Hi Ben:
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with my new principal and my star student. The student has accomplished an amazing feat: starting from true zero in Spanish two years ago, he is probably Advanced Low on the ACTFL scale. The principal, intrigued by his fluency, talked to him about Spanish class. He said that the student explained TPRS to him (the kid’s linguistically gifted, so neither I nor the method can take full credit for this one) and the principal is totally on board.
He said his own experience was learning Spanish from neighboring farm workers during his childhood and speaking Spanish “from the gut.” Then he took Spanish class. He insists he actually lost his Spanish-speaking ability because of the class. Suddenly it wasn’t about what sounds right, but remembering a grammatical label for each feature of the language.
He’s excited about TPRS and my Spanish program and has promised me the same freedom that the previous principal gave me. Hooray! But perhaps to help keep me humble, tonight, just before going to bed, I saw a message on FB from another student. Should have gone to bed earlier.
Hola Profe! I hope your summer went well! Anyway, as you know I just transfered to_______ and school began yesterday. Like PAA, ________requires both Spanish 1 and 2. I was enrolled in Spanish 2 and a few things quickly came to my attention within minutes of being in the class. Now, I really want you to know that this is just a message to express an observation and is in no way intended to be offensive towards your teaching methods. But I came into the new class and was told I needed to already have thorough knowledge of adjectives, plural/singular, whether the words were feminine or masculine, and other rules and conjugations that I didn’t know about. I felt extremely unprepared and confused about what was discussed that day. Later we talked and I am very very behind the rest of the class. Now, with translations I aced it and I thank you for teaching that so well. But the rules for the Spanish language weren’t covered sufficiently enough for me to transfer smoothly into a different Spanish class. It is as if we hadn’t even covered it at all really. I don’t know how else to put this but you may want to consider adding in more time for the technical part of Spanish. It, just like every other language, has rules for grammar and without that knowledge I feel a bit lost in the class. Again, you teaching translation and the actions/songs really helped but the rules weren’t drilled into us quite as much.
And so, I sincerely hope that I have not hurt you with this message and apologize if it has.
The letter writer was one of my lower students and I would expect her to have difficulty in any level 2 class. But still, it stings. I have a few grammar worksheets and tests that I can send to her to show that indeed, I did teach these things discreetly, as well as in context as pop-ups. Her criticism is one reason that I plan to use some grammar worksheets (as review, after the concepts have been acquired by at least some of the students).
Rita