• PRL Methodology advocates broad transcriptions, based on the community's awareness of existing orthographies, rather than narrow IPA ones. Bear in mind that all transcriptions, whether broad transcriptions or IPA, are subjective. The benefit of using broad transcriptions based on native-speaker intuition is that they are usually more systematic than IPA transcriptions based on an outsider's ears, since the outsider's perception is influenced by his/her own language(s). Native-speaker transcriptions also give insight into how a community encodes its own vowels, especially in cases where the language has more than 5 vowels. 

• PRL analyzes the phonology of a language's nouns separately from its verbs, since the 2 word classes may have differences in phoneme distribution and tone pattern. The initial stage of research focuses on sounds occurring within word roots, without taking into consideration the phonology of the affixes. 

• In PRL, contrast is not established through minimal pairs but by eliminating the possibility that sounds could be allophones. This is accomplished by means of a thorough phonotactic study of sounds and sound combinations in the same structural position. Researchers start by listening together for “same” vs “different.” The exact phonetic values can be decided later. 

• Embracing native-speaker intuition is central to PRL methodology and key to arriving at a good analysis. 

By allowing the participants themselves to group sounds based on “sameness,” the outside linguist does not have to guess at which phonetic differences native speakers may be aware. The result is that phones are accurately grouped together as phonemes and unnecessary surface-level details are left out of the alphabet. In addition, the resulting orthography is easier for the community to learn and to use. When people are aware that 2 words sound differently, it is easier for them to learn to spell those words differently. 

• Native speaker perception of the correspondences between their language and the LWC is very important. The PRL method encourages native speakers to begin by using their experience in their own language against the sound system of whatever language they first learned to read. Allow them to ‘match’ the letters of the LWC with the ones that they feel are the ‘same’ in their language rather than suggesting different ones - even if their language has more distinctions than the LWC. In this way, the writing system will be more intuitive to the language community and, therefore, easier to learn. Ease of learning and using the new writing system is the most important factor to consider when making orthography decisions. 

• Self-discovery results in more openness to an orthography suited to the language. If a language community hasn't "felt" their phonological system, they often resist writing more distinctions than those found in the LWC, even when the result is a lack of representation for certain contrasts and inconsistency in the use of symbols. Conversely, when native speakers "experience" the written development of their language and become more aware of its phonetic contrasts, they are more likely to respond positively to orthography changes - more so than if the changes are simply proposed by an outsider with corresponding rationale. 

• Unified Conclusions: Native speakers and the outside linguist should work closely together through the whole research process. Every issue should be discussed.  It is hoped that, in every domain, the linguist and the language community will ultimately come to the same conclusion. 

• Community-led Decisions: While the linguist serves as a guide, orthography decisions should primarily be made by the participants themselves. A sense of ownership of the orthography will, in turn, have a positive effect on other aspects of the language development program. 

• Quality Results: By roughly following the suggested workshop structure and sequence of activities, the leader should not lose control of the data acquired or accuracy of the results. Deviating from the general outline is discouraged, unless something new and relevant turns up.  

• Mutual Benefit: Both the linguist and the native speakers should benefit from the research process and its results. 

• Information Sharing: Facilitators should encourage participants to share what they are learning with others in the community.  Ideally, the workshop will lay the groundwork needed for participants to eventually be able to write up the features of their language themselves, in a way that the language community can understand. 

• Most people in oral societies thrive in the social aspect of group-based activities. 

• Group activities foster unity as participants work together and help each other learn.*

• The social nature of the workshop generates excitement in the community about the development of their language, which in turn, positively impacts other aspects of language development. 

*For example, in a workshop with the Naca people in southeast Asia, participants who had never written before were able to learn with the help of others. This experience, among others, helped the Naca participants bond, even though they came from different social and religious backgrounds. 

• By having participants write from the very beginning of the workshop (i.e. word collection), they develop a sense of ownership and responsibility for the development of their language. The language really is theirs! 

• Ongoing practice helps participants grow in their confidence and mastery of writing. Early on, they may make quite a few ‘mistakes,’ since they are only gradually learning the structure of their mother tongue. The facilitator does not need to correct every ‘mistake,’ because, as participants grow in understanding of how their language functions, they will automatically improve.  

• The list of topics is more or less fixed from the beginning. It is not recommended to adjust the list of research topics, unless results from the previous day make it clear that something needs to be examined before continuing on with the next planned topic. 

• Topics (and the corresponding research activities) will need to be tailored to the language(s) involved. The primary examples listed in Units 1-4 are based on Constance Kutsch Lojenga's work with Bantu languages. Key features include: disyllabic root structures, open syllables only, a vowel inventory of 5 or more vowels, a noun-class system, verbal derivation and inflectional affixes.  For other languages, the researcher may need to take additional and/or different factors into consideration (e.g. closed syllables). However, the same procedure can still be followed in principle. 

• Basic research of the language's morphology, including nominal morphology and verbal inflections, is often necessary for determining morpheme boundaries and various spellings.

• When structuring topics for research, it is best to move from easier topics to more difficult ones. For example, noun-class prefixes in singular-plural pairs will likely be easier to analyze than agreement prefixes for adjectives and numerals. But even ‘difficult’ concepts like vowel harmony, morphophonological rules and floating tones can be explained by drawing participants' attention to one aspect at a time and explaining key principles in conversational terms. In this way, native speakers will gradually absorb the details of their sound system and, later, their grammatical structure. 

• When introducing new topics, the goal is to facilitate an interactive learning experience rather than a lecture, inviting input from the participants as a part of the learning process. 

• Always explain what the group is going to next and why. For example, “We are going to collect nouns and verbs in order to use these words to study the sounds in your language.” Understanding the goal of the activities empowers participants to contribute their insights. This will both speed up the analysis and add to its quality. 

• During each introduction to a new topic, it is recommended to write examples on the board from a relevant LWC, national language, or international language. This helps participants connect the concept under discussion to a language with which they are already familiar. This, in turn, will make it easier to apply the concept to their mother-tongue. Using examples from more than one language - for example, from both the national language and the LWC - helps demonstrate how languages differ from each other phonologically, morphologically, and syntactically. 

• After the topic has been introduced, elicit further examples with the entire group before splitting up into work groups. As participants come up with examples in their mother-tongue, they can write these up on the board. The workshop leader can use this opportunity to try to interpret examples on the spot if at all possible, pointing out similarities or differences with the languages used in the introductory presentation. It helps participants to see these examples on the board and receive confirmation that these are the types of examples that they need to find.   

• Bear in mind that participants will not reach a complete understanding of a topic in a single session. Rather, they will grow in their understanding of the topic as the workshop progresses. The first time they approach a topic they will gain a certain amount of basic understanding. As their awareness grows, they will be able to dig deeper, coming up with more examples, counter-examples and ideas.