Am I too abrasive?

*Disclaimer*To be fair, no one has told me that I am a terrible teacher. Nevertheless I perceive that based on others' expectations in the classroom and what I do instead

I was reading this blog post today:
http://todallycomprehensiblelatin.blogspot.com/2016/04/one-step-at-time.html

And the following quote got me:

There are certain CI/TPRS teachers whom I will deliberately avoid in person or online purely because they come across as intolerant of anyone who supports traditional methodology or textbooks. Although I can understand their zeal, essentially I find them very negative, because there is no middle ground or transition in their worldview. 

Ouch. I've been wondering today if I am one of those people. Do I come off in my blog as the type who shames others for doing what they think is best? Or do I come off as someone who is simply sharing his own successes and failures from his own classes in case anyone is interested?

I guess I'm feeling sensitive because I often feel like I am on the receiving end (due to my own insecurities) and wonder if I am ever really doing what's best for my students by using stories, comprehensible input, and attempting to use the language in context in a repetitive yet fun manner to help get the language in my students' brains.* 

Yet they (my students) will most likely have another teacher sooner or later who will think that they don't know anything because they might not fill out a verb conjugation sheet, but when we are in class and I ask them questions, I can see the language working in their brains as they answer me to the best of their abilities (often times with circumlocution) in their level.  And we negotiate meaning!  

For example, today a Spanish 1 student came in after school and started the conversation by saying, "hola". We proceeded to have a chat for a few minutes completely in Spanish about his family, his parents, his plans for the summer, classes, friends graduating, job ideas, etc and while there were times that he wasn't 100% sure what I was saying, we negotiated and got through it. And it was completely communicative because I wasn't forcing his output, but just wanted to learn about him. I was just asking him about his life (while using words I knew that he would be familiar with or could deduce).

And I can't say in my first few years of teaching we could ever get past "¿Cómo estás?" without the student wanting to go into English.  

Sufficed to say, that's why I use TPRS and Comprehensible Input. And if a person is interested in trying them out, I would agree with the above mentioned blog post that you should take baby steps and see what happens! 

Who's reading?!

Evidently, people read my blog posts?

So if you're reading, please tell me "hi" and is my blog has been helpful or not below!

And for bonus points let me know what you would do in the classroom if you didn't have to worry about other teachers different pedagogical opinions, parents'/students'/others' misperceptions etc.


I'll start:

I find this blog a nice place to reflect on my teaching. It is nice to go back and see what I've said in the past about a unit.

For bonus points:
If I didn't have any constraints and could teach exactly how I would like:

I would do a lot of the things that I am doing, but make sure to emphasize stories, free voluntary reading more and be overall more relaxed in my classroom and less constantly having to "accomplish" so we could acquire the language more freely. ;-)

Ok, your turn! GO!

TPRS Year 4 - Block Scheduling...?

So I am going to be teaching at a school this year where they use block scheduling.  It alternates each day to the other set of classes.  So there are 4 classes (90 minutes) one day and the other set of 4 classes (90 minutes) the next.

I have only ever taught in my 7 years of teaching with 45-50 minute periods and I have (as you might imagine) gotten quite used to it.

What concerns me is that I will see my kids every other day and we might just have way too much time.

I'm sure there are TPRS & CI teachers out there who do this and find that 90 minutes isn't enough for them. But I would like to propose the question of those who do have this situation, what do you do for the first weeks?

I am thinking of the following in the 90 minutes for Spanish 1, with a slightly modified version for Spanish 2 (since we would have to review present tense anyway with them and the quality of input could be slightly higher based on their learning last year).

5 minutes - warm up
45-50 minutes: PQA (get to know you activity, 1-2 students per day) + short quiz over what we talked about
20-25 minutes: TPR (learning body parts; some commands; at most, 9 new words a day)
15-20 minutes: kindergarten reading / description of picture / extended PQA / basic movie-talk / kid's song

In the last section, I wasn't as sure since that's still a pretty good chunk of time.  I like the idea of more time for PQA but their attention might wane.  And TPR will get them moving for a little bit.

I would say for the first 1-2 weeks, I planned on having some basic books that I read over and over to them and told them how to play the game.  I have carpet so they could feasibly gather around me.

Of course, they might not be as comfortable with me yet to do that.

I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback as this whole block scheduling might push back our reading first semester if I can't find a way to effectively use the time for acquisition.

Does my "spanish boot camp" seem like too much?