activity is important, such as in order to have a list of correctly spelled words in the dictionary that all language developers can refer to. You may need to explain exactly what you would like the participants
to do, such as to have one of them slowly read a list of words while all others listen for any vowels that are different than the rest. You may need to explain what you mean by asking questions, since
sometimes questions are used as rebukes in Africa. You can say, “Sometimes when I ask a question, I already know the answer. I ask the question because I want to know if you also know the answer. Then I
will know that we are together in the work.”
3.6.3 Co-leading an RGC workshop
Ideally, the RGC would be led by an experienced linguist and a linguist in training or language assistant who will work alongside the language development team in the years to come. The
experienced linguist must ensure that the goal of the workshop is met, but there are many excellent mentoring opportunities in the midst of the workshop activities that can be effectively used to train the
language assistant.
• The language assistant will observe that although the linguist does not always have all the
answers, with perseverance and patience, she can substantially help the language team by gathering the right data and asking the right questions.
• The linguist can give extra explanation to the language assistant before or after each workshop
activity, such as linguistic knowledge from other languages that sheds light on the data, how the collected data confirms or rejects initial guesses and guides the next steps, by admitting mistakes
or suggesting alternative methods that may have been more successful, and by pointing out the specific steps taken in each activity so that the language assistant can learn to lead the sessions.
• Depending on the training, ability and enthusiasm of the language assistant, she can be
encouraged to lead one or more of the sessions when ready, and be given constructive feedback afterwards.
• The language assistant can record the data with the intention of later documenting it in the
grammar book under the guidance of the linguist. Regardless of the extent to which the language assistant helps with the RGC, the experienced
linguist must take responsibility for learning all there is to know about the language ahead of time, recording all the grammar collected during the workshop, and later ensure that all the collected
grammar is well presented in the grammar books. Mentoring an assistant may take extra time from the linguist rather than saving time, but the reduplication of skills that will later save time will be well
worth the initial extra time taken for mentoring.
3.6.4 Predicting readability
