It's Official - TriState TCI is a Group!

Since I started teaching with Comprehensible Input, I've discovered a close-knit but far-flung peer group of dedicated CI language educators. Many of us are the only CI teachers in our buildings, schools, or even districts. For a while, I felt like the only CI teacher in Pennsylvania - or the TriState region! 

That was what motivated four area CI teachers, of three different languages, at three different levels, in four schools, in three states, to form a peer learning network: TriState TCI. Our group has been active for two years and has gained a life of its own, becoming a recognized community of professionals learning and growing together. We are our own institution.

So, where once our ideological isolation made it tough to take advantage of group discounts offered for conferences and workshops, we now have acknowledged group status. Lucky for us, the CI world operates in a spirit of generosity and collegiality that transcends school walls and district boundaries. Thanks to that spirit, here are the group incentives that conference and workshop organizers have made available to members of TriState TCI who want to attend training this summer:

June 27-29 Express Fluency Teacher Training, Burlington, VT
The June training features Mandarin, French, and Spanish classes supplemented by teacher workshops. Register by May 1st and save $30! Group discount $30 off per person for groups of 3+. Register here.

July 4-29, STARTALK/Confucius Institute TPRS Training for Chinese Teachers, U of Hawaii
Information here: http://confuciusinstitutehawaii.org/programs/summer-programs/teacher-sports-camp-info/

July 12-14: Teach for June summer workshops: Immediate Immersion & Power Grading,
in Sandy Creek, NY.

Scott Benedict writes: Generally we offer a $30 discount per person for 3 to 5 registrations and $60 per person for 6 or more. If you have a group registering together, email me at scott@teachforjune.com to get the discount code. Please include information about everyone in your group along with their emails.

Register here.

July 16-18: FluencyFast language classes just before iFLT in Chattanooga, TN.

Karen Rowan writes: It's $100 off for anyone attending iFLT or $200 off 2 classes. (Give or take a dollar. I'm rounding.) I'll extend that same rate to anyone who is just attending Fluency Fast classes as a group. Register online here, for classes in French and Spanish, and here, for classes in Mandarin.

July 18-22, TPRS Academy Summer Intensive 5-Day training, near Amsterdam, Netherlands

Kirstin Plante writes: Receive a DISCOUNT of €75 if you register for both this course and the Agen workshop! (See below for details about Agen, July 25-30). Information here.

July 19-23 iFLT week-long training conference, in Chattanooga, TN

Carol Gaab at iFLT has also offered us a group discount. Mary Grigonis Greenfield has generously offered to be the point person to work out logistics of handling a group registration. Any current Tristate members may message Mary on FaceBook or email her here to form a TriState TCI group at iFLT in July. Pricing and registration information here.

July 25-29: NTPRS week-long training conference, in Reno, NV

Jody Klopp writes: You will be able to register as a group for the TriState TCI peer network. On the registration page, indicate that your group is TriState TCI. On the payment page, type the appropriate discount code shown below:

3 - 5 registrations from same school district (or group) - $30 per person discount

(Use discount code DISTRICT3)

6 or more registrations from same school district (or group) - $50 per person discount

(Use discount code DISTRICT6)

Register here.

July 25-30: TPRS® Agen, week-long training conference, in Agen, France

Judith Dubois writes:

The Agen Workshop will give a reduction of 10% to groups of 3 or more that register together.

Register here.

August 11-12 or 13-15 Express Fluency Teacher Training, Burlington, VT

This August training(s) feature Latin, Spanish and French classes combined with teacher workshops. Register by May 1st and save $30. Group discount $30 off per person for groups of 3+. Register here.

How did I get where I am now?

Since I left my teaching job in June, 2014, I've had a few teacher friends ask me what helped me make the decision to quit. Here's what I tell them:

I had what many would consider a perfect job, as a PK-5 Spanish teacher in a private Quaker school with small classes, supportive parents, and a lot of caring, creative colleagues. My blessing and my challenge for 12 years was that I was the only language teacher in the building and the only elementary teacher in the language program. I had discovered this wonderful approach to language teaching and acquisition called TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) and was excited to share it with other language teachers. Yet some days I felt like nobody in my building (including the administrators who evaluated my teaching, planned my schedule, and chose what parents and prospective families should see when they visited the school) had a clear idea about the value of what I was doing, and few colleagues in the MS and HS language department considered what I was doing relevant to their rigorous, textbook-based, “communicative” immersion classrooms. I desperately wanted someone to bounce ideas around with— another teacher as passionate about teaching with comprehensible input as I was— and there was no one in the school who met that need. 

