It’s truly odd that the very people who claim to be the elite in education, the IB people, have their heads most wedged when it comes to best practices and current research in foreign language education. This is from our group member Joe. It’s nothing new for many of us, but that doesn’t make it any less disturbing:
Hi Ben,
I hope all is well. I need your help and the help of the PLC.
I’m in a new school district this year which is an IB school. I am in the middle school which has the Middle Years Program. My administrator is not totally sold on teaching via TPRS/CI. She said she is going to be doing a lot of pop-ins, I have to give her any and all material I plan to give to the students and she also wants to see the skeleton stories before I use them. She said she wants to and will support me, but she has an obligation to make sure the students reach the goals of the IB Middle Years Program and that my students are being taught the same things the other students are being taught by other teachers. I also must go by the units that have been created and give the students the vocabulary lists with all the words for the unit already filled out. I know this may sound a bit aggressive, but she is trying to support me. She already got 2 complaints from parents saying the students don’t feel they can learn from me since all I do is speak Spanish, yet I’m getting high comprehension levels from the kids.
I feel frustrated and uncomfortable and I don’t know what to do or where to turn. All the teachers are very supported, welcoming, helpful and generous as is my administrator, but I am beginning to not like what I do and to second guess everything and this is only my 4th year teaching and I LOVE teaching Spanish!
I need help figuring out how to incorporate the Middle Years Program’s enduring unit questions into the CI process and show her that the kids will be speaking about themselves so when they get to the high school next year they can speak Spanish.
I’m not even sure what kind of help to ask for from you and the PLC. Ugh!!
Thank you Ben!!
Joe