I like long bios because you can get to know the person better. If you haven’t sent one in, please do so. It’s not just a nice thing to do, it’s something we all must do. Besides, who among us doesn’t have an interesting story? This one from Eric is just really good. Use it as a model when you send in yours. Of course, we’ll take anything we can get, but the more you write, the better our team is. So here is what Eric shares with us:
I am German teacher with 7 years’ experience who is now teaching in Galesburg, IL. I have been in the process of coming to CI/TPRS over the past 6 years. I started in Tucson for two years, taught two years in Antioch, and am now in my third year here. Initially, I used the textbook a lot for structure partially because I had no education training before my first job. I knew I wanted to try teaching German, but did not want to go back for my master’s when I already fell quite behind, as I had a number of friends who were enroute to becoming lawyers, doctors, etc. So I used the AATG jobs listserv and spammed anybody who posted a job. In looking at those I saw a few positions posted by TPRS only departments and looked into it a little there. Unfortunately, I ended up at a school that thinks so highly of input that, they never once checked to see that I could provide any.
In Tucson, I like many non-Spanish language teachers at the time were provisionally certified, while we got our certificate. After a very difficult first year, involving being poor at discipline, and deathly afraid to send students to the office due to the suspension of three teachers for frivolous reasons, I decided to go to the Sweet Briar German TPRS summer session, which is where I got my initial training. It helped me understand the basics, but it never fully sunk in, and I did not feel really comfortable with circling at that time.
I used to get so mad and frustrated in Tucson, by frivolous things like spelling errors and other mistakes, and could not see past the tree in front of me. Being a 4%er made it difficult for me to appreciate the problems of learning language traditionally, and I stressed myself out at why my students were so bad at it, and why I couldn’t get most of them to learn it as well as I wanted. I very much subscribed to the mathematical formula of foreign language where you plug in the correct part of speech for each type. Although I had a difficult year, I resolved to come back after I got more training. By this time, I was also get an Post-Bachelor’s Education Certification, and while it taught me things about education, it taught me practically nothing about foreign language education.
So I return for my second year with a few Rob Williams books, Asher’s book on TPR, and the green bible. I feel like I was fairly successful at using TPR, but I strayed incredibly with my attempts at TPRS and went too fast (which is still one of my biggest weaknesses). I did teach with a lot of input, but one could not say that enough of it was comprehensible and my students’ progress, with the exception of a few superstars was demoralizing to me. I did do a lot more with reading though.
Since, I realized within those 2 years that my school was poorly run, and I missed seasons I got myself out of there and back to IL. Unfortunately, in Illinois the position was part time German and part time History, so I had to spend much of my time figuring out how to teach History to Freshmen and I was not able to grow my German instruction skills as much as I wanted. I did decide at this point, that textbooks are bad, and have only used it as a bit of outside structure, but I still didn’t fully understand that those early structured speaking activities, were not useful in terms of students retaining language, so I muddied the waters by using those. I did have the opportunity the summer before, to acquire about 100 German children’s books, and began a silent reading regimen with the level 2 class I was teaching. It did help my best students, but I did not have enough variety of reading for those who weren’t ready for those Pixie books and I pulled back.
I then had a year of projects as well as a few of the ancillary worksheets for Komm Mit, the lovely German text that I used in school, which felt old then and even older now. I had however increased my use of Rob Williams readers, but did not really risk a story anymore with this group. At the end of the year, my periods would have shrunk to 1 German and 4 Social Studies, so I returned again to the AATG list and found this position in Galesburg.
I worked on adding more and more readers when I got the chance and added some of the Maroscher readers each year I have been here. I bought and read your TPRS, and while it got me closer, I felt that my PQA was lacking. Specifically, I didn’t know how to hold them there consistently, and I didn’t know how to ask my actors questions as Blaine does. I dabbled again and did a few, but due to being busy, I again returned to the tried old pattern of lots of vocab and communicative speaking activities. I did decide to stop killing kids for spelling and devised ways to save my sanity including making large lists of the terms with no definitions that students could use to find articles and spellings.
I tried the standard again this year, and finally was totally fed up with not making as much progress as I wanted (due to speaking over their heads), so I came back to attempting this and had some limited successes. One of the things that kept throwing me off is I would make difficult quizzes, and I would not circle enough, because the kids would say they got it, and I would be afraid of boring them, so I would speed up. The quizzes would be primarily fill in the blank with the words we had, and while some would do really well, others would not. I also very much threw new words at them and then began a story with them. I am finally starting to get how to park, although I still worry about parking too much and am as yet unsatisfied with how my students respond. They are just very quiet in terms of responding out loud, even the ones who I knew got it before. I always have some kids responding, but the others do not consistently provide audible answers. I have tried quick writes for grades, ( I am not moving away from this) and it frustrated me that some just couldn’t get started. My feeling is that I have been premature with that though. I have been rereading the information on grading and have found that implementing a grading system I like with this has been hard, partially because I tend to push a bit too fast, and then make slower progress in the end because of it.
Some of my strengths include large stores of patience, developed after years of frustration. I think I can sometimes maintain stories or PQA interesting places. As example, we were working must and one of my students said he must eat his dogs (fressen instead of füttern). I have a light enough relationship that we were able to spin that out for quite a while without making him self-conscious about the mistake. This allowed for good progress. I think I may be repeating the phrases a bit too much still, because I am wanting them to be able to output them a bit at the end and retell the story or details. I am still not quite sure on my pacing.
OK, well now that you know all about me, I hope to contribute and especially to learn from everyone here.
Thanks,
Eric