Why did I include, in the preceding post, the part about Claire’s 11 kids? Because how many more are there like that in ESL and WL classes around the country? A million is a low number.
And nobody is talking about these points. If we really are proponents of reform in language teaching then we need to get out of our heads and DO SOMETHING. Claire has DONE SOMETHING.
If you want to keep living and teaching in your minds, go ahead, ignore TPRS and what Claire is offering the entire language teaching community.
But if you are sincere about real change, then go and re-read that Scope and Sequence that she wrote and this time read it with a question in the back of your mind: “How is this document different?”
One answer will be that it points to possible greater self-esteem and confidence in children when they learn a language. This document gives kids hope. It sends them the message that if they just do what the document suggests they can succeed.
What a different playing field that is from the kid’s point of view! In the past language assessment was set up and really geared, like in a machine, to keeping kids confused and therefore feeling stupid, except for the few (sound like America these days?).
What this document does – and what properly done TPRS does – is free those kids to be confident and make them think that they can do it. So yeah, go back and read that Scope and Sequence from Claire again, and this time ask yourself how it is different.
In my opinion, it is different in the same way that a rocket ship is different than a kite.