Little instructional change in second language classrooms has actually occurred in the United States. We who participate in this PLC are so few. Those who are using effective comprehensible input in their classrooms represent certainly less than 1% of language teachers nationwide.
Things should have changed by now but they haven’t. The textbook continues to be used against the best interests and against the general consensus of all concerned about what best practices are.
Blaine invented TPRS (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling) in the early 1990’s. Its Three Steps represent such a powerful second language acquisition tool. Then why has it been so largely misunderstood and misapplied in our nation’s foreign language classrooms over the past 20 years?
Of 100 teachers trained in the approach over the years, it is accurate to say that 99 of them do not implement it in their classrooms. This is not due to any failure in the method or in the teachers. Rather, it is a result of insufficient training.
The training piece is the big piece, really. I am struck by the amount of teachers who think that a kind of minimal reading in the PLC, or a conference every few years, etc. are enough to master this approach to teaching languages. It’s not that way. There are so many new things that we have to learn if we are to be effective in our approach to comprehensible input.
We must work and communicate and be aggressive in unlearning all that we think teaching a language entails; all that focusing on lists and filling in blanks or exposing the kids to questionable comprehensible input (submersion vs. immersion, too much speed, too many new words, not personalizing, etc.) doesn’t work anymore.
It is not easy to make this change. So much is new. We now know that languages are learned unconsciously by focusing on the message and not the words, which changes everything and requires a kind of focus on training that many are not willing to do.
Read here more. Ask more questions. If you are a lurker here, lurk less, and know that we are all just flying by the seat of our pants. Plan on going to all the trainings nationally and regionally that you can. Find a TPRS/CI teacher whose blog you resonate with and read it more and communicate with them.
You will find that most experienced teachers with TPRS merely want to share what they have learned on their own arduous journey to good teaching, and are not making any great claims to be great experts at this or anything. We must keep that attitude going of working together for the common good.
Be more aggressive. Make this approach work for you students. They are worth it.