Things were pretty busy as we wrapped things up at the word-collection workshop, and then I was busy packing, flying back home, and digging myself out from under the pile of emails that were waiting for me my first day back in the office. So it's now Wednesday, August 1st, and I'm finally taking the time to post some details about the end of the workshop.
Day 9 (Thursday) was a bit of a disappointment in some ways, with productivity dropping off sharply in some of the word-collection groups. It seems that there was too much discussion in the groups that day, which took away valuable time that would have been better spent focusing on collecting words. About 1,250 words were added that day, bringing the 9-day total to 13,349. (In all fairness, I should note that, even with a less-productive day on Thursday, the word count for this workshop is still very much in the acceptable range. The main concern was that we might not get through all of the 1800 topics, potentially leaving certain aspects of the culture unrepresented in the dictionary that will result from our efforts here these two weeks.)
On Friday (Day 10) then, we "lit the fire" under the participants, stressing the need for speed in getting through the remaining semantic domains (topics) by the end of the day. At our location (Pryor), we even went so far as to impose a 10-minute limit per topic on each group, claiming that collecting fewer words in each domain but getting through all of them was better than working more thoroughly and leaving certain topics untouched. That strategy worked, and it was about 2pm when we finished the last topic on our part of the to-do list. The remainder of the afternoon was then spent revisiting topics that had been treated early on, in hopes of adding more vocabulary from those domains. Mammals, insects, and flowers were a few of the topics the participants were interested in looking at a second time, and we added another 75 words or so in those areas.
The four word-collection groups at the college were apparently very motivated that final day, because their productivity went from a paltry 675 words on Thursday to a voluminous 1001 on Friday, as they pushed hard to reach the lofty goal of 15,000 words by the end of the workshop. It turns out that, had they made a more reasonable effort on Thursday, we probably would have attained that mark, but the 1,651 words needed on Friday in order to reach 15,000 proved to be just a bit too tall of an order. Nevertheless, I consider the final tally of 14,863 words more than satisfactory.
I am grateful to each person who was involved in this two-week word-collection effort. It was hard work, and we encountered a number of challenging obstacles along the way, but we worked together as a group to overcome those impediments, and in the end, we achieved a great victory together.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Pictures of the word-collection groups for Thursday, Day 9
One of our word-collection groups was in a rut of sorts, so we decided to mix up the teams a bit. Father Randolph, the priest at the Catholic Mission where we're doing the word collection in Pryor, had been leading one of the word-collection groups, but his availability was limited to Days 2 through 7. Thus, we now have only three groups working. Here they are:
Monday-Wednesday, July 23-25 - Crow RWC Workshop - Days 6, 7, & 8
I've been very busy at this particular workshop—so much so that I have not found the time to update my blog on a daily basis!! So this is my attempt to sum up what has happened the past three days.
The overhaul of the size and composition of the word-collection groups on Friday led to very positive results, so we continued with those same teams of participants the first three days of this week. Morale was high at the beginning of the week, but by Wednesday we were all feeling the fatigue of this intense effort to get through all 1800 topics in the two weeks of the workshop. This is a great group of people that I am privileged to work with here in Pryor, Montana. They have worked hard, and I'm very happy to have the opportunity to be here and get to know a few of them.
As far as our progress in collecting words, our total after Monday was approaching 9,000, and at the close of work on Tuesday, we had 10,543. So, at our 8:45 meeting on Wednesday (before starting the word collection at 9am), we had a round of applause to celebrate having already reached our goal of 10,000 words after only 7 days. I encouraged everyone to just continue doing what they had been doing for the past couple of days, and I was pretty sure that we'd get through all of the topics and end up with 13,000 or 14,000 words.
Wednesday's output was down a bit from the previous days, and this was due to at least two major factors: (1) We're now dealing with topics that tend to be less productive, where finding only one or two words related to a particular topic is a common occurrence, and (2) One of the individuals who was leading a group, writing the words down, and managing the audio recording for the group is unable to be present for the last three days of the workshop, so we have only 7 word-collection groups now, as of Wednesday. Thus, our output on Wednesday was just a bit over 1400, bringing the total to 11,988 after 8 days of collecting words.
