TPRS in a non TPRS department

TPRS in a non-TPRS department


There are 9 teachers in my department. I am the only teacher who is trying to use TPRS. I have taken a softer, gentler approach this year. Meaning, I have not advertised my use of TPRS, nor have I chastised the other teachers for using the methods they do. Instead, I have sought to find places and times where what I believe can be shared in an open way. For instance, I shared a participation rubric that Ben Slavic posted on his blog. I have shared strategies for reading skills.

I discovered that in my case, it is not that my department is anti-TPRS, it’s that the bureaucracy of the district I teach in requires a high degree of lock-step teaching. We are expected, district wide, to be on the same chapter as every other teacher within a few days.

It is also a lack of familiarity. When I have made comments, such as referencing the top 100 words used in spoken Spanish, or that “even stupid kids growing up in Spain learn to speak Spanish” that my ideas are listened to. I even brought up the topic of homework not having an impact on learning. One of the teachers decided to try an experiment with her students – and she is the most traditional teacher in the group. Not everybody agrees with me, but that’s ok. I didn’t become a teacher to have everybody agree with me. It’s enough that we can all listen to each other with respect.



Now, I don’t share everything. In part because TPRS sounds so fuzzy and not well prepared if you don’t SEE it. I mean, telling other teachers that you aren’t too worried about grammar just rings all sorts of alarms. And it isn’t even true. But, it’s hard to put into concise words what we do. So, mainly I share in small bits and pieces.

Towards the end of the year I gave up and taught the old way. The kids had to have a certain amount of information in order to be able to pass the standardized exam, and I didn’t have enough time to cover it all in a traditional TPRS manner (we lost 11 instructional days this year to snow just for starters) and the amount of vocab and grammar just cannot be acquired in that time. So, I used all the time-worn strategies of language teachers everywhere. A lot more of my students failed the second semester than the first, and my exam grades were consistent with first semester grades.

Sooo... now that I am on break I am plannning to use Backwards Designing to map out my own personal TPRS curriculum that aligns with the district pacing guide by semesters next year. There is a rumor that we might be able to keep our students for the whole year, which would ease some of the stress too. I would have a whole year to get students to where they “belong.”

Homework - can I judge?

In another post I commented implied that homework was a waste of time. To be fair, I was referring to a student who has already mastered the material and is now failing because he cannot force himself to do work that he has already surpassed. It would be like taking an advanced mathematics student and failing him for refusing to do 100 problems of single digit multiplication, simply because all the other students were doing the multiplication problems. But, if this kid can do trigonometry, why are we failing him because he got bored of problems that read 4x2=? Come on, sure it’s easy for him, but how intellectually challenging is it?




Be that as it may, I was reminded that it is not fair to judge another teacher’s assignments as being a waste of time. It’s true I do not want others to judge me harshly, and there have been times over this past year that I have worried my teaching style is being judged by many. But, I *do* think that most of the homework assignments are worthless, and not just for my brilliant yet autistic student.



There is a lot of research out there right now that shows most homework has little to no bearing on a student’s actual success in acquiring the desired information. Little to no bearing. If I have 86 minutes approximately 3 days a weeks in which to teach as much Spanish as I can, why am I going to waste precious minutes of that time with work research, supported by my personal experience, will have little to no impact on the actual learning of my students?

In Which I Rant Again

There was a kid in my class first semester. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Brilliant, but autistic. He excelled in class, even with the language barriers that autistic children have. (Thinking in pictures tends to slow down the speaking, social "niceties" are relatively meaningless, plays on words often don't make sense because of very literal thinking, etc.) He had a few quirks, for instance he would be reading his textbook chapters ahead of the class, but if I called on him, he knew exactly what we were doing and could provide an answer. He even did unthinkable things. He would volunteer to act in our stories! He would volunteer silly answers to our story lines. He would even, sometimes, smile. Great kid.

He switched classes at the semester. And now, he is failing.

His new teacher recognizes that he is brilliant, and that he knows all the information. But she is still failing him because he hasn't turned any of the assignments in. She wanted to know how he did in my class. Are you kidding me? He was the ace! She is concerned. He has an IEP, and he is failing, so what should she do?

I took the time to explain some of the little things about autism. That's great. The problem is, she doesn't see how that has anything to do with his missing work. So, I told her to talk to his counselor, or his special ed teacher.

*GROWL*

We have a CHEETAH here, and we're going to fail him because he is refusing to walk nicely with the elephants. We're just going to reinforce the idea that he is different, and wrong, and he cannot succeed in life.

Am I really so out of touch with reality? Am I really so different than the rest of the academic world? The other teachers in my department are all about the all mighty homework assignment. This, they say, will prepare the kids for the rigors of college, for the rigors of life.  OK. Sure. But, not all the kids are going to college. Not all the kids will study languages in college. They say, try missing deadlines at work, see where that gets you. Fine. Except, we tend to pick our professions because of our personal quirks. Math is hard for me, I mean I can do it just fine, but I have to spend a lot of mental energy making sure the numbers don't move around the page, and that they stay the same. I'm "good" at math, but it isn't fun for me. I didn't go into a career where math is a strong prerequisite. I cannot stand staying still, and being boxed in. I didn't go into a career where I am sitting in a cubicle or an office all day. I stand up, I walk around, I get to talk a lot. I get to interact with people. So, my ability as a student to sit still and be quiet actually had no bearing on my future ability in a career. And you know what? I still refuse to do work I deem boring or unnecessary. So, I've missed a few deadlines in life. Nobody has fired me for it, I still have a 4.0 in grad school. I have learned to pick my battles. But please, don't make me feel like I am wasting my time. I have too little of it to waste it on useless stuff. Which is why I refuse to waste my students' time.

Again, this kid, this wonderful, brilliant, funny kid is going to fail, and he is going to have all of society's messages reinforced by his teacher, simply because he is not doing work that is a waste of his time. He doesn't need the practice. He just needs to fill in the blanks in a spreadsheet to prove to a calculator that he can do the work like a good little robot. *growl*

In Which I Rant

I have a student. Actually, I have many, but that isn't the point. I have a student who is a really nice kid. He isn't going to be awarded any prizes for great intellectual prowess any time soon, but he is a really great kid. He is nice. He is fun. I'm sure the girls think he's cute. And I've never had a single problem with him. But his dad is a bully. And despite academics not being his son's strongest suit, the dad wants the kid to go to Harvard.

The kid has an IEP. Not a problem. I meet all of his accommodations except one in my normal instructional delivery. He's bringing home A's and B's in Spanish. But, now, Dad tells me I've done too good of a job accommodating his child, because he was unprepared for the rigors of a standardized test. He got a C. The average score was a C, just a few percentage points above the kid. 

Is this a darned if you do, darned if you don't scenario or what? Dad tells me at the beginning of the year, the parents are very concerned that he keep up his gpa so he can get in a good school. The kid has a good gpa, at least in my class, his exam score doesn't even change his grade because that was solid, he is speaking Spanish, and now... now I'm told I need to stop accommodating him so he can do well on standardized tests???? Never mind the part where average kids who don't have IEPs are scoring in the same range as this kid?

*GROWL*

End of rant

brain research and language acquisition.

This is really cool. I don't have much time, and not sure what if any the applications are, but it's really cool. Basically the brain learns nouns and verbs differently and in different parts of the brain. Follow the link!