Map 2.0

Duration- 70 min session, 00:04:32 recording :/

Session Activity- Bring map of WATER and a fellow speaker to have a conversation about space.

Item Produced- Notes on camping spots, fishing spots, and some outdoor tips.

Summary-  Sadly, even with the correct map, this activity seems like a bust. The speaker was simply not very interested in the map.

Linguistic Effective- Listening to the two speakers talk is a great way to understand cadence, conversation structure, and general phrasing.

Linguistic Ineffective- The map.

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Maybe find a way to get some more structured two- speaker dialog

Cultural Effective- I find having two speakers helps me have more time to think of questions, and have better outcomes from questions.

Cultural Ineffective-  This map was a detailed navigation map of inland waterways in his home community. The fellow speaker (Speaker 2 from now on) was very interested int he map, and gave a lot of information about their spatial memories, but my speaker would not be enticed to share his own experiences. He did answer direct questions, but not with much detail. I am not sure if it is the map or the other speaker, or something else, but it didn't seem informative today.

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  Ask speaker if he wants to have just me and him, and if he thinks the time is too busy with multiple people. I like having the extra dialog, and finding much more meaningful, but I am unsure if he feels the same

Tomorrow- I think its time to revisit the totem stories. This time, I want to make sure they are in the correct order, and align them to have a better read through. I hope to produce a better story with the last attempt.

Not aBOAT It

Duration- 1:12:24

Session Activity- Bring a map and a fellow speaker and have a conversation

Item Produced- Welding terms, and boat knowledge

Summary-  More boat talk...

Linguistic Effective- Having the other speaker helped with dialog. It was interesting to follow the conversation

Linguistic Ineffective- The map did not spur memories. The speaker had a lot of difficulty seeing the map.  Our location did not help with this. Though the living room setting was good for two people discussing, three people and an object must gather around a table

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- If you have a map, bring a magnifying glass.

Cultural Effective- Having another person there was interesting on a dialog point, but also in semantics. It was interesting to see what another fluent speaker understood, and more importantly did not understand.

Cultural Ineffective- The map was totally useless. It was a map of the land. The speaker seemed very uninterested.

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  Add a section about bringing another person into the conversation

Tomorrow- Finish the orthography!

Further Comments- This is frustrating, no matter what happens, everything returns to boats. It is very difficult to get any information beyond this subject

Triple Loving Consonants

Duration- 1:07:46

Session Activity- get words for love, light conversation to catch up with speaker's life

Item Produced- scale of love to hate vocabulary, carpentry vocabulary and knowledge

Summary-   lively talk about love, carpentry, and work


Linguistic Effective- Asking questions about hate made it easier for my reserved speaker to talk about the sensitive topic of love.

Linguistic Ineffective- After the long break, it was very difficult to understand my speaker's words. Breaks in our once a week cycle make me very rusty

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- add in the importance of covering hate

Cultural Effective- hearing his answers were valuable on two different levels. First, I was able to grasp his scale of affection from love to hate. Second, the manner in which he answered (reserved, and only divulging information after pregnant pauses) gave me a lot of insight into the mental workings of my speaker, and his preferred communication style

Cultural Ineffective- Nothing of note

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  changing seating position has impacted the content and style of our lessons. Activities have become more relaxed and the speaker is answering more candidly

Tomorrow- I want to try to bring up a conversation directly related to one of the vocabulary banks

Further Comments- It seems like I have a guilt for not having all of the orthography and data basing completed. It bothers me because I feel like it is difficult to move on without these steps. I am also feeling like my speaker is frustrated as we learn a lot of words one time, but they are never implemented in later lessons

Boat and Prose

Duration- 00:50:48

Session Activity- Go over a boat diagram

Item Produced- list of nautical terms

Linguistic Effective- The speaker has worked most of his life on boats. The terms he uses are centered on this lifestyle. Getting more boat terms helped me better understand what my speaker was talking about

Linguistic Ineffective- Though effective, it was not very organized. I am afraid I jumped ahead of myself on this exercise. The boat terms were not as useful as they could have been as we have not gone through verbs. Most of the terms could not be implemented as I am still missing critical verbs

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Let this be a lesson to myself and everyone else using the system that the challenges should be taken seriously. Don’t skip ahead until you get past the first part!!