I will try to upload some pictures of the participants for my next post.
The overhaul of the size and composition of the word-collection groups on Friday led to very positive results, so we continued with those same teams of participants the first three days of this week. Morale was high at the beginning of the week, but by Wednesday we were all feeling the fatigue of this intense effort to get through all 1800 topics in the two weeks of the workshop. This is a great group of people that I am privileged to work with here in Pryor, Montana. They have worked hard, and I'm very happy to have the opportunity to be here and get to know a few of them.
As far as our progress in collecting words, our total after Monday was approaching 9,000, and at the close of work on Tuesday, we had 10,543. So, at our 8:45 meeting on Wednesday (before starting the word collection at 9am), we had a round of applause to celebrate having already reached our goal of 10,000 words after only 7 days. I encouraged everyone to just continue doing what they had been doing for the past couple of days, and I was pretty sure that we'd get through all of the topics and end up with 13,000 or 14,000 words.
Wednesday's output was down a bit from the previous days, and this was due to at least two major factors: (1) We're now dealing with topics that tend to be less productive, where finding only one or two words related to a particular topic is a common occurrence, and (2) One of the individuals who was leading a group, writing the words down, and managing the audio recording for the group is unable to be present for the last three days of the workshop, so we have only 7 word-collection groups now, as of Wednesday. Thus, our output on Wednesday was just a bit over 1400, bringing the total to 11,988 after 8 days of collecting words.
I will try to upload some pictures of the participants for my next post.
Monday, July 23, 2018
Sunday, July 22 - A Weekend of Active Rest
This weekend, I didn't have to do a lot related to the word-collection workshop, so I filled my time with other things. I didn't spend a lot of time twiddling my thumbs, but doing things that were different than what I had done during the week helped to recharge me for the new week.
Saturday involved a relaxing start to the day as my colleagues slept a bit later than they had been able to do during the week. Then the three of us that are here representing SIL headed to the campground laundry to wash clothes, and from there, on to Billings. While waiting for the washer and dryer to run their cycles, I was able to talk to Anita, Rachelle, and Angela on the phone and exchange news.
In Billings, we had lunch with Wayne and Elena Leman, an SIL couple who have worked with the Cheyenne tribe for more than 30 years. Wayne and I had each heard of the other because of our roles in the organization, but this was the first time that we had the privilege of meeting each other in person.
After lunch, we took advantage of the fact that we were in the city to do a bit of shopping, then returned to the trailer and rested for the remainder of the day. I was tired, so I went to bed early.
I awoke refreshed on Sunday morning, feeling rested for the first time in several days. After attending church, we went out for lunch, and in the afternoon we visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, where I learned much more about the context of General Custer's famous "last stand". We returned to our trailer around 7:30, exchanged news of the day's activities with our co-workers from The Language Conservancy, discussed plans for Monday's word collection, and then headed for bed.
Saturday involved a relaxing start to the day as my colleagues slept a bit later than they had been able to do during the week. Then the three of us that are here representing SIL headed to the campground laundry to wash clothes, and from there, on to Billings. While waiting for the washer and dryer to run their cycles, I was able to talk to Anita, Rachelle, and Angela on the phone and exchange news.
In Billings, we had lunch with Wayne and Elena Leman, an SIL couple who have worked with the Cheyenne tribe for more than 30 years. Wayne and I had each heard of the other because of our roles in the organization, but this was the first time that we had the privilege of meeting each other in person.
After lunch, we took advantage of the fact that we were in the city to do a bit of shopping, then returned to the trailer and rested for the remainder of the day. I was tired, so I went to bed early.
