I got this from a colleague:
Hi Ben,
I was thinking a lot last night about TPRS and the intellectual battle we are all in the middle of with establishment, traditional teachers. Then I read your blog post “The Truth Will Out” along with the comments that followed and I felt a need to email you.
I’m confident after your “Termites” post:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/09/18/termites/
that we will eventually win this battle of the minds but I wonder how long it will take. Even though ACTFL’s position statement and standards fit with Comprehensible Input teaching, I still feel the deck is stacked against us when reading 90% of the articles in the Foreign Language Annals. I feel they are talking out of both sides of their mouth. The Position Statement is great for us, but a lot of the stuff in the FL Annals talks about early, forced output and grammar (or ways to make grammar “more interesting” to teenagers). This is where the term “Coup d’etat” comes in. I kind of believe that we need to initiate an intellectual coup d’etat to SHOW the powers that be that our way is the best way. With organizations like StudentsFirst, the school choice movement, and the charter school movement all being so popular in our society I say we take advantage of it. We need to show politicians and administrators that TPRS is the best FL teaching method for the students and that the grammar-based approach is better for teachers rather than students. What tools are out there that can help us demonstrate to administrators that we have it right? The National Spanish/French exams?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I teach in a district where there are about 8 or 9 Spanish teachers and I’m the only one who uses TPRS and I’m the only one who hasn’t passed out the textbook. I think that eventually, whether it’s later this year, next year or in a couple of years, I will be in the midst of a battle with these teachers and the only way I think I could win is if I would bring in the administrators and curriculum director of the school district and demonstrate to them why the method I have chosen is the best way to teach foreign languages and that I am the only one who is putting students first, rather than myself. I think the best way to get them on my side is to show them results. So I was thinking about possibly having my student take the National Spanish Exam and just hope and pray that they score above the national average to show results. I will NOT go back to the old ways just because “it’s easier” or because I’m told to by other teachers who don’t want to get with the 21st Century. I’m sorry but I will be putting my students first because that’s why I got into this profession; so if that means throwing the other teachers under the administrator bus, then so be it. Those are my thoughts and I’d love to get your perspective on this. I think that getting administrators on OUR side is the key to winning.