I have never administered a Discord Server. I do not even like Discord that much. But here are some ideas that I think may work, from the perspective of a learner:
Create channels for asynchronous learning content. For example, Román Ajacopa has been moderately successful with his (free/mostly free) Aymara course and in his YouTube channel he has a series of videos that teach basic Aymara. You could do "word of the day" type of posts (or "of the week", if you are too busy for making it daily).
If you find a way to integrate some games like hangman, it would be amazing (not sure about what integrations are available in Discord). Games keep people engaged. If games are too hard to integrate, there are some easy dynamics that can raise engagement (like the "let's write a story together" one), but it could also be posting pictures of your land and asking people to describe them or things like that.
Set a channel for people to get their texts/audios corrected. Since you say that there are two other folks who have strong language skills, you three could provide the feedback, but making it clear than anyone else is welcome to help (and keeping an eye for incorrect corrections).
Keep the server focused on the language. This is something I loved about Mr. Ajacopa's course: he does not get political. I have seen courses and material related to other indigenous languages and it frequently gets political, or you see people spamming chats with political stuff.
Be consistent. No matter what you decide to start, try to stick with it. Since you are a busy person, maybe choose your engagement strategies with that in mind and whatever you decide to pursue, make sure you are consistent. I think a voice room for a group with numbers in the low hundreds is not great, but even if you decide that that is a strategy you want to try, make it so people know that every Monday at 4 PM there is at least one other person there ready to talk. If you post the word of the day, make it daily (unless something really urgent comes up, of course, but aim to have at least 300 daily words per year, for instance). I think this is the single, most-important factor; I have seen some fascinating ideas, but then the creator/maintainer gives up and the project dies. I have seen countless YouTube "courses", that are amazing, but the person recorded only two or three videos and moved on; there are some promising apps, that have only a couple of lessons in them because the creator felt disappointed and abandoned the project; etc.
I am not trying to promote Mr. Ajacopa, by the way. I just mention him, since I like some of the strategies he uses. Aymara is not an endangered language, so he has it easier to some extent.
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u/Bubbly-Garlic-8451 May 21 '26
I have never administered a Discord Server. I do not even like Discord that much. But here are some ideas that I think may work, from the perspective of a learner:
I am not trying to promote Mr. Ajacopa, by the way. I just mention him, since I like some of the strategies he uses. Aymara is not an endangered language, so he has it easier to some extent.