We welcome Michael:
Hi Ben,
Here is my bio. Even though “forced output” is not usually a good thing for TPRS teachers, I’m glad at the chance (or the push) to share a little about myself. I have spent many hours following the conversations on the blog since I joined, and I am looking forward to continuing, and perhaps starting to participate myself.
I am a first year teacher just getting my feet wet with TPRS in the past two months. I teach Spanish 2, 3, and 4/Native Speakers at Crossland High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland. I am teaching through an alternative certification program and didn’t study education in college, come from a family of teachers and I have loved Spanish since getting the chance to do some travelling myself. My school is in a low-performing district with many of the problems of an inner city, public high school. I have some amazing students, including many native speakers who have been willing to share about their culture with me and the rest of the class, and some students who are just willing and ready to soak it all up. I have others who have been very honest that they have no interest in continuing with Spanish once they get their credits to graduate.
This year has pushed my own limits in terms of the room I have in my mind for just sheer organizational thinking, emotional energy, and admitting failure and reaching out for help. But I am proud of many of the decisions I have made, including taking the risk of trying out comprehensible input. It already feels so clear to me that this is the direction I want to go, and I am willing to work to make this sustainable for myself.
I started trying out TPRS in earnest at the beginning of our third quarter (we are now just starting our fourth), so I am still very new to this. I learned about some of the theories behind comprehensible input and Stephen Krashen’s work before I started teaching, but did not have the wherewithal to integrate any of that into my teaching in the first half of the year. I’m not sure exactly what made me start wanting to really try it out full-heartedly, but I do remember one daunting thought I grappled with multiple times; that the language is so complex with so many little pieces, that I could never get to it all if I taught it one piece at a time – and as soon as I got to the next piece, they would have forgotten the one I just taught. One great thing about comprehensible input is that every time you teach, you are incorporating some of that complexity, and after a little while it doesn’t seem so complex any more.
A lot of my doubts so far have had to do with not having a clear structure for myself. In terms of day-to-day planning, using comprehensible input has actually helped me build a usable structure, because the structure can be pretty simple. But in terms of thinking long term, of planning assessments, and of having some idea of what I want them to learn in the course of a year, I have felt pretty lost at sea since using TPRS, and that has been the source of a lot of my anxiety about it. Besides that, I am a recent college graduate enjoying living in DC, and still trying to maintain a semblance of a life, going out on weekends, playing basketball, visiting my family in Massachusetts when I get the chance. I have definitely appreciated the camaraderie I see in this group, and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.