I tried to post this earlier 12 hours ago, but there was no internet connection.

The first two days of training have gone well, I think, although they’ve gone differently than I had envisioned. The biggest difference between this workshop and the one in Lotud in Malaysia is that everything I’m teaching has to be interpreted into Kaansa, so it takes twice as long to get through the necessary material. We had concluded after the Lotud workshop that two days of training might be sufficient, but that is definitely not the case when translation is necessary.

I’m not sure what the plan is yet for the word-collection phase of the workshop, but for the training phase, we’ve adopted an 8:00-2:00 schedule with two 30-minute coffee breaks. Lunch is served at 2:00, and then everyone is free to return home. This means that we have only 5 hours of class time each day, which together with the fact that everything is being translated, makes it a challenge to squeeze everything in. Nevertheless, I am happy with the progress we’ve made the first two days, and I think we will be able to cover the most essential elements by the end of the day today. (I do expect that the typists and record-keeper will need to stay on after lunch for their specific training, but everything else should be covered by the time lunch is served at 2:00 this afternoon.)

We began on Wednesday with the analogy of the family tree and how that relates to words, showing that words can also be grouped into families, some being related to each other very closely, and others more distantly. Then I introduced the workflow, explaining what happened after one of the word-collection groups had finished their part of the process. That was to give everyone the big picture. We concluded the day by looking at the structure of the human body, as well as discussing the parts that make up a house, showing how the words that are used in these contexts can be grouped into “families,” both nuclear and extended.

The second day (Thursday), we did an actual word-collection exercise, focusing on the body parts of a mammal. I found it interesting that, at the end of that exercise, two of the participants were wondering if we were ever going to collect any verbs or adjectives, since everything to that point had been oriented around nouns. I assured them that on the third day we would move on to a couple of semantic domains that would be a bit more challenging, and which would target categories other than tangible objects.

This second day, I also began the training for the specific roles that each of those present would be performing. I had originally planned to give the training for each role only to those slated to function in that capacity, but I then faced a dilemma—what should I have those do who were not involved in the current training session? Anita suggested that, rather than dismissing them, we keep everyone in the room, but address the training to those concerned, while the other listen in. That’s what we did, and I think it was the right approach, especially in this situation, where at least several of the people involved have the potential to swap roles throughout the workshop—functioning one day as a typist, another day as a glosser, and another day as a group leader, perhaps to address a situation where we discover that someone assigned to a particular role is not well suited to that role, maybe just to change things up and provide variety for those with skills in multiple areas. I was able to train the group leaders and the glossers, as well as explain to the whole group the role of the coordinator before it was time for the second coffee break.

The third session of the day was spent discussing some important topics, such as what form to use when writing down nouns and verbs, and how to translate the French at the top of the sheets where words are to be recorded, for those scribes who don’t understand French well. Stuart led that session. (A side note here: On the first day, when I presented the workflow, including the use of the “answer sheet” where words are to be written down, one of the scribes drew our attention to the fact that it would be helpful for him to have the labels at the top of the sheet in Kaansa, since his French was rather weak. These are details like “Names of those in the word-collection group,” “Date,” “Semantic domain name,” etc. I have made note of this for future workshops, as it will likely be useful to have this information in the local language, rather than in the language of wider communication, which is French, in this case.)

I am very encouraged—and even impressed—by the questions that those attending this workshop are asking. They show me that the people are interested in what is being taught, and that they are understanding my instruction enough to recognize where I’ve left something out, so they ask for clarification. It’s always energizing for me to teach people who want to learn. Yesterday, I discovered that one of the young men taking a very active part in this training phase was not even invited by those who lined up the participants. He simply heard the announcements on the radio and showed up because he saw it as an opportunity to learn something new and be part of something significant. How exciting is that?! So, prior to the role training that I began yesterday and will continue today, he had to be assigned to a particular role. He listened attentively to the training I gave to the group leaders and glossers yesterday, and today will receive specific training for his role as a scribe. Having more than the requisite number of people for each role means that they can spell each other off, and so keep their fatigue to a minimum. 

Translating from my English notes into French on the fly is working quite well. There’ve been a few times where I felt handicapped by the fact that I had not translated my materials ahead of time, but for the most part the presentation in French has gone smoothly.