I had an interesting conversation over the weekend. On Saturday I attended the memorial service for the mother of some friends. During the reception I spoke with a Spanish teacher who just retired at the end of last year. He told me that his school has gone to TPRS, and with the way it was done, I can understand his frustration, dislike of the method and generally negative attitude. At the semester last year the principal, who had attended a conference or workshop where TPRS was presented, simply told the World Languages faculty to dump their textbooks and begin using TPRS. There was no professional development, apparently merely a brief introduction to the method and the the instruction to use it. I truly sympathized with this teacher, because we all know that this paradigm shift requires training and support, and he wasn’t getting either one. Sure hope this isn’t the norm.