Cultural Effective- my speaker lives and breathes boats. Knowing boating terms helps with the Ola! weather talk and also general conversation. I am finding I am learning new niche terms in English also

Cultural Ineffective- the third member of our group came for a lesson and I feel as though we didn’t take them into account enough. They had missed quite a few sessions and had difficulty keeping up. We should have slowed down and allowed them to ask more questions

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  make sure the pace is always even to include all learners

Tomorrow- VERBS VERBS VERBS! This has to happen before we take on anymore cultural activities!

Further Comments- My speaker seems to be gaining ease a fluency also. I told him this, and he mentioned that he re-reads the book at night using the charts to strengthen his vocabulary and memory of the language. I never envisioned the book also helping speakers improve themselves, but this is a welcomed outcome!

I Want it Now!

Ola! making it to the community!

Duration- 00:58:47

Session Activity- Began to look at syntax through the modification charts, skimmed possession, plurality, and modifiers.

Item Produced- basic theory on modifier and possession syntax, questions about plurality

Linguistic Effective- the charts kept us on track. Although they did not follow them directly, using different words than those in the examples, the charts helped to keep track of our progress, and keep us on the right track.

Linguistic Ineffective- the time was ineffective when we jumped around. A lot of the jumping happened because of guilt of wasting the speaker's time. I felt today he was so eager to work that I did not want to make these exercises a drudgery and dampen his perception for further session. we covered alot of different areas this way, and I have a strong instinct about how things are working within these rules. But I cant say I could make any grammatical conclusions.

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- I need to reconcile the balance of speaker interest and learner value. One thing I noticed in the Ola Weather talk is the speaker talks a lot about boats (he has worked on ships since the age of 14). Understandably, the breadth of ship terms was not covered in Ola. Maybe look into butting a "roll your own" chart in this section to encourage users to gather the vocab in the genre they detect the speaker using often in the weather talk

Cultural Effective-  Also effective is the "homework terms" the speaker researches. When we cannot find a word in our sessions, the speaker will ask the french speaking men at work the next day. This outside support group has so far been able to answer all of our outside questions. They have also invited me to visit the shipyard.

Cultural Ineffective- Although my speaker was not keen on his family terms, he was keen on explaining his boss' family structure, and the history of the boats.

Cultural Provisional Improvements- If we are stumbling on context, try and put things in boating terms

Tomorrow- I want to bring a diagram of a ship to our session and get fundamental terms for things. I also want to base our verb inquiry on ships.

Further Comments- I assumed I understood which culture I was gaining access in with the study. I guess I misjudged my speaker, his experiences, and his ship-based lifestyle

We Are Family

Packing and Shipping, check your mailbox soon!

Duration- 46:00.00 

Session Activity- Go through kinship list, Swadesh Vocab, Greeting Phrases

Item Produced- Greeting Phrases, Kinship list, Geneology information

Linguistic Effective- Greeting phrases effortlessly merged into use. The kinship chart did work

Linguistic Ineffective- I did not take my own advice and copy a version of the chart in my notes before starting. The result was the chart was very hard to follow.

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Write charts in notebook before going to the session.

Cultural Effective- the chart made it easy to ask sticky questions. A "how do you say," is very easily turned into a "Who is your".

Cultural Ineffective- my speaker isn't too keen on talking about the family tree.

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  try and work in more family questions.

Tomorrow- We seemed to be done with most of the noun vocabulary for now, start moving to modifiers and verb vocab.

Further Comments- I didn’t realize this while writing but the speaker seems more attached to using the book than I am. I am not sure why the speaker is hesitant about cultural family tree questions- is it a personal hesitance, wrong approach, or a disinterest in the process. The speaker seems to be able to get into the french roll faster than when we first began these lessons. I think he enjoys speaking, and is frustrated by the slowness of the process.