Along the way, both of my sons were culled out of HS Spanish due to their inability to perform at expected levels of proficiency. This despite the fact that they were both born in Peru and highly motivated to learn their natal language, just not good candidates for the grammar-based submersion they were subjected to. That broke my heart.

What finally made up my mind was a new principal who came in with tons of exciting ideas but little experience working with a faculty through a Quaker process of discernment and consensus. Where once our close-knit faculty had worked together to come to agreement about what was best for our students, now the school's administrators were working behind the scenes to implement programs and policies without our input. It didn't necessarily affect my language classroom, but it affected the atmosphere in the school and eroded the camaraderie and sense of shared purpose we had built over many years of working together.

Meanwhile, I was finding shared purpose outside the walls of my school, having a blast working with area TPRS-teachers, Lori Belinsky (then teaching French at Christiana HS in DE), La Sripanawongsa (teaching MS Mandarin at Penn Charter), and Carol Hill (teaching HS French at Bishop Eustace Prep, in NJ). Together we had founded a Peer Learning Network for like-minded Comprehensible Input-based teachers in the Philadelphia area—TriState TCI. We meet once a month with a growing community of interested teachers who are energized and inspired by our meetings and eager to learn and share ideas.

I was invited as an intern to coach at NTPRS (the National TPRS conference), so I decided I’d be fine if I left my job and worked towards building an independent career in teaching and training. I had run a freelance business when my kids were young and I was confident I could get something going again, eventually.

A year and a half later, I have finally narrowed down to some promising possibilities involving teacher training/coaching as well as staying in teaching via adult classes and one-on-one lessons. I spent a year doing a lot of things I didn’t want to— subbing and tutoring at my old school, teaching a night class for way too little money— and have learned from that what I don’t want to do moving forward.

I haven’t earned a salary during that entire time, but have been able to tap into savings to tide us over. An executive coach friend who is guiding me in this transition made it very clear that I needed to find a way for money not to be an issue so I could focus on finding my passion. That really helped.

I have not regretted making the decision to step away from my job. Not for a second. It helps that my husband is a university professor with excellent benefits. The loss of my own financial security weighs on me less when I am doing what I love— working with language teachers and language learners to help them find success. 

In December I took advantage of an exciting opportunity to attend a License Prep course in the Netherlands, which prepared me to open a TPRS Teacher Training center in the U.S. This step takes me ever closer to making a living while pursuing my passion. 

In the meantime, I am thankful to have been available to my family in this past year, as we’ve suffered a bunch of unpredictable setbacks with health, accidents, and legal difficulties. All is well, but it’s been wonderful to spend a day each week with my aging parents, to be able to meet my son at his lawyer’s office, or my husband or my dad at the doctor’s office, or give a ride to the auto body shop, or wait for the llama vet, when needed.

The story's not finished, but I feel like we're just getting to the good part! Stay tuned...

Making Every Minute Count with Comprehensible Input

Last Saturday I presented at my first PA State Modern Languages Association conference. Co-presenter Lori Belinsky (CI-based French teacher at Garnet Valley, PA Middle School) and I shared the philosophical foundations of our teaching (drawn from Krashen, Ray, Gross, Gaab, Boulanger, Hedstrom, Whaley, deMado, van Patten, among others), then gave several examples of communicative or grammar-based activities that could be reconditioned to meet four qualifications:

1. Is it comprehensible?
2. Is it compelling?
3. Is it repetitive?
4. Does it allow all students to participate at their comfort level?

Here's a link to our Prezi.

Here's the Greetings and Feelings song Lori adapted to French from Laurie Clarcq's Spanish version.

Here are some of the elements we shared for a CI unit on El día de los muertos:

Martina Bex's Strip Bingo story.

Día de los muertos animated video short on YouTube.

Tumba, by Mira Canion. (novel, Teacher’s manual, audio CD)

Here are links to learn more about Teaching with Comprehensible Input and TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling):

How can I continue building my CI skills?

If you live in the Philadelphia TriState area, please join our monthly meetings to learn and share ideas about teaching world languages through storytelling and comprehensible input. Join our FaceBook group (TriState TCI) to stay in touch, or email me through this blog to be put on our mailing list.

TriState TCI: How can I continue building my CI skills?

TriState TCI is a network for teachers in the Philadelphia TriState area who are exploring the potential of Teaching with Comprehensible Input and TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling). We meet monthly throughout the school year, usually on the third Friday of the month. We also have a FaceBook Group (TriState TCI) where we share ideas regularly. Please join us!

How can I continue building my CI skills?

