed Curriculum (USC) with every game.

If you check the version number (Ver 5.5) on his current document, I hope you’ll get a better sense for something we say a lot about WAYK; the improvement (acceleration of language acquisition) never ends. Dustin himself won’t be the last one to improve on the Squamish language USC. “Students” (WAYK players) of his will come up with accelerators and new techniques that he could never have imagined, and certainly beyond the ken of Evan and I.

Make your first, messy, imperfect USC, in whatever language you wish. You don’t need to “get it right” the first time, in fact you can’t  possibly “get it right” ever! I prefer troubleshooting new USC with an improv, oral tradition-style, right there on the spot, but if you need to work it out in writing, go ahead.

Just understand you’ve only begun the USC, and you only ever will have just begun it. If you stay at all true to the spirit of WAYK, your trained community players will have taken ownership of it before you know it, in any case.

Elisabeth and Dale play WAYK using technique "Pairing".

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 and learning.

2. Technique “Chartering“

• Our highest value: the most rapid emergence of fluent proficiency in any skill, in any community.

3. Technique “Goal Conversation“

• We wanted to apply WAYK to something that might appear as a work practice in a dialect of Agile software development.
• We also wanted to train our “language hunters“, while we still had them in the workshop, to use their skills without hesitating.

4. Technique “Language Hunting“

• You need to learn to “language hunt” fluently before you can start applying the WAYK mentoring language to other skill domains (such as Agile).
• Evan thinks it takes a minimum of 1 to 1½ days, in an WAYK immersion workshop, for fluent “language hunters” to emerge.

5. Technique “Critical Mass“

• With 10 attendees at the workshop (we only had five), we could have vastly accelerated the workshop.
• The more people, the more dynamic the process of shifting “inner circle” and “lunatic fringe” by calling “Full“, and so on.

6. Technique “You go first“

• We “set-up” a pretend “language hunting” scenario for three spoken languages; Japanese, Chinuk Wawa, Norwegian.
• Anders, our Norwegian attendee, set a record for the fastest Chinuk Wawa hunt ever!

7. Technique “Teach a Teacher“

• We overheard some newbies say to another: “We’re going to teach you Norwegian now!”

8. Technique “Tea with Grandma“

• To prep for hunting spoken language, we “set-up” an archetypal “language hunting” scenario, with Evan pretending to be Deaf, ASL-fluent Grandma.

9. Technique “Shared Experience“

• Willem gives clues – “Grandma loves tea – and she doesn’t like coffee.”

10. Technique “Limit“

• Limiting the objects to the “tea” theme.

11. Technique “Obviously!“

• The need for a less-confusing tea mug.
• The hunt for a perfectly white mug.
• It’s all in the planning.

12. Technique “Set-up“

• Arranging the “hunting pack” around Grandma, without scaring her…
• Establishing a “limited” array of objects; one color, few materials.
• Grandma was nervous – the “angels” and “lunatic fringe” were arrayed about her in an intimidating fashion.

13. Technique “What’s that?“

• Anders kicks the conversation into gear, by asking the first question you ever want to ask in “language hunting“.

14. Technique “Full“

• Some of the hunters called “full” in front of Grandma, confusing her a bit. Also the rotation of “fringe” to “inner circle“, though perfect form during a WAYK game, during tea with Grandma tended to bewilder her.

15. Technique “Craig’s List“.

• They start building “craig’s lists” on their own.

16. Technique “Hunting Pack“

• It takes a lot of teamwork to trust that while others are hunting, you can be building “craig’s lists” in the background, and running a WAYK game to solidify your fluent proficiency.

17. Technique “Make me say No…“

• Dale triggers a correction response, by asking “is that a black spoon”? This gets Evan to say “No, that is a white spoon”, revealing the word for “white”.

18. Technique “Make me say Yes…“

• Dale then “sets-up” another round, to reveal the names of materials; paper, plastic, ceramic.
• “White” and “like” are very similar hand-signs; Dale thoroughly investigates whether he understood Evan correctly.

19. Technique “Set-up“

• Dale even pulls the word for “clear” out of Evan!
• Anders perfectly “sets-up” the question “where’s my bread?”, by “accidentally” dropping it under his chair.
• Michael “sets-up” a conversation about sweeteners to put in tea.
• Michael discovers the word “fake” – a very abstract concept! How did he get it in a conversation about “tea”?

20. Technique “Craig’s List“

• Michael decides to extend the colors “craig’s list” by hunting for “yellow”.

21. Technique “Hunting Pack“

• Evan and Willem wish they could take the “language hunters” they trained at this workshop with them on language revitalization programs. They’re really good. Sigh.
• The  team then pretends to be on a plane-ride home from Grandma.

22. Technique “Organizing Principle“

• The team starts troubleshooting organizing the “craig’s lists“, using different themes.

