Yesterday was the first advanced (levels 2-AP) Susan Gross workshop I’ve attended. It was crisp and very sharp. I highly recommend this workshop. Any teachers who may be trying to break through the dilemna of how to properly teach using comprehensible input at the upper levels would benefit from this workshop.
Over the next six months to a year, I will try share here some of the gems that I learned yesterday, but, as always with Susie’s presentations, it will take some time to process. It will take me probably about a year to integrate and apply what I heard yesterday so that I can properly represent it here. (I will clear everything through her before posting it to insure accuracy.)
I think that this workshop would help people who have gotten beyond the basics of TPRS, CI (circling, etc) to avoid making mistakes as they go, with their kids, to the higher levels. We are now in an unprecedented phase of TPRS kids becoming juniors and seniors, and some of us are getting to stay with them, and so we need this particular training – no one else can do it. Those who miss it will certainly slow down their learning curves through the AP level by a lot.
I can predict rather safely that if you apply this workshop to level 2 kids next year, you will have at least a 70% AP passing rate when those kids are in level 4. Many level 3 kids trained this way will pass the AP as sophomores (if there is good articulation with the middle school in TPRS) and juniors. (Wait till you hear what she says about reading!)
So go to your district administrators, get them to release some funds from otherwise wasteful spending of district foreign language dollars, and get Susan to your district to do this particular workshop. Again, it is not for beginners. It starts in hard and fast and picks up speed through the day. I haven’t asked her, but I would think she would prefer two full days to do this properly. I sure would.
Of course, Susan will be in St. Louis in the summer, but I don’t think that she will be doing the advanced workshop. Skip, bring her to Maine for certain this October instead of me – this is a truly brilliant presentation and you guys are now primed for it. Perfect timing. Again, those who miss it will certainly slow down their learning curves through the AP level by a lot.
For more visit:
www.susangrosstprs.com
I am going to update the category named “Susie’s Gems” on this blog. It has a bunch of insights I gained at a workshop about three years ago. I hope to add to those “gems” over the year from what I learned yesterday as I process what I learned. It will be a “category in progress”.