1.    Attend a Conference or Workshop. Look for trainings at:

TPRS Academy (Europe and elsewhere, upon demand)
Blaine Ray Workshops (USA and elsewhere, upon demand)
TPRS Publishing/Fluency Matters (USA, online, and elsewhere, upon demand)
Fluency Fast (USA, online, and elsewhere, upon demand)
Express Fluency (USA)
Immediate Immersion / Teach for June (USA and online)
TPRS of NJ (northern NJ and online)

2. Also, look for local trainings by:
    Michelle Kindt (Hershey, PA)
    TriState TCI (Philadelphia area)
    Altamira Language Learning (Philadelphia area)
    
3.     Get on the TriState TCI mailing list by emailing annyewing@altamira.org.

4.     Join the TriState TCI group on FaceBook.

5.     Join the moretprs listserv on Yahoo.

6.     Join the iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching group on FaceBook.
7.     Join the Elementary TPRS group on FaceBook.
8.     Join the ElementaryTPRS Google group forum.

Read TPRS colleagues' blogs: 
9.     like... Martina Bex's Comprehensible Classroom.
10.  Or… MicheleWhaley's MJ's Comprehensible Input: CI rubber meets the road.
11.  Or… Cynthia Hitz's Teaching Spanish w/ Comprehensible Input.
12.  Or… Chris Stoltz's T.P.R.S. Q&A.
13.  Or… Mike Coxon's Optimizing Immersion.
14.  Or... Laurie Clarcq at Embedded Reading and Hearts for Teaching.
15.  Or… Bryce Hedstrom at BryceHedstrom.com.
16.  Or… Ben Slavic at BenSlavic.com.
17.  Or… Scott Benedict at Teach for June.
18. Or... Grant Boulanger at Teaching With CI 
19. Or... Justin Slocum-Bailey at Indwelling Language
20. Or... Carrie Toth at Somewhere to Share
21. Or... Diane Neubauer and Haiyun Lu at Ignite Chinese
22. Or... Robert Harrell at Compelling Input
23. Or... Judy DuBois at TPRS Witch

      All of the above blogs and links will lead you to more links to more and more amazing shared ideas.

24.  Follow TCI/TPRSers on Twitter and look for these hashtags: #TriStateTCI, #TPRS, #TCI, #NTPRS, #iFLT, #LangChat (weekly Twitter exchange at 8:00 p.m. Thursdays).
25. Listen to Bill VanPatten's TeaWithBVP podcast, Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. ET

TriState TCI: How can I continue building my CI skills?

TriState TCI is a network for teachers in the Philadelphia TriState area who are exploring the potential of Teaching with Comprehensible Input and TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling). We meet monthly throughout the school year, usually on the third Friday of the month. We also have a FaceBook Group (TriState TCI) where we share ideas regularly. Please join us!

How can I continue building my CI skills?

1.    Attend a Conference or Workshop. Look for trainings at:

TPRS Academy (Europe and elsewhere, upon demand)
Blaine Ray Workshops (USA and elsewhere, upon demand)
TPRS Publishing/Fluency Matters (USA, online, and elsewhere, upon demand)
Fluency Fast (USA, online, and elsewhere, upon demand)
Express Fluency (USA)
Immediate Immersion / Teach for June (USA and online)
TPRS of NJ (northern NJ and online)

2. Also, look for local trainings by:
    Michelle Kindt (Hershey, PA)
    TriState TCI (Philadelphia area)
    Altamira Language Learning (Philadelphia area)
    
3.     Get on the TriState TCI mailing list by emailing annyewing@altamira.org.

4.     Join the TriState TCI group on FaceBook.

5.     Join the moretprs listserv on Yahoo.

6.     Join the iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching group on FaceBook.
7.     Join the Elementary TPRS group on FaceBook.
8.     Join the ElementaryTPRS Google group forum.

Read TPRS colleagues' blogs: 
9.     like... Martina Bex's Comprehensible Classroom.
10.  Or… MicheleWhaley's MJ's Comprehensible Input: CI rubber meets the road.
11.  Or… Cynthia Hitz's Teaching Spanish w/ Comprehensible Input.
12.  Or… Chris Stoltz's T.P.R.S. Q&A.
13.  Or… Mike Coxon's Optimizing Immersion.
14.  Or... Laurie Clarcq at Embedded Reading and Hearts for Teaching.
15.  Or… Bryce Hedstrom at BryceHedstrom.com.
16.  Or… Ben Slavic at BenSlavic.com.
17.  Or… Scott Benedict at Teach for June.
18. Or... Grant Boulanger at Teaching With CI 
19. Or... Justin Slocum-Bailey at Indwelling Language
20. Or... Carrie Toth at Somewhere to Share
21. Or... Diane Neubauer and Haiyun Lu at Ignite Chinese
22. Or... Robert Harrell at Compelling Input
23. Or... Judy DuBois at TPRS Witch

      All of the above blogs and links will lead you to more links to more and more amazing shared ideas.