Get Vocab

Duration- 1:07:48

Session Activity- Go through Swadesh List

Item Produced- vocabulary, Conversation, Story

Linguistic Effective- Although I was interested in straight listing, we were not able to accomplish much of this. What we did get was quite helpful in understanding phonemes and their interactions.

Linguistic Ineffective- The speaker seemed bored of the Swadesh list- and I wouldn't hold it against him. After three sessions, the Swadesh words are getting pretty old. So instead of plain Swadesh, we tried to get related words, build scenes and recall memories and tell stories as a way to get words. We did not get many words, well, we got ample words, but we really didn’t get to many structured lists. Most of what we got was not what was needed to communicate, but what was said in the session.

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- I think instead of the Swadesh list, maybe we need to come up with a communication list. Like a list of words most often used in communicating, not just words used in general

Cultural Effective- using vocab to tell stories was extremely rich. With just a few related words we were able to transport into the speaker's memories. Through this we saw many vocabulary we would have never thought to ask (breadbox?). The story format was easy and enjoyable for the speaker. It seemed he was easily able to channel thoughts in the language when given a few vocabulary words.

Cultural Ineffective- The speaker would switch in and out of the language. Curiously, it was very controlled. Many of his narratives were recalling work processes. These were very linear tales. When I asked for language vocabulary, he would provide, then begin the story in french; however, if I asked a question about the story in English, he would provide the answer in English, then continue speaking in English until I asked another question about the french vocabulary. I do not know if it was voluntary or involuntary, but I tried this several times during our session with the same results. With a french question, he would narrate in french. With an English question, he would narrate in English.

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  Try and tell more stories

Tomorrow- We are going to move on from Swadesh in the next lesson. I am not ready, but I think my speaker wants to move, and I believe I can get much of the vocabulary through story questioning

Further Comments- I feel very comfortable listening in the language. I have taken a lot of french in my life (4 high school, 3 college courses) but was never able to understand Louisiana french. Through the past few lessons, I am now able to pick apart what he is saying and see how his fast, compacted pronunciation is related to the french I studied. I still feel awkward speaking,  and I do not think he understands much when I try.

Day Two.Two

Publishers Proof arrived today!

Duration- 1:08:28

Session Activity- Go through Swadesh List

Item Produced- Words for Swadesh list, The origin of Cut Off, 3 idioms, and a history story

Linguistic Effective- Because of earlier jaunt with nouns, I was able to spot and not a few different consonants I did not note in the first session. The list system went well, and the speaker was comfortable with questions and able to provide 95% of answers. After the session, I summarized what I thought was happening to the sounds. He didn't seem too interested in the content, but he seemed relieved that what he was doing was helping someone

Linguistic Ineffective- Sandwiches are still not possible. Connection words are difficult to grab as the speaker cannot isolate them (i.e. at, in, and on were not answerable questions.). The speaker was sleepy, and at times seemed lulled. He was also disappointed when I did not answer the greeting phrases in french

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Step my game up when It comes to the greeting phrases. My speaker wants to see me implement the words used into our Ola Weather Talk. On the way to the next lesson, I will try and construct answers to the weather talk to share. Also, encourage users to make a list of words their speaker does not know. Encourage users to let their speaker in on what is happening.

Cultural Effective- When the speaker was not able to isolate the word in question, he would give me the word used in two or three phrases. These phrases were usually culutrally idioms, 80% of these I had never heard before. There were three words my speaker could not think of vocabulary for (Rug, zero, and Pie Crust). After the session, he approached his wife to ask for these words. With this four cool things happened all at once:

1. She tried to think of the answered, and involuntarily switched into talking french. 
2. Both her and the speaker began to tell me stories of french memories. 
3. They brought me to a painting and began to describe the cultural significance, their experience with it, and locational history associated with the piece. 
4. Both began to form lists on who they knew who spoke french, and they could ask for help finding these words for me. 

