I am writing you to tell you of my presentation to foreign language teachers in my district yesterday where I am the only TPRSer. They gave me 50 minutes, and all were Spanish speakers except one Mandarin teacher. So she came up front, and I taught her while everyone watched (and participated globally). I had planned to use your first day suggestion of talking about their pets using, “there is, has, wants” followed by a very short story-asking so that the teachers could see the strategies utilized.
Well, you were more than right. While we learned other things, all I accomplished was to find out she had a pet tiger. Slower than I ever could have imagined! But when my Mandarin student answered my questions in complete sentences within a few minutes, they were captivated. At the conclusion I showed them samples of 5-minute timed writes in past tense, and every teacher was astounded. They didn’t believe me when I told them that I was only a novice and still struggling with the strategies.
I had never presented in front of teachers before, so it also has given me more confidence. But I promise to slow down even more than I had planned.