Why is it a concern that we have found no common ground, no common ELA/TPRS turf in our building at Lincoln High School, which is only a microcosm of a worldwide issue? On the level of research, we share lots of common ground – Krashen. Why isn’t that common ground shared where it counts, in the classroom?
Krashen’s original work was done in ELA and yet in Denver Public Schools has been much more applied to World Languages than ELA. So let’s look at this. Some in our group have backgrounds in ELA, like David Young in Kansas City. Maybe we can get a series of articles and comments that would lead to at least some preliminary conclusions about what is going on.
There is an blogger on ELA and language acquisition in Sacramento named Larry Ferlazzo. Chris Stolz put me in touch with him and thank you Chris. I think you got a live one here. On his blog, Larry asked about the use of TPRS in ELA in this recent article:
Those interested are asked to go to Larry’s site and read what our group members Jeanette Borich, Judy Dubois, Laurie Clarcq and Chris Stolz have said so far, and once enough people have had time to read the articles over there, maybe we can then further this ELA/TPRS discussion.
Through it, maybe we can reach kids in ELA classrooms across the country whose daily affective filters make Hannibal Lecter’s look like that of a beauty queen. Maybe we can find a way to make stories work in ELA classrooms!
What are we trying to accomplish here? I think we need to just open the uncooked can of TPRS/ELA pasta and warm it up and see if we can make it into a good meal. It may be an acquired taste, but somebody has to do something here.
(à suivre)