Kevin sends this really nicely written bio:
My name is Kevin Taylor. I currently teach high school Spanish 2, 3, and 4 at Front Range Christian School in Littleton, CO. Like some other Spanish teachers, I was a 4%er who did quite well in secondary and tertiary-level language courses, even though my ability to communicate in the language was sorely lacking. Apart from the native speakers in my classes, though, everyone around me had similar difficulties, so I assumed that it was normal.
During college, I meandered through a number of majors, and finally chose Spanish, more by process of elimination than through any sort of passion for the language or the cultures of those who spoke it. Following college, however, I had the chance to live in Guatemala, and for the first time (except for a couple of college Spanish literature courses) I was exposed to large amounts of comprehensible input. It was there that my confidence and abilities improved – although I still regret the paralysis of the mouth that occasionally still comes from having realized too early that one needs to follow at least 25 million grammar rules to formulate properly even the simplest sentence.
After two years in Guatemala, I returned to the U.S. to take a job teaching high school Spanish at a college-prep high school in Wichita, KS. I taught there for 9 years, with my TPRS conversion experience coming 6 years into my stint. In 2004 I took a trip up to Wheaton Academy in Illinois, where I met Susan Butcher. There I heard her describe how she and her students spent their class periods telling wacky stories, singing silly songs, and laughing, learning, and laughing some more. Upon returning to Kansas mid-way through the second semester, I decided that I could no longer continue the grammar grind. We had to do this new thin – syllabus, scope and sequence, and copyright laws be damned (Sorry, Blaine! We did purchase the texts in subsequent years!). Within a matter of weeks, students were singing songs about the wiles of the mujer insecta and groaning about the blue cows that produce bleu cheese, as well as noting a very positive change in the demeanor of their profe.
After taking a 5-year hiatus from teaching to begin work on a doctoral degree in religious studies at Boston University (which I’m still slowly working on), I am back teaching Spanish again, and I am enjoying it because the kids are enjoying it. I can’t say that I have quite as much passion for language per se as many on this blog do, but I see the ultimate benefit in the way that newfound proficiencies in language can break down barriers in students’ minds and hearts between themselves and those who differ from them in cultural identity. God knows our world could use more of that.