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.

NTPRS 2011

Yahoo!  I just bit the bullet and registered for the 2011 National TPRS conference in ST. Louis, MO.  Sure, it's expensive (especially when I'm getting married, going on a honeymoon, a full time grad student, and a poor starting teacher), but I'm super excited to go.

Gus and I talked about it today at lunch.  We decided the sooner I start investing in myself, the bigger the return will be later.  I might go for a couple of years successively, but I might eventually be able to go and be a presenter instead of an attendee.  Who knows.

Another big reason that I'm so excited to go, is to better my craft of TPRS/CI.  I've been reading a lot of studies for my literature review for my graduate class this quarter and TPRS/CI seems to be the only logical, supported, efficient way to teach students to acquire a second language.  Research (credible research) supports the comprehensible input hypothesis over all other SLA hypotheses.  Thus, I feel that the best move I can make as a highly qualified professional is to push myself to push my students' acquisition of Spanish through TPRS.

Let the countdown begin!