Joe asked a question in 2013 that fits in with our current discussion on Scope and Sequence. It started a discussion that may still concern some of us so I repost it here. Hopefully we address it in more detail than we have in the past (we have been too general on this topic):
This year I’m teaching at a new middle school which is an IB school. It is also only my 2nd year using TPRS. I’ll be teaching a 6th Foundations in Spanish course that meets every other day all year for a total of 20 weeks and an 8th grade Spanish 2 class. The district has a scope and sequence for each level with broad themes. Each theme has vocabulary and formal grammatical structures that must be addressed. Since I have to follow the scopes and sequences, is there any advice you can give me on how to structure TPRS around these scopes & sequences?
6th Grade Scopes and Sequences
8th Grade Spanish 2 Scopes and Sequences
Thank you,
Joe
My response to Joe:
Input that is based in comprehensible input and thematic grouping/units are incompatible. Thematic units/semantic sets pull us away from the Communication standard. Language cannot be taught thematically and cannot be sliced up and keep our students focused on Communication and the real heart of that standard, the interpersonal skill of the Three Modes of Communication.
Thanks to Catharina we now have at least one generic document that actually describes what we in storytelling do at the elementary levels. Published here a few days ago, it is a real document that says real things. We can all just download and submit it if we are elementary storytelling teachers. What about middle school and high school? We shouuld come up with something better than those examples Joe provided, because they are ugly and proven by traditional teachers to fail. We have the mental firepower here to do that, certainly. I asked for any middle/high school Scope and Sequence docs that we can get. Hopefully we get some thing like Catharina gave us and thank you Catharina.