About Me…
I am a second year Spanish teacher in Macon, GA. I currently teach Spanish II and III in a Catholic high school. I learned how to use TPRS (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling) and other comprehensible input based approaches when I did my student teaching, and I loved it. I’m currently working hard developing my skills as a teacher with this approach to teaching world languages.
Here I am sharing my experiences. I’m no expert but maybe you can learn from my discoveries and mistakes. If you have some advice or you liked something I said, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
- Stephen
Some other sites that I think are definitely worth checking out:
Ben Slavic’s blog is very active with contributions from teachers all over the world. Ben has lots of good insights and also a knack for inspiring rich discussion.
Laurie Clarcq’s blog has very insightful and caring posts. She has creative ideas about teaching TPRS and also good encouragement and wisdom for teachers.
Thomas Young’s blog has a blog where he shares about his thoughts about his experiences as a foreign language teachers.
MoreTPRS.net is a place for teachers to find support from a huge network of world language teachers.
Hey there! I found your blog through Ben Slavic’s website. I’ve only read the most recent posts, but I think we have a lot in common. I’m a first-year Spanish teacher, too, trying to use TPRS. As the only foreign language teacher at my small rural school (near Chattanooga, TN), however, I lack peers to bounce ideas off or share frustrations. It’s good to know someone else out there is going through the same thing!
Thanks for saying hey Erin! I actually worked at a camp near Chattanooga all last summer, in Cloudland, GA. I made many trips up to Chattanooga.
I’ll send you an message from my e-mail account, and maybe if you are ever in Atlanta we could meet up for coffee or something.
Hi Stephen,
It is refreshing to read your thoughts. I am a new teacher, too, and I really like reading your discoveries. I hope to read more!
Keep it up,
Thomas
Hi, Stephen –
I found your blog when I was googling “Pirates who don’t do anything” for my sister who wants to rewrite the lyrics for a pirate spoof she’s doing this summer at music camp.
I have been hosting French students in my home for years now and I’ve found that watching movies – in English – really helps them learn the language, the accent, etc. It’s like fun programming direct into the brain.
I really think you need to get your projector up and working and show them some movies / youtube videos, whatever, in Spanish.
I noticed this technique first years ago when my husband and I watched Shogun on tv – after watching for a couple of hours, my husband and I could understand some of what was being said in Japanese – and we sometimes found ourselves answering each other in Japanese in our everyday conversation. It was really amazing!
Robin, thanks for the comment. The school installed a projector in my classroom at the beginning of the semester and I’ve shown lots of short films since then. I’m currently showing a movie, “Herencia,” but the hard part isn’t deciding to show such films but FINDING appropriate films to show.
Hi Stephen,
Keep on writing!
I made a Dutch TPRS blog “Alike in TPRS Wonderland”. Next week I’ll post there about the NTPRS ; I put a link to your blog on my blog. It would be nice if you’ll make a link to my blog as well (allthough it’s in Dutch) : http://alikestprsblog.wordpress.com/
BTW, will you be an the National? If yes, it would be nice to meet!
Best wishes, Alike Last