This is from Mark:
Good Morning Ben,
I’ve been a member of your PLC for almost a month. My switch to TPRS/CI would have been much harder without it, that’s for sure. I read “TPRS in a Year” and “Stepping Stones to Stories” prior to discovering the blog. My principal has been very supportive of me learning this new method and is paying for me to attend Blaine Ray’s three-day TPRS conference in Dallas in July. I look forward to meeting some of the PLC members in person some day.
Today is our first day of spring break. We have a professor from Ohio State University who is coming for four hours on our professional development day to help our department creates IPAs the day before the kids come back. We currently only use IPAs for our Student Learning Objectives (it’s a beginning of year/end of year assessment that is “supposed to” measure a student’s growth from novice low to novice mid, etc.). There is a big push from a few in the department as well as from our principal to replace the midterm, SLO, and final exam with an IPA. For a little background on my department, there are nine Spanish teachers and two Japanese teachers in our district. Most of them are grammar grinders that love worksheets, etc. One is very communicative and we even have an OWL’er. I’m the only TPRS teacher. Students can start Spanish 1 in 8th grade, and there is an exploratory 6-week Spanish course in 7th grade. Most of the department uses legacy methods (Exprésate textbook). It’s the typical grammar grind: 80 low-frequency vocabulary words in semantic sets per chapter, linear progression of grammar, vocabulary spelling tests, discrete grammar and vocabulary questions on tests, etc.
I read the blog entries on IPAs and authentic resources as well as Eric Herman’s ACTFL thread about the paucity of research to support ACTFL’s position statement that we should be teaching with thematic units and authentic resources. There’s a big push to use IPAs for assessment now in Ohio. A lot of teachers are very adamant that you only use “authentic resources” to expose the kids to the language. I’ve included the link to a video that one of my communicative colleagues used for an authentic resource on one of her exams FOR SPANISH 1 after they had two months of instruction.
It’s absolutely ridiculous. How was any part of that video comprehensible for her kids? If you took away the video and just heard the audio, no first year Spanish student would have any idea what she is talking about. I feel confident with my current proficiency in the language (although I’m still working to improve of course), but even I would have trouble making a transcript of certain parts of her speech. The teacher herself (not a native speaker, but she speaks very well) also talks almost that fast with her students. I would like to ask this guy who is going to talk about IPAs about how they could be integrated into TCI since at least at the middle and high school they will have to be. However, I feel like I need might have trouble articulating why IPAs and the authentic resources that they insist upon are not just bad for TCI teachers, but even for my legacy colleagues. Fortunately, I’m going to be the only language teacher at our new STEM school next year (I’m over there for the last two classes of the day,and I have four classes at the regular high school in the morning) and I will have free reign over how I assess. My STEM principal observed me do a story for my formal observation and love it. She’s the one who is sending me for the Blaine Ray training.
As a first year teacher without a background in education, I played the game at first but quickly became disillusioned with my new profession. My students were miserable with the pace and lack of relevance to them. I taught that way because that’s how I was taught and that’s how others around me were doing it. I jumped in feet first to TCI after I discovered Chris Stolz’s blog, read a couple of your books, and joined the PLC. My kids still worship their smart phones as their god, but at least they’re actually interacting like human beings when they’re in my class now. I can’t wait to norm my new classes next year and do this right from the beginning. Without TCI, I’m not sure I would make the decision to come back next year. Thanks again for the PLC and keep up the great work!
Sincerely,
Marc Fencil