Latrina Thompson joined our group a few months ago. She teaches in Paulding County in Georgia at North Paulding High School. She recently sent in this comment which I am turning into an article here, because it describes a change that is happening in a lot more places than just Georgia. I want to stress especially that the force behind the change described here is Latrina herself. She is not hoping that change will just happen in her school, that somebody will swoop in and make things better. Rather, she is making the change happen, in the real way, by focusing on what she is doing in her classroom and by opening up dialogue with others that is not threatening to them:
I just wanted to update and thank everyone for their wise counsel on transitioning to TPRS mid-year. Well, really transitioning to comprehensible based input methods mid-year. The more research and reading I do the more I realize that it is about exposing the students to as much comprehensible input as possible and that TPRS is a vehicle in which to reach that goal. That is also how I have been pitching it to my co-workers and my observing administrator. Switching to comprehensible input based methods of teaching was not something that just popped into my mind. I have been thinking about it for a long time and even tried it at the beginning of the year, but didn’t feel I would receive the support that I needed to continue. I also wasn’t sure how to proceed and “cover” the curriculum as well.
Next year we will be on a new observation tool called “TKEYS (Teacher-Keys)” and as part of our evaluation measure next year the students will have to take a district based assessment (called the SLO- Student Learning Objective). I know the teachers that made that assessment and I was told the test is made from the textbook test generator (terrible!). So needless to say I was very nervous as to how if I taught using TPRS I would expose the students to enough vocabulary and grammar to do well on that test.
Well, you know how they say that the squeaky wheel gets the oil; In September, I spoke with my observing administrator about how I had success with my first story, but was afraid to continue with the approach because of not being able to adequately cover the curriculum (ahem, “textbook”). Well that admin went to the secondary school coordinator at the board and shared my concerns. Before Christmas break she met with my department and you won’t believe what happened! She told me that the coordinator said to not worry about the SLO and do what I believe is best for students! HA! Can you believe it?! This was in a meeting with the entire FL department. We had a very heated discussion in that meeting about the curriculum maps and the SLO in that they were solely based on a book written in the 90s and how FL instruction and research has changed and we must change along with it. She said she would take those concerns to the county board and share them with the coordinator to see if they could be revised! It was amazing! Yes, there are still teachers not willing to change because they like the ease of doing what they’ve always done, but the majority of the department is now on board as well as our observing Administrator! So now we have our administrator and our secondary coordinator at the board on our side and have received the go ahead to make the needed changes that WE feel are best for our students! I was even told by her directly to do so even if I didn’t get support from the other teachers! I am so excited! Now comes the challenge of making the changes and recording our progress to show as proof of the effectiveness of change. As my father told me, they can’t argue against what you’re doing when you have the data, research, and results to back you up.
In Spanish 1, we will be using the “Cuentame Mas” series to get started. We will also be using the series in Spanish 2, but we are going to start out with a song and story similar to the one we started the school year with. We looked at the “Cuentame Mucho” and decided that it would be too challenging for our level 2 students and we want to learn the method as well. We didn’t think we could go cold turkey with nothing but a common structures list this first year. I think using the series will still give the stability and guidance that we are used to with the textbook and give us common vocabulary for collaborating and assessment, but we don’t have to do all the stories and recognize that we can build other activities. SO we are slowly making progress. Some still want to take time out to explicitly teach grammar at times, and I am fine with that they can do so if they please. We are not cookie cutter and don’t have to teach in the exact same way. ALL of us are very nervous to venture away from what we have always done. We are all grammarians and that is how we learned and what we know well. I am also not the most fluent speaker of the language because I haven’t used much Spanish in my classroom in over 6 years so I know it will be difficult but I am willing to try and put in the effort. I have been assigned the responsibility of taking notes on our planning and collaboration and recording the data so as to make comparison at the end of the year (and to have data for the board as well). As we move into this venture the admin wants us to be aligned well for the upper level teacher (who will be using the “Cuentame Mas” series in her level 1s by the way). So we are on our way and are moving ahead and I am determined not to let my own self doubts keep me from doing so. Thank you for all your support and the invaluable information I have found in this PLC.