I think it odd that two of the hot beds for comprehension based instruction are two of the coldest places in the United States: Maine and Alaska. Michele Whaley in Alaska has spearheaded efforts there now for some years. She is a real force, traveling everywhere for trainings, doing all kinds of exchanges with Russia, and organizing trainings and meetings all over her state and on the internet. Here is her bio:
In May of 2008, a student in her fourth year of high-school Russian pointed out to me that what her classmates had learned in their annual stint with that “boring storytelling unit” was the only language they really “owned.” I had written four month-long units based on a very structured synthesis of Melinda Forward’s and Blaine’s materials, and would bring those out in April, one for each level. I had abandoned any other use of the TPRS method because I didn’t have the personality of Blaine or the time to create all my own handouts (or to translate Melinda’s). But I realized the student was right because the vocabulary the students could actually use was directly from those units, and I started to research TPRS, which had undergone a sea of change in the years since I’d had two workshops. I found Ben’s materials, took them to Russia to teach English, and when I returned, embarked on an intensive study of TPRS with other local teachers. Now there is a cadre of TPRS teachers here in Alaska who are passionate about using TPRS, even though we have met our share of resistance.
I feel insanely lucky to have found Ben’s materials and his blog in that spring of 2008. I wish that we could somehow find a balance between starting these discussions on yahoo and tprstalk and continuing them here, because there are more people who need to hear them, and more who could contribute from other viewpoints, even while I want to protect privacy and security. It is very important to be able to share ideas for teaching at the same time that we discuss the philosophy underlying those ideas. What a gift we have in being able to share with one another!