Chris hid this excellent report from us back in the Forum but I found it and brought it out here as a post:
Ok folks so today Adriana, Marie-Luce and I presented to colleagues at District languages Pro-D. (We were just down the hall from the “lit circles en français” workshop where Very Smart Teachers talked about doing stuff that, for a lot of kids, would be impossible in English…have independent discussion at a high level about French lit…but I digress).
Ok I asked a German story and did embedded reading (usual reaction…”how can this be so EASY?”) then the ladies took over with talk…but the piece de resistance was, Adriana brought 3 of her former Spanish 9 students to show the attendees their mad skillz. First, they improvised a story– perfectly– in Spanish, with dialogue. Then, a teacher said “ok describe yourselves in writing” and the scribbled– furiously– on the board, in perfect Spanish. They stopped…because they ran out of writing room! When I asked them “what advice would you give to a language teacher to allow that teacher to help kids best learn?” they pointed at Adriana and said “TEACH LIKE MS RAMÍREZ!” I teach Spanish via TPRS and holy cow, these kids blew mine away. Adriana ROCKS! Also attendees were impressed by writing samples from kids taught by Adriana, Luce, Leanda M and me (though mine were the worst by far).
The attendees were impressed, to put it mildly. So the take-away? If you wanna show people the powerful ease of CI/TPRS, the only thing better than asking a story & doing reading in unfamiliar language is…BRING SOME KIDS.