I awoke refreshed on Sunday morning, feeling rested for the first time in several days. After attending church, we went out for lunch, and in the afternoon we visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, where I learned much more about the context of General Custer's famous "last stand". We returned to our trailer around 7:30, exchanged news of the day's activities with our co-workers from The Language Conservancy, discussed plans for Monday's word collection, and then headed for bed.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Friday, July 20 - Crow RWC Workshop - Day 5
We ended the first week of this two-week workshop on a high note,
collecting more than 1,800 words on Friday and thereby pushing our first-half
total to just over 7,000. This was a tremendous encouragement to me, as it was
to all of the TLC and SIL staff members when we shared the news with them,
since we’ve encountered a significant number of obstacles along the way that we
had to find creative ways to get past.
What was even more encouraging was the report I received second hand
that the Crow tribal leaders were getting really excited about what is
happening at this workshop. Apparently the leadership began the week feeling rather
skeptical about the helpfulness or effectiveness of what was planned, but by
the end of the week, they were fully supportive and enthusiastic about what was
taking place. That places our workshop in a very good position for a successful
conclusion next week.
I mentioned obstacles. Thursday was a difficult day because of having
to tell so many people that they couldn’t come back on Friday. The previous
days were challenging because we were adding a new group each day, which meant
taking care of lots of logistic details and training/monitoring a new leader
and a new scribe. The pace the first few days was too slow, and it was not easy to communicate the need for a faster treatment of the semantic
domains in a way that the participants could connect with culturally.
There were key people who had missed part or all of the training that I had
given, and it took some time to help them all understand what was expected of
them. But Friday, we began to experience the rhythm of a well-functioning
word-collecting machine, which produced the kind of results we’ve been striving
for all week.
In each of the two locations (Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency,
MT, and St. Charles Catholic Mission in Pryor, MT), our Friday morning report and pep
talk highlighted three things: (1) the good (but not quite stellar) results from
Thursday, (2) the fact that having 8 or 9 people in a group on Thursday had
impeded progress rather than helping it, and (3) the need to move through the
semantic domains more quickly. On this final point, I did the math for the
participants who were there, demonstrating the need for each group to adopt the
objective of treating 30 domains each day in order to help us reach the goal of
getting through all 1800 of them.
Throughout the day, it was hard for me to judge whether my exhortations
regarding the need for speed were having the desired effect. Sitting at the
record-keeping table where groups came to turn in completed folders and check
out a new one, it felt like things were moving rather slowly. However, I
recognized that the folders the groups were working on that day contained more
domains than the ones we did on Thursday when I was being kept busy almost
continuously. So until the numbers were tallied at the end of the day, I wasn’t
really sure how well we had done. (One group worked on one very large folder
all day long, so I had no idea how many words they were coming up with until
they turned in their folder at the end of the day—when I learned that they had
gleaned more than 250 words.)
Thursday morning, I had given everyone at Pryor the challenge of coming
up with 250 words and covering a minimum of 30 domains in a single day. No
group even came close to reaching that objective that day, so I was curious to
see what would happen on Friday, given the more reasonable group sizes. I kept
a running tally on a piece of paper of the results for each group, so that I
could quickly add in the figures for the last folder for each group and give
them some idea of how they had done before they left for the weekend. When all
the numbers were in, one of the groups had indeed achieved the double objective
of 250 words and 30 domains; I congratulated each member of that group before
they left. Another group surpassed the goal of treating 30 domains; yet another
collected 255 words but fell short of the goal of 30 domains; the final group
finished with 222 words in 17 domains, which was not quite as good as we had
hoped for but was still acceptable, considering that those were our lowest
data points in the overall group.
The four groups in Pryor finished with a total of 895 words in 107
domains on Friday. The groups at the college did even better, tallying 933
words in 129 domains, with two of the word-collection groups attaining the
double objective. That gave us the excellent results of 1,828 words in 236
domains for the day. I was nearly euphoric, after having worked so hard all
week to ensure the success of this workshop.
One final note: I had encouraged each group to treat at least 30
domains on Friday. If we had met that goal, we would have completed 240 domains
in one day. Doing that same thing each day next week would actually mean that
we’d get through all of the domains before the end of the week. So I didn’t
really need them to move quite that quickly, but I wanted to give them a lofty
goal in hopes that, even if we fell short, we’d still be able to get through
all of the semantic domains by the end of next week. The combined efforts of
all 8 groups was actually 236, just 4 shy of the goal, which is simply
outstanding, and we will tell the participants so at our Monday-morning pep rally, all the while encouraging them for
a repeat performance.
