This year will be my ninth (!!!!) year of teaching--tenth if you count my second year at USM where I taught two classes each semester. It's funny, because it doesn't seem like it's been that long, but I know that when I have heard people say, "I've been teaching for ten years" or more, I've thought, "Wow, they've got some experience under their belt." Now I'm pretty much in that league. Wow!
Despite my years of experience (which is pretty cool and exciting when I think about it), I have long felt pinned to my textbook and distressed about the fact that I was taught as an undergrad and in grad school not to teach ABOUT Spanish but to provide a contextualized and communicative environment for the kids to learn Spanish. However, I have never really known how to do that. And even when I tried to do it as a grad assistant at USM and as an instructor at VSU, it was always contrived. It was still grammar-based teaching, pinned to a textbook, but supplemented with supposedly communicative activities. And that can be a painful way to teach and learn.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a workshop where Dr. Stephen Krashen was the presenter. Besides providing lots of fascinating information and funny stories, he talked about the differences between acquisition and learning and how a class rich in interesting, compelling, comprehensible input is part of the key to helping students acquire language without striving to learn it. He mentioned TPRS as one of the best methods out there for providing this comprehensible input to students, and he modeled some comprehensible input for us. It was a really quick German lesson that he modeled, and I have to admit, I still remember the word for "eyes"--augen (although it may be misspelled). If I could get that in less than five minutes and still remember it two weeks later...that seems impressive. And I'll tell you, the more that I have read about TPRS and comprehensible input in the past two weeks, the more excited I have gotten about it.
I REALLY want to implement TPRS in my classroom. I am taking the steps necessary to do it. The hard part has been understanding the premise but not knowing exactly how to implement it. The very organized and controlling part of me wants to know EXACTLY how it's all going to play out and EXACTLY what I should do. I don't know that, though. So I am reading and trying to get as much information as I can about it right now. My next step is to figure out how to work out a grading system that will make parents, students, and the school happy while also being true to reflecting the students' progress. And the next step after that (or perhaps with that) is to figure out how to get this thing started. What should the first few lessons look like? How do I make this work with Spanish 2 and 3 students? Those students have had Spanish classes before, but never in this format. I am so excited and kind of anxious/stressed, and I just want to figure it all out!!!!! I can see how this method of teaching could provide some relief to me in the desperation I feel when I get frustrated that the traditional, grammar-based way of teaching students does not work. I can also see how it could transform Spanish class into an experience for students where they acquire a language, not learn a bunch of rules. Something where all students are engaged and successful. Have I mentioned that I'm really excited?:-) Anyway, I don't want to view TPRS and comprehensible input as a panacea for apathy or difficulty in the language classroom. But I do want to teach my students more effectively. It sounds like TPRS and comprehensible input provide that kind of an opportunity. So I'm moving in that direction. We'll see how it goes.:-)
(By the way, this post started as a reflection and then became kind of a confessional, mostly because I just needed an outlet for sharing all of the excitement and nervousness I feel after all the reading I have done tonight. Plus, I need to go to bed...and if I don't get these thoughts out, they may keep me up for a long time.:-) )