23. Technique “Novice Listing“

• They needed to move on from just listing though…even if it was highly-skilled “craig’s listing“. Listing is a Novice behavior!
• They bumped it up to  “Intermediate proficiency” by throwing the “craig’s lists” into a “want/have/give/take” conversation.
• Evan wishes he could have debriefed “Tea with Grandma” – important insights would have emerged, but we just didn’t have enough time.

24. Technique “the Walk“

• Critical group fluency emerged during the second morning’s “Walk“.
• Michael told a story about hang-gliding off the balcony. Whew!

25. Technique “Speed Dating“

• By applying techniques “Set-up“, “You go first“, and “Modeling”, we were determined to inspire “language hunting” after the workshop.
• This looked a lot like “speed dating” – a few paired “language hunting” games.
• We began by pretending Willem was a Russian-speaker wearing a “I Heart Speaking Russian” standing at the bank, with Evan next to him in line.

26. Technique “How do you say…?“

• If you have a common bridge language (such as English) in the beginning, don’t be afraid to use it for a little while.
• Evan’s first question to Willem’s Russian-speaker: “How do you say “What is that?” in Russian?”.
• His next question (while pointing at a red pen) “Well then, [in Russian] what is that?”.

27. Technique “Bridge Language“

• Elizabeth asks Evan (while paired with him, hunting his Chinuk Wawa), “Do you speak ASL?”. Evan can’t help but say “yes!”. Very cunning…

28. Technique “Agile“

• We applied it then to a practice that might be done by an Agile software developer (in this case, Michael).
• It would be very easy to talk theoretically about how one might apply it…but we were determined to use techniques “do something“, “modeling“, and “you go first“.
• We set a 15 minute time-box in which we needed to decided upon a “same conversation” to start with. And then: action!

29. Technique “Imagine You’re in a Cafe in Spain“ – a decelerator

• Don’t pretend to be where you want to be – go there! “Set-up” the real conversation (or as close to real as possible).
• Fortunately, our host Elisabeth designed Agilistry studio (our workshop space) to accurately simulate an Agile environment.

Jay plays with his Grandma to learn a Palestinian dialect of Arabic.

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 play “WAYK?“.
• The ideal “fluent fool” has no conventional training in teaching at all.

3. Technique “Shared Experience“

• Finding the ideal “same conversation” for Willem and Johann to apply WAYK.
• What do you have in common with your “fluent fool“?
• What props/objects come up, that you can physically handle, in these conversations?
• Checkers and microbrews.
• Why does WAYK stress the colors “red” and “black”?
• Go to the “fluent fool’s” house.
• “Shared Experience” means finding the most fun conversation to have, with the most energy.

4. Technique “Copy-cat“

• Mirror-neurons, and why your “fluent fool” will helplessly “copy-cat” you, without telling them to.

5. Technique “Language Hunting“

• When you “push/pull” language with a “fluent fool“, it teaches them how to play WAYK.

6. Technique “Goal Conversation“

7. Technique “Family“

8. Technique “Minimal Deviation“

9. Technique “Craig’s List“

10. Technique “Teach a Teacher“

• Things people say that signal you need to focus more on teaching “language hunting“, not just language ability.
• “I’m not here to teach.”
• “Feed me, feed me!”
• “Thanks. That was very interesting”

11. Technique “Language Hunting“

• Find joy in the craft of “language hunting“, rather than just language ability.
• Willem says split your time 50/50, “language hunting” vs. conversation in target language.
• We always want to know about those we mentor: Are they wielding techniques? Are they thinking like “language hunters“?
• Fourth symptom of underdeveloped “language hunter“: newbies aren’t wielding basic techniques, like “How Fascinating!“.

12. Technique “Craig’s List“

• Newbies that ask for “Craig’s Lists” show they have begun to work on the craft.

13. Technique “Immersion“

• Our workshops really accelerate the ability of “language hunters” to wield techniques fluently. You don’t need to attend one to learn WAYK, but they cut the learning curve a lot shorter.



Evan Gardner soaking in the fun of a WAYK workshop.

For everyone either wanting to be, or already involved, in the WAYK community, we have some good news.

WAYK player Jay Bazuzi, creator of the series of Palestinian Arabic WAYK videos with his grandmother, has gone ahead and started his own “unofficial” google group for discussing and sharing the game and the craft of “language hunting“.

Then there are the repeating Monday WAYK game nights at Kent’s 100+ year-old house, here in Portland, Oregon. There’s one tonight, April 19th, with the next one in a month, May 17th. Contact us for more info.

Every second counts in "language hunting" - you always have enough time to do it.

49 minutes and 55 seconds.

