So it is said A LOT at staff meetings, professional development sessions, workshops and conference galore that teachers are the WORST students…well, after school today from 3:30 to 4:30 in my classroom I witnessed the exact opposite!
I taught a one hour TPRS Spanish lesson to about ten of my colleagues. Yes, after a long school day, TEN of my fellow teachers agreed to come and learn Spanish with me! That is amazing in itself! We will have class each Wednesday from 3:30 to 4:30 until the end of the school year. One of my colleagues even stated before we began class, “You know Lauren, teachers are the worst students!” Well not today! I am sooooo accustomed to teaching children each day. I teach them vocabulary, we learn it in context with some physical responses and then tell stories, read and play games. It is a routine that every single one of my students is so accustomed to because they meet me when they are five and leave me when they are fourteen. Learning Spanish through this crazy TPRS method is just what we do. It is their normal. It is Spanish class. They know no different. My students are engaged, they are learning, they are fun and it is very enjoyable for me and usually for them too (I think.) I enjoy myself each day as I teach Kindergarten – 8th grade, but today teaching adults was a completely different sense of enjoyment!
These teachers I taught today were THE BEST students in my opinion! I had so much fun! I gave everyone a TPRS reading and acitivity book called Cuéntame más from TPRS Publishing Inc. I explained a bit about how TPRS works and then I taught them the first vocabulary set. What a difference it makes when “your students” really want to be there and be learning what they are learning. What a difference when you’ve chosen to be learning what you’re learning. They were asking such insightful questions. They were asking about verb forms, how to conjugate things and the origin of the words. They were so interested in getting the words just right and writing down any extra words I threw into our story. Oh my gosh! What a great experience! By the end of class, my ten students had listened and understood two mini-stories in Spanish, they read a story and completed a true/false activity ALL in Spanish. I am so grateful for this opportunity to teach a group of adults something that I can so easily and so enjoyably share with them.
I can’t wait for our next class! I learned today that the statement, “teachers are the worst students” is so not true! And the idea of getting my real students interested and engaged in the learning we are doing was definitely reinforced. It is essential.
I am going to film our classes from now on so that people can see how great our classes are and then maybe others can learn along with us if I post the videos here.
Be the change... 