I've decided not to try to do a Power point. It would probably bug anyway. I only have an hour, and I doubt that anyone has ever made the momentous decision of entirely changing the way they teach after an hour long talk. All I can do in an hour is spark their curiosity and point them towards online sites that can help them understand what TPRS is all about.
So I'm simply going to talk to the people who come to listen to me. There are six or seven speakers at the same time, so the competition is going to be stiff. I'm going to tell them a bit about me and my journey on the TPRS road. I thought I would assign tasks, as I would in a TPRS class. Ask someone to sketch scenes from my story, ask someone to count the number of times I say comprehensible input, assign barometers who are to signal when they don't understand.
And then I have this daring idea. I wanted to demonstrate with my son Daniel. He teaches Breton and I thought I could coach him through a lesson. But he can't make it, and everyone present speaks English and French, the only languages I speak fluently. I know, Carol Gaab learned enough Hebrew from her telephone answering machine to give her first workshop in Hebrew, but I'm not Carol Gaab. So I'm going to look for someone in the audience who speaks a little known language, maybe even Breton, and coach them through some PQA with "He has". I told Ben Slavic about my idea and he was too kind to say he thought I was crazy, but he did suggest that I just do it in English.
The problem is that everyone in the room will be an English teacher. So I'm going to try.
I've prepared a handout with TPRS sites and also some information about some of the people who practice TPRS in Europe. There are more than I thought.
Sites to visit:
Blaine Ray – The founder of the movement is still active, giving
workshops and mentoring. He can always
be picked out in a crowd. He’s the guy
in a shirt with palm trees and bright blue parrots. http://www.blaineraytprs.com/
Stephen Krashen His work on Comprehensible Input is the solid
foundation on which TPRS is built. www.sdkrashen.com
Susie Gross was one of the first to understand the importance of
Blaine Ray’s techniques. Her “influence on the current massive change in
foreign language education in the US cannot be overstated.” http://susangrosstprs.com/
Daily Kos - For an unbiased review of “the Green Bible.” http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/18/1066137/-Book-Review-Fluency-through-TPR-Storytelling
Laurie Clarq – An experienced teacher, workshop presenter and
frequent participant in moretprs discussions, Laurie is always able to embrace
two sides of an argument by seeing the hearts behind the words. She helped
develop the recent innovation in reading called “Embedded Reading” which is
explained on her site. http://blog.heartsforteaching.com/
Ben Slavic – My guru – Ben has a way of saying things that
resonates with me. His book TPRS in a Year helped me to see how all
the pieces fitted together. His web site has free resources and videos of him
in class. For the price of a monthly cup of coffee, it’s possible to
participate in his Professional Learning Community. The books can be downloaded. http://www.benslavic.com/
The American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages has taken the position that 90% of classroom speech
should be in the target language and suggests that TPRS is an effective way to
achieve this goal. *http://www.actfl.org/publications/the-language-educator/sample-articles
Karen Rowan manages Fluency Fast, TPRS courses for adults and helps edit The International Journal
of Foreign Language Teaching, which
often carries articles by Stephen Krashen and other big names in the TPRS
world. You can find her at www.TPRStories.com or www.fluencyfast.com . You can subscribe to the free online version of
IJFLT at www.tprstories.com/ijflt .
Carol Gaab is a spectacular demonstrator when she’s not publishing
material for teachers, writing readers for students or traveling to workshops
around the world. www.tprstorytelling.com
Jason Fritz is another early member of the TPRS adventure. He has taken the Reading in TPRS and made it
something exciting which he calls Reading Theater. www.comprehensibleinput.com . He founded the International
Forum on Language Teaching which is at www.iflt.org
Teri Wiechart is one of a group of TPRS teachers who have worked to
improve coaching at conferences and in the classroom. You can contact her to learn more about coaching at profdev@ofla-online.org or twiechart@hotmail.com .
Moretprs This is a yahoo group forum which began early in the millennium with a
handful of teachers who were trying TPRS and wanted to exchange ideas. There are now over 6000 followers and daily
digests. Blaine Ray, Susie Gross, Karen Rowan, Stephen Krashen and many other
well known names participate regularly in the discussions. Beginners often
describe their difficulties and ask for advice. Here is where information is
posted concerning workshops and National TPRS Conference. Go to www.yahoogroups.com and register to follow the discussions.