[direct download]

How much language can you learn from a “fluent fool” in one minute? Evan Gardner and Willem Larsen discuss the value of even spending the shortest moments in “language hunting“, and also how to inspire more of their trained “language hunters” to go do just that. This podcast was recorded before their most recent workshop. At that workshop in San Francisco on April 12 and 13, they essentially solved these problems. Listening to this podcast will show you how Evan and Willem think through new challenges with applying WAYK.

1. Technique “Language Hunting“

• “Language hunters” we train haven’t been playing with their new amazing skills, haven’t reported hunting new language.
• New hunters consistently think they need to “squeeze in” this “language hunting“; like it requires a substantial time commitment.
• What exactly is the craft of “language hunting“, anyway?
• It blurs the boundaries between teacher and student; it makes those roles obsolete.
• You hunt language, not people. You take the “fluent fool” with you on the hunt.
• Everyone has something unique that you want to learn, no matter what their proficiency level. “Hunting” implies a courtship, a relationship based on exchange.
• Indigenous definitions of hunting really illuminate what we mean by “language hunting”.

2. Technique “Trophy Hunter“

• “Trophy Hunters” will slow your language revitalization down. Deprioritize teaching them.
• They do not want to teach language, just take it.
• Using this technique can wake up reluctant teachers to the choice they have; learn to teach, or go get spoon-fed somewhere else. Always prioritize teaching teachers.

3. Technique “What is that?”

• If you play no more than just “what is that?“, you’ve still done a huge amount. You’ve begun the journey!
• “What is that?” is really powerful. It starts real conversations.

4. Technique “Fluent Fool“

• The most challenging WAYK situation, and the situation for which it was designed: hunting your 90 year old Grandma’s language, without any other players to help you out.
• Can “fluent fool” sound negative? “Fool” means positive things to us.
• The court jester; the fool on the Tarot card. Important roles with a carefree, insightful wisdom.

5. Technique “Everybody Plays All-the-time“

• Play is the foundation for mastery.
• Play is an accelerated learning state.

6. Technique “Tea with Grandma“

• The archetypal language hunt, based on sharing a pleasurable experience with your “fluent fool”.

7. Technique “Bite-sized Pieces”

• Start with what you know can happen; playing for a minute, right now, right here.
• Don’t ask a “fluent fool” for time to “learn their language”; just ask “what is that?“.

8. Technique “Desert Island“

• We get asked a lot – how would you play WAYK on a desert island, with no common spoken language? Well…using WAYK, you’ll play the best charades of your life.

9. Technique “Bridge Language“

• In what contexts do you use sign for the “bridge language“? You’ll know instinctually.

10. Technique “Hunting Pack“

• “Language hunting” a “fluent fool” (as in the “Tea with Grandma” scenario) speeds up markedly when you have a team of players to back you up.

11. Technique “One-minute Language Hunt“

• Pick a language you don’t even want to learn, find any “fluent fool” who knows any language, and just play “what is that?“.

12. Technique “Where Are Your Keys?”

• Can you use WAYK to learn Superior speech?
• Is WAYK a game, or a comprehensive methodology of language learning?
• The WAYK core conversation is designed to give you a visceral experience of fluency and travel along the ACTFL scale, aka “Travels with Charlie“.
• It is also designed to help you master the WAYK techniques in an easy, controlled environment, so that you can use them out in the world while “language hunting“.
• It is a learning laboratory.

Vanessa, Dustin River's mentor in Squamish language.

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 of Halkomelem, the language Gabe George’s people, the Tsleil-Waututh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsleil-Waututh_First_Nation) to Dustin’s.
• 1923 Indian Act that, among many other impacts, affirmed the separation of the Burrard/Tsleil-Waututh people politically from the Squamish Nation.
• Chief Dan George was half Squamish, half Tsleil-Waututh, so Gabriel has a lot of Squamish ancestry. He spoke both Squamish and Halkomelem, pretty common for the Burrard Band/Tsleil-Waututh.

2. Technique “Set-up“

• Dustin describes who showed up, and what he started with.
• The game reached “Make me say yes…“.
• Dustin describes his technique for bringing everyone up to speed, a combination of “copy-cat“.
• Tiffany, a very quick player, is chomping at the bit to get to “want/have/give/take”, so Dustin decides to play “one-on-one” with her during his off-time. Evan remarks: “…and the advanced group appears!”.
• “It’s all a part of the plan…”

3. Technique “Teach the teacher“

• Because of technique “Newbie Sets the Pace“, and the fact that newbies keep showing up, Dustin sees the opportunity to start pairing more advanced players with the newbies to start really training teachers.

4. Technique “the Walk“

• Dustin wants to pack more information into his “Walk“, as his players get more and more fluently proficient.
• Evan and Dustin discuss options for adding to his “Walk“. “Who sees the x?”  “Let’s cross the street”.
• There’s no other way to learn to do “the Walk“, other than just doing it.

