Building the Ideal Online Video Curriculum For Endangered Languages Using WAYK

[Willem Larsen]

>
> William this is really great. Do you think it would be difficult to add
> subtitles in the language (given many languages use special characters not
> necessarily available in unicode)?
>
> Thanks! It sounds like you've gotten some good answers to this question so
far.

We purposely avoid subtitling any of our videos; for the purposes of
accelerated language learning, it's critical we put off written material or
subtitling as long as possible. It's important to associate the language
with the TPR experience, not with a visual memory of written words. By doing
this, we are able to generate speakers rapidly, and this is our first goal,
to revitalize daily conversation as soon as possible.

For WAYK reading and writing skills come later, after listening and speaking
skills. We usually wait until new speakers are well on their way to
Intermediate proficiency (by the ACTFL scale) in the target language before
introducing written materials.

The only disadvantage to this approach of course, is that if you're
unfamiliar with WAYK, and you do not "copy-cat" along with the video, it is
difficult to tell what's going on just by passively observing. The format
does require that the viewer fully engage the video curriculum by
"copy-catting"; i.e., imitating the speakers hand-signs and speech.
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