Skip writes:
Hey Ben,
I recently got an (indirect) request from an administrator in the state about advice on two textbook series. I responded that I would not be the person to ask but offered to put the request on the FLAME list-serve.
The administrator responded:
Our district has been using TPRS for quite some time and has a pretty rich curriculum, but is potentially looking for better alignment to ACTFL and some consistency in vertical programming. Textbooks as a reference point and guide, but retaining some of what we currently do.
I responded:
The two series you mention could be different, but in the TCI (Teaching with Comprehensible Input) community there is a general feeling that textbooks are not needed (and indeed hinder) classes that are based on 90% CI and are highly personalized.
Then I started second guessing myself. Do you think my impression that if you really TCI then you REALLY can’t be interested in a book? Do you have a sense for how many of the TCI teachers you are affiliated with use a textbook. (Honestly I would guess it would be zero unless they are forced.)
I put a request on the Maine TCI list serve for teachers in my group to let me know if they use a book….
Thanks, Ben.
I responded to skip:
1. Don’t second guess yourself. There is absolutely no linking of what we do with a textbook, unless we use a picture or something as a source for our CI discussions. Those among us who do link CI with a textbook do so because they are forced, and that is the only reason, unless of course there is something that they can use in the book as a source to build CI.
2. I think you answered correctly. This is a chance to break through the ignorance that Scott addressed last week in his comment about the complete misunderstanding and misuse of the term comprehensible input in many (grammar based) venues. That administrator, not being a language teacher, has only you to help him understand what using CI really means, and what it does not mean.
3. By the way, if you study the wording of what this guy wrote to you, you can see that someone, probably a politically connected grammar teacher, has gotten into his head about steering the district back to the textbook because, due to your influence in Maine, skip, people are doing more and more CI there. Read what he wrote again and tell me if that isn’t a possible explanation for his contacting you.
4. I think that you should re-contact this administrator with our new definition of CI with descriptors (even in it’s still in rough draft form it makes the point) so that the admin can see that those teachers in his district claiming to use TPRS are not entirely truthful. A breakthrough by one informed administrator on false claims to use “TPRS” by teachers in the district could lead to breakthroughs in other districts.