5. Technique “Most Succesful Moment“

• Seeing Tiffany and Cal stepping up, and really pulling other players through the game.

6. Technique “What would you do differently?“

• Asking Tiffany and Cal to get in the “lunatic fringe“, and not from the “inner circle“, would have helped even more.

7. Technique “Mr. Willem’s Wild Ride“ – a decelerator

• Willem often likes to have “gee whiz wow” games with new players, where they learn a huge amount of language quickly, BUT….
• Going for fluent proficiency too far, while neglecting training in “language hunting” itself (through having players lead “one on ones“, creating their own “set-ups“, etc.), can create “feed me, feed me!” baby bird type players, who want to be spoon-fed.
• Therefore, have players lead their own games as soon as possible.

8. Technique “One-on-One“

• The power of “one-on-one” games to teach new players to teach, right from the start.

9. Technique “Preaching to the Choir“

• Practice your “big set-up” with people who already know it (“same conversation“!). Even the choir needs practice.

10. Technique “No-grief Debrief“

• Evan encourages Dustin to start debriefing his own players.

11. Technique “Jurassic Park“

• Always have back-ups for your events, in terms of space, assistants, food, because “life will find a way” to try to cancel your night, no matter how much you trust your first plan.

12. Technique “Most Likely to Succeed“

• Dustin speaks about boosting attendance, and reads from Joshua Fishman’s (the man who helped revitalize Hebrew as the official language of Israel) 8 stage process of reversing language revival, very similar in spirit to the WAYK revitalization roadmap.
• Evan: “Keep it light and fun…get there step by step.”

13. Technique “Same Conversation“

• Dustin speaks about, in the future, as students get more advanced, possibly starting a more advanced “same conversation“, over an activity, like lunch, dinner, bowling, etc.
• Evan: “Great idea – don’t wait. Start right now!”
• Dustin: “Having a gathering like this might be the thing that inspires my community’s language teachers and other advanced speakers to come, because they haven’t come to the current weekly language night.”

14. Technique “Whatever works“

• Dustin speaks about starting a local community newspaper, with an article on his WAYK Squamish language revival events.
• Evan encourages Dustin to start meeting in Squamish Valley (where he wants to start another Squamish language night), just to begin the rhythm of meeting up there, even if he doesn’t have anyone to come to the language night, yet.

Yesterday, Kirstyn and Thomas, two of our Chinuk WAYK game leaders had an email conversation. I include it below to illustrate the comprehensive, simple genius of the WAYK game for revitalizing language. We encourage people to start just with speaking, and putting off any reading or writing till later, because of the easy magic that eventually happens when you’re “ready” for it. To wit:

Kirstyn wrote:

Evan, Eric and Thomas,
On Saturday, Rebecca and I presented an introduction to Chinuk Wawa to the Young Interpreters Training Program.  These were 18 girls and some adult aids in the first year class.

Thomas, a Chinuk Wawa WAYK game leader responded to her announcement:

ɬaxayam kirstyn, tʰaməs ukuk.  hayu masi pus mash nayka ukuk t’wax-post.
drət ɬush msayka munk-kəmtəks chinuk wawa kʰapa ukuk tənəs-ɬuchmən. ixt pi ixt tilixam chaku-kəmtəks chinuk wawa. nayka təmtəm ɬush pus msayka wawa chinuk kʰapa chutxwa. aɬqi.

Kirstyn replied:

This is challenging since I don’t read yet [emphasis added], but let me see if I can understand… Hello, Kirstyn, Thomas here.  Thank you for including me in your message.  Good that you are teaching chinuk wawa to those little women.  Little by litte people get to know chinuk wawa.  I think it good that you(pl) speak chinuk at Fort Vancouver.  Later.

It looks like you understand perfectly to me, Kirstyn!

What does it take to involve young children in the community-wide game of WAYK language revitalization? Well, it can be as simple as allowing them to watch the game out of the corner of their eye, while doing their own thing, and intermittently joining in.

If you can commit to holding a regular space for conversation, that’s when the magic really begins.

Evan has been playing simple WAYK conversations, like the one you see in this video, almost every Thursday since Tiva was born. This video was shot on her 3rd birthday (hence the unnerving green stain on her mouth left from the Spongebob birthday cake!).

Evan remarks towards the end of the video that this was the first time ever that Tiva initiated conversation with him. She’s well on her way to becoming a language teacher and WAYK game leader herself!

Jay, our intrepid WAYK explorer (who impressively still has never attended a workshop, or had us demonstrate a game for him), demonstrates below the productive mayhem that marks your first games with young children. You may only have 20 seconds of playing “what’s that?” at a time, but each one counts, and any games they witness as a rambunctious “lunatic fringe” off in the corner, counts too.