Magic Johnson has said that, as he grew up, there were a lot of people who “shot down my dreams”. How many dreams of young kids of color to succeed at foreign languages have been dashed by worksheet coma teachers?
Such teachers would be quick to attribute their racially imbalanced AP classes to the sloth of the individual kid, when we know how untrue that is – that in fact the Achievement Gap is a complex social phenonemon that many teachers just don’t want to bother with.
Their “let the cream rise to the top” mantra cares not that the cream is mostly always white. For insights into how TPRS can put a major dent in the Achievement Gap, do a search on the term on this site.
We can’t let this topic slide under the radar. It’s time to get active on this one. All kids can’t become pro basketball players like Magic. Some of them may potentially find their strength in languages.
The fact that there are so many white teachers holding jobs in foreign language education, proportionately, is just one of the results of the Achievement Gap. Let us not be the ones who shoot down the dreams of kids of color to become teachers.
We keep those kids through four levels by using Krashen-based methods. The chances that we help such kids are directly related to our embracing non-worksheet methods. This is not what opponents of TPRS want to hear, but I will defend that statement with vigor.