Chris checks in with more good news:
Hi Ben,
I have some more good news. I was observed by my principal on Monday, Oct 31 – first day of the 9 weeks. In four of my five classes, I get new kids every 9 weeks and it was one of those classes that he observed (I asked him to). I started class by having them fill out a half sheet of colored paper with their name and an interest and I did the Circling with Balls, starting with myself and then going on to another students. I circled and circled and circled and at the end of the period gave a 10 questions quiz (on the first day of class! *gasp*) and out of the 25 or so students in class, they all got 10/10 except for one kid who got an 8/10.
At our post-observation conference my principal couldn’t tell me enough how much he loved the lesson. He loved that it was personalized, that I was really drilling them with so many repetitions, and was shocked that I was able to stay in the target language for 80-90% of the class on the first day of class. He even recognized and mentioned that by doing that I was sending a subliminal message that Spanish was going to be the primary mode of communication in class. He was also impressed by having them react with “ohhhh” if they understand and to give a signal if they don’t understand. I definitely have him on board with CI and TPRS. I asked him what I could improve on based on his observation and he said that he looked really hard for things that could have been better but couldn’t find anything. I was shocked when he said this! Thanks to discovering TPRS and being able to be a part of the TPRS Inner Circle I feel like an effective teacher! (<—testimonial?)