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

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