24.  Follow TCI/TPRSers on Twitter and look for these hashtags: #TriStateTCI, #TPRS, #TCI, #NTPRS, #iFLT, #LangChat (weekly Twitter exchange at 8:00 p.m. Thursdays).
25. Listen to Bill VanPatten's TeaWithBVP podcast, Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. ET

Reading Tumba with 5th Grade

Tumba, by Mira Canion, is the first ever TPRS novel I've used as a FLES teacher. I am reading it with my 5th grade classes. Up till now, we've built stories and I've typed them up and we've read those, but we've never read a published novel. So I decided to try Mira Canion's new novel Tumba, starting in the first week of October as we lead up to the Day of the Dead. The classroom set of Tumba books has been sitting on a table just inside the door to my classroom for a few weeks. Everyone who walks in and out pauses to peruse the colorful cover with its creepy skeleton and marigold-bedecked tomb. But when I announced to my 5th graders that we were actually going to read it, they were stunned. "In Spanish?" they asked in disbelief. "Well, yeah," I responded. "But how will we understand it?" they moaned in despair. "You'll understand it." I assured them. They did not look convinced.

When we cracked the covers last week, it was one of the most exciting classes I've ever had. Mind you, these are students who have been exposed to Spanish twice a week for 30-40 minutes, some of them since Kindergarten, and some even less. Three of them were new students who had had no Spanish at all. As I read the first paragraph aloud to them and they followed along in their books, I could see them one by one glancing up at me in joyful amazement. "I understand this!" they were telling me, either out loud or with their eyes. We translated, we looked for cognates, we continued. They read with a partner and reported back what they had understood. I did a couple of grammar pop-ups. (How can you tell Alex is a boy and not a girl? because he's "nervioso" not "nerviosa" one or two students noted with confidence). "Oh yeah," the others concurred. We've started using journals to recap what's happened in each section we read (in English, for now, but I think we can do it in Spanish before long), list cognates and 'nuevas palabras'. When we broke out the journals this week, one student cried out "Oh yay, we get to draw!" I hadn't even thought of that in connection with this novel, but it would be fun to do that too.

So yeah, I definitely recommend Mira's novice novels. Having worked with her this past summer to translate Agentes secretos from Spanish to French, I have tremendous appreciation for what goes into making a novel comprehensible to the most novice of novices. Mira kept saying, "I want students to be able to read this in their first month of learning French." What might seem boring and repetitive to a native speaker or seasoned upper level teacher is not at all boring to a novice, especially when the content is as compelling and fun as Mira's novels. What I'm seeing in my 5th graders is sheer joy of reading something they are excited about, which is accessible enough for them to forge forward to see what happens next. In the language of my elementary school reading teacher colleagues, they are reading at the "just right level".

My challenge is to keep myself from making it too much of a chore by going all teacherly on them. I need to harness their enthusiasm, while still making sure everyone is understanding and no one is left behind. I need to make opportunities for circling and PQA without losing the momentum of the story. Suggestions and guidance are most welcome. I'm a total newbie at this approach to the 'R' of TPRS, but I am loving it. I'm looking forward to some of the ACTFL sessions on reading, in hopes there will be some FLES-appropriate tips there too. And I can't wait to dive into the many other novice novels I have on my shelves with even younger students. Any recommendations for 3rd or 4th grade?

The Art of Possibility – The Third Practice: Giving an A

The Art of Possibility – 3
The Third Practice: Giving an A

In this practice, the authors suggest that we give all of our students an A at the outset– “the only grade that will put them at ease, not as a measurement tool, but as an assessment to open them up to possibility.” The only requirement the author makes is that his students write him a letter dated the following May in which they tell the story of what they will have become by then, to explain the grade of A. He explains that Giving the A “allows the teacher to line up with her students to produce the outcome, rather than lining up with the standards against these students.” (p. 33)

What a great way to describe what we do in our classrooms! We line up with our students in pursuit of an outcome. We are a team, a partnership.

I don’t grade my elementary school students, so for me “Giving an A” is metaphorical. Giving an A “invents and recognizes a universal desire in people to contribute to others.” So, in my classroom, I need to help invent roles for my students that allow them to feel they are making an important, perhaps unique, contribution. Ben Slavic’s classroom jobs do this. Gerry’s fictional attributions do this.

We all have tales of one difficult student, and how everything changed when that student was given a specific job, role, distinction, identity, attribute, or recognition. Sometimes we have to search for the right way to Give the A, but once we’ve given it– metaphorically– our students become precisely who we want to have in our classrooms.