Friday, July 20, 2018
Thursday, July 19 - Crow RWC Workshop - Day 4
Thursday could be described by any of the following words: exciting,
frustrating, exhilarating, taxing, exhausting. We witnessed an unexpected level
of enthusiasm about the workshop, but we were unprepared for and overwhelmed by
the responsibilities that that enthusiasm brought about.
Unlike most RWC workshops, where things have settled into a routine by
the fourth day, this one presented a set of fourth-day challenges I’d never
faced before. Our three word-collection groups were too large on Wednesday, so
we launched a fourth one today. (This stretched our personnel really thin,
requiring Steve to run the recording equipment for the new group, which in turn
meant that I had to take care of all of the administrative details—signing
people in, registering new participants, recording which group took which
folder, when they brought it back, and so on. All that would have been easily
within my capabilities had we not experienced something totally unexpected.)
Word had apparently gotten out via the Crow grapevine overnight that an
exciting event was taking place at the Catholic Mission in Pryor, and many
more new participants showed up this morning. As the one handling the administrative
side of things, I accepted the first 8 or 10 of them, but I finally had to turn
the rest away, as our four groups were already well over the recommended size,
and they were crowded into the rooms they were working in. In the end, we had
two groups of 8 and two groups of 9 collecting words throughout the day. (I
have never had to turn prospective participants away from a RWC workshop
before, but the groups typically function best with 4-6 people; 8 or 9 usually
results in slower progress and lower productivity.)
The TLC director arrived mid-morning with some necessary supplies, and
I brought him up to speed on the situation. (He had to travel from Hardin to
Billings to trade in his rental car, which was having mechanical problems, then
do the shopping, then continue on to Pryor to drop off what we needed there,
then continue on to Little Big Horn College to deliver the lunchmeat, cheese,
etc. to feed the participants working there, so he was going non-stop all
morning. There are locations out here where cell-phone service is unavailable,
so my attempts to reach him by phone were unsuccessful, he being on the road
somewhere in one of those dead spots.) On his arrival, however, he confirmed that I had done the right
thing in turning people away—but maybe I should have made the decision to do
that a bit earlier than I had.
Some time after the TLC director had left, but before we broke for
lunch, I received a message from him, saying that he had decided that we needed
to decrease the number of participants for Friday. His orders were to select 4
or 5 from each group and invite them to come back in the morning. The others
were to leave their contact information so we could invite them to come in the
event that one or more of those chosen to continue could not come on a particular
day. So I met with the leader of each of the four groups, asking who they felt
were the most helpful people to keep on for the days to come. That was hard for
all of us, and it was decided that the most culturally appropriate way to
communicate the news to each one was for them to check with me as they signed
out for the day. So I found myself in the unenviable position of having to tell
many of the participants that they had not been invited back for Friday. But I
did ask each of them to leave a phone number where they could be reached, in
case we needed them sometime next week. There was much disappointment, and I’m
sorry to see them go—their enthusiasm was a wonderful thing. But at the same
time, I do think our groups will function more effectively tomorrow.
As expected as a result of the overpopulated groups, productivity
dropped off today—in spite of the fact that we had added a group—and we tallied
about 1,550 words for the day, bringing our total to 5,235. That means that
we’re already halfway to our goal of 10,000 words by the end of next week, so
that will be a piece of good news to report to the groups in the morning.
However, we’re still moving too slowly through all of the topics, and unless we
find a way to increase our pace, we will leave a significant number of them
untouched. This is a major concern to the TLC director, so I am doing my utmost
to help the groups move more quickly.
Wednesday, July 18 - Crow RWC Workshop - Day 3
[NOTE: I have internet access only during the workday, and I’m kept quite
busy during that time, so it’s rather challenging to find time to post to this
blog. That’s why my entries are delayed. My apologies for that, but I’ll do my
best to keep you updated.]
