"Is there anyone else that teaches like you?"

I have to share one of the best moments in my (short) career.  Not only did I have a great day creating compelling, contextual and comprehensible stories, but my fourth period said something that made me believe in TPRS/CI all over again.  They asked me about what teacher to take for second year Spanish.  I told them that I didn't have a favorite, each one was great in their own way, and each one would teach them a lot.  Before letting up, they asked, "Does anyone teach like you?" Throughout this year, I have explained to them that there are a few ways to teach languages based on the goal in mind.  They know my goal for them is fluency.  They got the answer they weren't hoping for: no.

And guess what?  THEY COMPLAINED!  They said, "But we like this class." Read: we feel successful in here.  We feel valued in here.  We feel confident in here.  One girl, whom I've had the pleasure of teaching Spanish 1 to twice said to me, "So next year is going to be difficult."  But I was sure to let them know that they could come back to me for 3rd year.  And I hope they do.  And I hope they tell their friends about me.  And I hope this TPRS/CI spreads like wildfire.

Oh, and on another note a boy asked about past tense.  Not in a grudgingly way.  Not in a "oh goodness I have to memorize another tense." In a curious sense.  With a sense that he wants to be able to communicate in the language.  It even sparked the thought that maybe I could start the past tense a little bit this year... but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.  I don't want to rock the boat too much.

I am sold.  If fluency is our goal.  This is our method.

An epiphany about being overwhelmed...

The beginning of a new semester seems to bring a certain amount of overwhelming emotion: anxiety, excitement, fear, worry, tiredness, etc.  Now that our first week back is over, I'm feeling much more confident and relaxed. 

We started out just doing PQA, to get students interested and to review. After all, PQA is the best and easiest thing ever.  The students are interested because we're talking about them all the time, but just using different structures.  It's easy to review and introduce using PQA. 

I was really starting to feel overwhelmed though as I was looking at my vocab lists from last year.  Since this is my first year with TPRS, I started paring down my lists into the 2000 most frequent words in the language.  It's really difficult to do because of the fear of my colleagues thinking poorly of me for teaching fewer words.  It's overwhelming to look at a list of 500 words and think "I have to teach all of these". 

But while driving home, I realized that during last semester, and even at the end I felt wonderful for doing this thing.  I know my students knew the "vocab" better than they ever had, and that they had tasted true success in Spanish. I know that it works better for me to teach fewer things, way more in depth than a ton of things not at all.

Long term acquisition

That is my goal. In my opinion to teaching, that's my job. It's my job to teach kids Spanish for the long haul. As I've been evaluating my TPRS approach this year, I have read much research on how language acquisition occurs in L1 and L2 learners. All of the research has supported a CI/TPRS approach. Many articles even condemn the traditional grammar approach. So my question is "Why do many teachers still use the traditional grammar approach?"

Realistically, there are many reasons; It was the way we teachers of WL were taught most likely, so it is the way they teach. It is too difficult, time consuming, exhausting to teach with, let alone learn, a CI approach. Many teachers have spent 1000's of man hours developing their worksheets and lessons, so that they do not want to "throw it all away" and start new. They are skeptical of a new method. It's difficult to develop and grade tests based around CI techniques. They don't know there is another option. The district/school curriculum is textbook driven, therefore they have to use the text. They haven't read research on the topic to understand what methods are proven.

There are thousands of other reasons. They are all understandable.

The most alarming reason, in my opinion, is that teachers largely haven't checked out the method that they use. They do not question the way they teach, but simply accept it as the way to do things.

I'm glad that I've had my eyes opened to the world of CI. I'm determined to educate myself so that I may educate my students. I wish I knew of a way to promote the reading of *credible* research throughout my colleagues. I would hope that through reading, their eyes could be opened too. But then again, maybe they need to see it to believe it. Hopefully my students will be that light.