Earlier today I read an interesting post by Ben Slavic earlier this morning that made me really analyze how I'm doing this year with my professional development of TPRS. I know that my TPRS is nowhere near perfect and likely it won't be for a very long time. I do know that I'm doing the best that I can with the support that I have. I know that "Bad TPRS is better than no TPRS." But I don't want to practice "bad" TPRS.
At the beginning of the year I did it. I made the "switch". I'm happy with that decision. I am passionate about students, Spanish, and this method. It's a powerful mix. Thus I bought a couple of books on TPRS to help my development. The problem has been, however, that I'm also going to graduate school full time; so I've had little time to reflect or put as much effort into developing my skills.
I do know that my students are progressing. Just yesterday they surprised me and powerfully translated "¿Qué te gusta hacer?" for me when my students last year couldn't remember that question for the life of them while it was a "vocab term" let alone months later as my students this year did. I know that what they are learning is long term. Thank goodness.
So today I had a break through (for me). I've been struggling with creating interesting details and parallel characters. My students loose interest. Today I realized two important things: I need to refocus on PERSONALIZATION and GOING SLOW. We also successfully added a detail to a written story, which we haven't done before. We added that Alicia is in fact 103 years old. It's not as exciting for others. But it's a step for me. We also had a good PQA in my 6th period Spanish 1 class. We saw spirits/ghosts in our classroom today. And we wanted them there! :) We also learned that myself and one other boy are the only ones scared of ghosts. It was a great class. Why can't all classes be like that?
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