We’re doing this workshop at the invitation of The Language Conservancy
(TLC), a non-profit organization that helps Native American groups to breathe
life back into their language if it appears to be dying out because the
children are no longer learning it from their parents. This is the same
organization that Anita and I helped last year in New Mexico.
On Wednesday, the TLC director asked me to make the trip to Pryor (an hour in each direction) to
help the groups working there to improve their productivity. Originally, it seemed that
there was limited interest among the Crow community around Pryor, so there were
only two word-collection groups there on Tuesday when we first met in that
location. The actual turnout was significantly higher than expected, however,
so the TLC director decided to add a third group on Wednesday, when he sent me. Traveling with
me were two TLC linguists and Steve Echerd, a colleague who works with SIL’s
Americas North branch and who is shadowing me at this workshop in order to be
able to facilitate future workshops by himself.
After the morning status report and pep talk, which were my
responsibility, I took care of a few administrative details and then spent most
of the remainder of the day sitting in as an observer (making an occasional
comment) with the group that had gotten off to a weak start the previous day,
helping them to understand how best to work with the materials in the time
allotted for this workshop. I had been asked by the TLC director to do the
record-keeping as well, but that proved to be more than I was able to handle if
I was to be the near-constant presence that the word-collection group needed.
So I was glad that Steve had come along with me to Pryor, as he was able to
monitor the other two groups on an intermittent basis and take care of the record-keeping.
The word collection seemed to progress slowly, with only a few of the
126 folders we hope to get through during the workshop being completed.
However, when we tallied up the results in the evening, we discovered that the
number of words being collected was more than adequate, bringing our total for
the three days to 3,680.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Tuesday, July 17 - Crow RWC workshop - Day 2
Tuesday, we had six groups collecting words—four at Little
Big Horn College and two at the Catholic Mission in Pryor, Montana, a bit over
an hour away from the college. (This was the first day for us to work in two
separate locations.) I was at the college, working with the four groups there,
while Wil, The Language Conservancy leader, traveled to Pryor to launch and coordinate
the work there.
At the college, we got off to what seemed like a bit of a
slow start. Not all of the expected participants were present at the start of
the day, so the composition of Monday’s groups couldn’t be maintained. Instead,
we formed three word-collection groups, using the people who were present. That
got the fun underway a bit after 9:15, but it gave our record-keeper, Raquel, a
challenge, since folders that had been started on Monday were now in the hands
of a different set of individuals. (It took us an extra hour at the end of the
day, but she and I were able to get everything straightened out in the end.) A fourth word-collection group was formed once there were enough people to make it viable.
One of the word-collection groups seems to have caught on
exceptionally well to the way we want the groups to work, and as a result they collected
a 389 words on Tuesday, which may be more in a single day than any other group
in any other workshop I’ve led. The other groups are making acceptable progress
but seem to be moving a bit more slowly than is necessary if we are to get
through all of the material in two weeks. In all, we collected 1,332 words on Tuesday, bringing our total for the first two days to 2,053.
The weather here has been warm and dry for the most part. It
reminds me of Burkina Faso but 10-20 degrees cooler. Daytime highs have been
in the low- to mid-90s, with relatively low humidity, so I’ve been comfortable
in my African shirts. This causes my bedroom in the mobile home we’re living in to get very
hot in the afternoon (because it faces west), and it holds that heat for the first
part of the night, making it somewhat difficult to fall asleep some nights. About midnight, however, the temperature outside is in the
60s, and my room gets cool enough that I am grateful for the light blanket that
was provided. (The air conditioning or heat in the trailer is either
disconnected or non-functional for some other reason. We have only a swamp
cooler running 24/7 in the hall at the middle of the trailer, and it has no impact
whatsoever on the temperature in the bedroom where I’m sleeping.)
I am grateful for hot water for showers, a working fridge
for storing milk and yogurt for breakfasts, the cot with a built-in air mattress
that serves as my bed, and the provision of life-sustaining food at the
important times of the day (sandwiches at lunch and grilled burgers, brats, or
chicken in the evening).
