This from Carol in NJ:
Hi Ben,
Even though my grammar crazed colleagues can be a real pain, sometime things can work out for the CI team! Every year I undergo a summative evaluation at the end of the school year. When I began with TPRS, I also began the process of schooling my administration with articles, invitations to observe beyond the normal amount, making sure my attendance at webinars and conferences became part of my file, the usual. It paid off today – and this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the method.
My principal said: “During the 2009-2010 school year, you introduced the Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling approach to the instruction of French with, I think, very positive results. I saw this first hand last year when I observed your French 1 class. The class consisted of twenty-six freshmen. This class was alive. The instruction moved at a rapid pace, with at least 75-85 percent of the instruction and student responses in French. There were a variety of methods used, mostly oral, to measure student understanding throughout the entire class. Every student participated in the lesson. I was surprised when the class period ended, as the intensity of the class made me lose track of time.”
He also took notice of an uptick in French enrollment since 2009-10. There is no magic here. In my department, I am crying in the wilderness when I talk about CI. As a result, I am silent which isolates me more. Working in a vacuum is weird and at times scary. The validation is nice, but my take away from this is to continue to do my due diligence to school my administration about the method and to try to deliver comprehensible, compelling input. Kudos to all my fellow travelers on this blog and in the CI/TPRS community at large who continue to inspire me on the daily! It’s like the Academy Awards: “I am accepting these laurels on behalf of all my colleagues who till the soil every day in the CI gardens of the world!”
Chill