TPRS IN EUROPE
Great Britain –
Keith Rogers – a Latin and Ancient Greek teacher at Rochester Grammar School who uses TPRS and recently organised the first TPRS workshops (given by Blaine Ray) in the UK (see http://www.smore.com/rk54) which attracted 24 delegates. Keith has spoken on the principles of TPRS at various gatherings of Classical teachers (ROSA cluster group, Association of Latin Teachers Summer School, Joint Association of Classical Teachers INSET day, local feeder schools gathering, to student teachers on the King’s College teacher training course and at Septimana Latina (in Latin!)). He will be giving future talks to the Guildford Association of Classical Teachers and running an introduction to TPRS workshop at the Association of Latin Teachers summer school in 2013.
The Netherlands – Alike Last teaches French and does TPRS workshops for teachers.
Keith Rogers – a Latin and Ancient Greek teacher at Rochester Grammar School who uses TPRS and recently organised the first TPRS workshops (given by Blaine Ray) in the UK (see http://www.smore.com/rk54) which attracted 24 delegates. Keith has spoken on the principles of TPRS at various gatherings of Classical teachers (ROSA cluster group, Association of Latin Teachers Summer School, Joint Association of Classical Teachers INSET day, local feeder schools gathering, to student teachers on the King’s College teacher training course and at Septimana Latina (in Latin!)). He will be giving future talks to the Guildford Association of Classical Teachers and running an introduction to TPRS workshop at the Association of Latin Teachers summer school in 2013.
The Netherlands – Alike Last teaches French and does TPRS workshops for teachers.
Kirstin Plante and Iris Maas are both Spanish teachers, and the founders of
TPRS Nederland, a teacher training company for TPRS. Kirstin owns a language
institute near Amsterdam and teaches uniquely with TPRS. Iris works at a Hotel
Management School and uses TPRS wherever and whenever she can. Together they
give numerous workshops throughout the Netherlands and Europe, and they run a European
webshop for TPRS materials.
General website: www.tprsnederland.com (Dutch)
Shop: www.tprswebshop.com (people in France can order here as
well)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TPRSNederland (English
and Dutch)
twitter: Kirstin
Plante (English and Dutch)
Spain - Ignacio Almandoz gives private lessons in English and in Spanish. He says, “After 4 years, I'm
still excited about teaching with TPRS and learning through CI. (I'm
currently learning Russian, German, Portuguese and Italian) without studying
the grammar or doing exercises in the traditional way. So I'm trying all these
techniques and possibilities on myself. It helps me understand much better the
teaching and learning process. My own students are making me a better teacher
day after day.” You can contact Ignacio
by Skype at blueaspen or by e-mail at lamparamaravillosa@gmail.com.
Germany – Martin Anders teaches at Kaltenkirchen Waldorf School and has been using TPRS for four years. His site is at
http://tprs-for-germany.com/blog/?page_id=12
He says, “I am absolutely convinced that TPRS will be able to improve our teachingmethods, add interest and fun to our lessons and to improve language acquisition which – up to now – is quite mediocre.”
France Judith Logsdon-Dubois, professeur agrégé. I taught in a French lycée from 1995 to 2012. Before that I taught English in French-speaking Cameroon. I first heard of TPRS in 2006; I began using it the following year. Once I saw how effective it was, I could never go back. Today I give private lessons and train teachers. I have a poorly organized blog called Mrs. D's Funny Little Classroom - http://funnylittleclassroom.blogspot.fr To contact me: judyldubois@aol.com .
2 comments:
Best of Luck! This is what we need. I'm Charlotte from Germany and I have my pitch talk for language teachers in Bremen in February, but I have already done it once for my colleagues.
I hope you'll have plenty of motivated and open listeners, not the old critical type who get a heart attack when we say we'll only do 5% of grammar.
I'm back. I didn't have a big audience, about 20 people, though I handed out all 30 documents that I had prepared because some people couldn't make it but wanted a document. The people who came seemed attentive and interested. I would have given them at least a 4 on jGR. They asked good questions, I just wish we'd had more time to exchange. I started late because people didn't arrive on time and then went over and had to cut it off because another person wanted in the room. There were people from all over the world and only two of them had ever heard of TPRS before.
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