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Monday, July 16 - Crow RWC Workshop - Day 1
The workshop got off to a good start on Monday, in spite of
the fact that we had to wait a bit past the official start time for everyone to
arrive. (It seems that the Crow culture is similar to many African cultures in
this regard: I learned that people talk about “Indian time” here, while in
Africa we talked about “African time”. Events just rarely start at the time
they are scheduled to begin.)
I was responsible for providing an abbreviated training
session in the morning. (Instead of the usual two or three days, I had two or
three hours.) Then shortly before noon, we broke into groups and began the
actual word collection.
We had five groups working at Little Big Horn College. One of
those groups was made up of women who had made the 1hr 15min drive over from Pryor,
where they live. They came so that they could benefit from the training session
Monday morning. Starting Tuesday, we plan to have four or five groups continuing
at the college and two others in Pryor (including the one that was at the college on Monday).
This first day was typical in many respects, each participant
adjusting to what they were being asked to do. I spent the afternoon checking
in on various groups, answering the questions about the process, and doing my
best to encourage everyone. By the end of the day, 721 words had been collected—a
more-than-adequate beginning.
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Saturday, July 14 Crow RWC: Preparing for departure
I am scheduled to leave tomorrow morning for southeastern Montana to lead a Rapid Word Collection (RWC) workshop for the Crow Nation, a Native American group located southeast of Billings, MT. I plan to leave for the airport at 4:40am, taking a neighbor with me who has a 7am flight. Rachelle has graciously agreed to get up much earlier than her usual time, in order to drive our car back home.
I'm looking forward to this opportunity to lead another word-collection workshop, as it's been a full year since I last did one. This will be my second time to visit Montana, the previous occasion being 40 years ago, when our family traveled together from our home in Pennsylvania, pulling a pop-up trailer and visiting lots of national parks west of the Mississippi River. That trip was full of great memories, and I expect this one will be too.
Like the workshop that Anita and I took part in last year in New Mexico, this one is being organized by The Language Conservancy (TLC). They are a non-profit organization that works with various Native American groups in the US, helping them revitalize their language by providing means for the children and young adults who've not learned it growing up to become competent speakers of it. SIL partners with TLC by leading word-collection workshops like this, so that they can then create written, audio, and online resources to facilitate the revitalization process.
Each workshop I lead is unique in some way. This particular workshop will be different from any other I've ever conducted because we'll be having word-collection groups working simultaneously in two locations a bit more than an hour apart. It will be interesting to see just how that works out.
There are 10 or 12 non-Crow individuals who will be helping at this workshop in one way or another. Those of us who are on site Sunday evening will meet to discuss some of the logistics, but several staff members won't arrive until late Sunday night, so a 6am meeting has been scheduled, mandatory for all staff, in order to prepare for the start of the event, scheduled for 8:00.
I'm looking forward to this opportunity to lead another word-collection workshop, as it's been a full year since I last did one. This will be my second time to visit Montana, the previous occasion being 40 years ago, when our family traveled together from our home in Pennsylvania, pulling a pop-up trailer and visiting lots of national parks west of the Mississippi River. That trip was full of great memories, and I expect this one will be too.
Like the workshop that Anita and I took part in last year in New Mexico, this one is being organized by The Language Conservancy (TLC). They are a non-profit organization that works with various Native American groups in the US, helping them revitalize their language by providing means for the children and young adults who've not learned it growing up to become competent speakers of it. SIL partners with TLC by leading word-collection workshops like this, so that they can then create written, audio, and online resources to facilitate the revitalization process.
Each workshop I lead is unique in some way. This particular workshop will be different from any other I've ever conducted because we'll be having word-collection groups working simultaneously in two locations a bit more than an hour apart. It will be interesting to see just how that works out.
There are 10 or 12 non-Crow individuals who will be helping at this workshop in one way or another. Those of us who are on site Sunday evening will meet to discuss some of the logistics, but several staff members won't arrive until late Sunday night, so a 6am meeting has been scheduled, mandatory for all staff, in order to prepare for the start of the event, scheduled for 8:00.
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