I am going to say that this is Jan Vansina's theory in action! This makes a strong case for linguistic memory designing cognitive architecture.  I still don't know how to say pie crust, but this linguistic gap is ok. Culturally, trying to think of these missing words brought so much into their minds that spilled out. Much of what they told me I could have never  elicited. Most exciting is the ripple effect this will create as three to four french speakers who they will ask these words to will hopefully share similar oral memory experiences.

Cultural Ineffective- Daylight.Savings.Time. My speaker goes to sleep at 8pm each night. I arrive for lesson at 6pm for an hour of conversation. Daylight savings time made it so our lesson was not as dynamic as it could have been. He was groggy. Also ineffective was the monotony of the Swadesh list. I could tell he was uninterested in material with so little "use."

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  watch personal clocks, and not federal ones

Tomorrow- Ask if they found the words they were missing, and get my weather talk together. I also need to compile the words I do have together to start a consonant/vowel list.

Further Comments- The speaker seemed proud of what he was doing. He told me that he told his friends what he was doing, and that they thought it was a very good thing. At another point he mentioned that maybe he will start giving french lessons to other people. The process of me learning from him seems to be showing him that his language skill is valuable

Day One!

First day of Ola! being beta test by the Houma Language Project

Duration- 0:23.25

Session Activity- Met for the first session, asked for a few nouns.

Item Produced- Established form with speaker, established form with learner, list of 20 nouns, better understanding of speaker/learner communication issues, and language sound issues.

Linguistic Effective-Using the Swadesh list help the new learner ask and receive simple words. There was not one word we asked the speaker did not know. It also reduced the anxiety of the speaker, as they seemed validated in their language knowledge with each question answered. 

Linguistic Ineffective- in a cultural situation, some of the things the speaker says will be things that you have heard before. In this session, I had a hard time breaking out of what I knew of the language and writing only EXACTLY what the speaker said. For example, Houma French is based off french. I know in french, the article is gendered, and often learned with the noun. For the first set of words, I would instinctively drop the article and only write the noun stem in my notes. I did not even notice I was doing this until 10 or 12 words in. Because the language is familiar, I assumed comprehension and missed opportunities to learn the language nuances.

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Unlike a school environment, there needs to be a section on clearing your mind of previous knowledge to truly listen to the dialect difference. I need to add a section on assumptions.

Cultural Effective- The speaker was eager (maybe over eager) and was delighted to be asked questions. The weather talk in the beginning of the session made both the speaker and the learner more comfortable, and did a great job on eliminating conversational distractions. The speaker steered learning into areas he was comfortable by teaching us words associated with his lifestyle (boat, horn, deer, legs). These conversations steered off track, and we were able to get some family names and history no one ever spoke of before. I learned the names of three generations above the speaker, along with a little information about each. To me, it seemed like the speaker was introducing us to the characters of his language memories. Exciting stuff!!!

Cultural Ineffective-The speaker was totally not able to make a sandwich. they were also not on board with saying things slow and repeating them. I think because I knew him, he expected a higher amount of understanding when he spoke. This was untrue, Being a new language, I had much difficulty understanding what he was saying. He seemed disheartened and unwilling to repeat words.

Cultural Provisional Improvements- There has to be a diagram or a better way to get the concept of a sandwich across to the speaker.

Tomorrow- Next session, I will try and do a clearer job on communicating how we need to hear words (i.e. slowly, space between them, loudly, and maybe sandwiches).

Further Comments- This is was an exciting moment for me. This book is an architectural plan for an interaction. It seems I have spent 4 years researching, and the last 9 months drafting the plans for this interaction. Today was the grand opening, and I was able to watch people move through the conversation space I designed. It was kind of surreal to watch them flow, in their own way, through the path. It was a relief to watch them flow through with such ease. The boundaries prevented the dangers, the accessways led to information, and the experience left all sides with a type of memory I set out to create. It was a great day.