I teach in English in France and have a different outlook on the “battle” that I’d like to share. Firstly, school administrators in France are not allowed to tell teachers how to teach. They can’t even come into your room if you don’t invite them. And they don’t hire or fire teachers either. They can make your life very uncomfortable if they give you a lousy timetable, but they are there to administer the school and have no say in teaching methods. That is controlled by “inspectors” who come around once in a blue moon. I’ve been teaching here for over 15 years and have been inspected three times. A good inspection can help you get a higher salary, but a poor inspection does little harm, since it’s extremely rare for an inspector to lower a grade. The inspectors are looking for student output. We’re to “kill the teacher” and become invisible in our classes while our students jump through hoops and dazzle the spectators with their abilities.
I first heard about TPRS through Jeff Moore in Macomb, Illinois. I’d been able to organize an exchange with him and I was interested in his ideas, although I wasn’t sure that my French lycée students would take to stories about blue chimpanzees. I ordered the green bible, and rather timidly tested the waters. Lynnette Lang came to our school and did a demonstration, and later Karen Rowan came, did another demonstration and coached me and a couple colleagues who were interested. One of my colleagues has done the research and uses TPRS quite a bit. Another picked up a few ideas, like circling, and used them during an inspection which went extremely well. Another colleague, after a bad inspection, tried to adopt “the method” but I think she had trouble with the bit about feeling some empathy for your students. During trips to the States, I’ve been able to get to a workshop and two NTPRS conventions. I’m still learning and adapting to my public, but I’m convinced this is how languages should be taught. I’ve been able to use it in primary school and had a blast.
I discussed the method with an American friend who teaches in Switzerland and who asked me to come to her school to demonstrate it. With Karen Rowan’s blessing I went, and was given a very enthusiastic reception. I found the Swiss teachers much more open to new ideas than French ones and on the third day of my stay I watched them give their first TPRS lessons in their classes. A young teacher working on her professional “mémoire” decided to do it on TPRS.
Back home, I wondered if I was the proverbial prophet, honored abroad but not at home. We have a large English department, 15 teachers at one point, plus six or seven Spanish teachers, so why haven’t they seen the light? When Lynnette came to us, she brought along a colleague who was a Spanish teacher and had had something like 20 hours of TPRS French and everyone was amazed at her French. Yet they are still talking about how important grammar is and how our students need more grammar. Last year we were asked to give catch up classes for weak students during the spring vacation. (A revolutionary idea in France) I did TPRS. My colleague taught grammar. The kids enjoyed my classes and told their friends to come, but they felt obliged to go to hers, because even they are convinced that you need grammar lessons to pass the baccalaureate. She’s a good teacher and she knows how to make grammar interesting, but I think she’d make a great TPRS teacher if she could just get her mind around it.
I get along very well with my colleagues and they’re fond of me. TPRS is just something funny that Judy does. (She’s American, you know. She goes horse-riding too.) So I don’t think of this as a battle. If it is, I’ve lost it. And I understand how difficult it can be, how much courage it takes to let go of what seems to be a lifeline to grab something new and unproven. Several times I’ve read here and on the moretprs listserve that it’s difficult to take over a class that’s been taught with traditional, grammar-oriented methods. Well, people, that’s all we get to work with. Most of my students have had at least four years of traditional, grammar-oriented lessons when they come to me. And a good number of them would test out as beginners, maybe half would be level two. Because in France it’s okay to fail English if you’re passing math, you still go into the next year’s class. So some of the kids that come to me have been failing English for four years. I throw out the book, tell them not to buy it, and try to start where they’re at. It can be frustrating, but for some reason my kids don’t do too badly on the baccalaureate.
And I’m starting to mark a few points with my colleagues. Some of them have noticed that kids that come from me do rather well in writing. Which seems strange since they think TPRS is all oral work. A colleague took over a class I had last year in a post baccalaureate section that she’s been teaching longer than I have. After her first written test of the year she told me that she was pleasantly surprised. And asked me about fluency writing and decided she’s going to try it. then a couple of days later she asked me to loan her “the big book about TPRS”. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I took her both Ben’s “TPRS in a year” and Fred Jones’ book. She’s reading both of them.
Recently we’ve been asked to give English lessons to our non-English teacher colleagues. I volunteered to take on the beginners and am giving them straight TPRS. Of course, this being France, most of my beginners had at least seven years of English, and sometimes ask me to stop to explain the grammar. While I’m standing there with my mouth hanging open, another student gives the explanation and if everybody looks happy and it’s not too horribly wrong, I go on. But I had two students for the first lesson and seven at the next and word is getting around that my lessons are fun. And one of my “students” is a Spanish teacher from Spain who is a true beginner. She was delighted that she could go home and tell her daughter the story and be understood after one hour of English.
So I don’t think I’m going to win any battles over here, but maybe, just maybe, the TPRS virus will gradually infect my colleagues, and all the chimpanzees will be blue!