Hand signals
This system we have found to be the easiest and most effective way for owners to teach the basics of sit, stand and down positions.
The principle relies on using a treat or toy for the dog to focus on and then to manipulate the dog in to the required position that is then rewarded. For example the sit position, if we raise the reward above and slightly behind the dogs head it will usually look up at it, if the dogs head is raised then the dogs bottom will usually go down to allow the dog to get a better view of the reward providing us with the sit position.
No words are necessary but we encourage owners to put the word to the action as we reward the dog. We have fine tuned and improved these techniques by helping many owners who have deaf dogs that obviously need a system of training based on hand signals.