I got this email a few days ago from Haiyun Lu, and am happy to print it here with her permission:
Hi Ben,
This is Haiyun Lu from Wisconsin. I’m a Chinese teacher in a local independent school and I teach 8-12 graders Chinese. Last year, I bought TPRS in a Year! from you after Byron recommended it to me. It was very helpful. However, as a novice TPRS teacher, many things you wrote were easy to read but took a long time to sink in.
Around Christmas time, another friend recommended your DVDs to me. I went online and bought them immediately. But, I was so tied up with my ordinary routine that I didn’t get to them until recently. All of a sudden, it felt like there was wave in a dead pond, or fresh spring breeze blowing on a cold dry day. Ever since, I’ve been watching, watching, and watching whenever I can.
I’m amazed how repetitive but fun you are. I really LOVE how your three phrases structure stories, especially, the Wilbur story. (I feel I COULDN’T REMEMBER to recycle that much for some reason.) I’ve been trying to do the same thing. But my class always ended up with tons of new vocabulary in their stories. In the end, students became overwhelmed with all the new stuff they have to learn, although, they have had a lot of fun doing that.
Your DVDs have helped me so much and I hope more and more people would know and watch them. I think for the beginning TPRS teachers who are not familiar with the terminology you should remind them to download your workshop handouts as they work nicely for me as well. [ed. note: benslavic.com/resources/workshop handouts]
My students love the group synchronized gesture before they could answer any question. It adds so much flavor into the class. I’m half way through your Max story. I also read the original script and I LOVE your students’ creativity!!!
I started to explore more your website and read your blog posts. I just want you know how appreciative I am for all the work you have done. This summer, I’ll be attending the 10th annual TPRS conference and hoping I’ll really get a hold on TPRS methodology.
THANK YOU!
Haiyun