From the Inbox— What's your story?

Dear Reader,

What's your CI story?

I'll tell you mine.

I was hired a month after 9/11 (I was working for United Airlines at the time). I had no teaching experience. I hadn't even started the teaching program!

I was hired under an emergency permit to teach two level 2 Spanish classes. No one else wanted the job because there were no benefits for only teaching two classes.

I was supposed to observe for a week before actually teaching. They said they would continue with the sub that was already in there until the next week.

I observed my first day and during lunch on my second day, they said they didn't get a sub and I would be teaching in 15 minutes. WHAT?!!! I didn't even have a copy of the textbook yet!

I walked into class that afternoon a totally scared rabbit. Do you know how I know that? My student, Bevan, told me so a few years later! LOL

I had no idea what I was doing and it showed. It was a train wreck, but I made it through and was just heading to the bathroom before my long commute home (I lived 45 minutes away in Los Angeles traffic), when my department chair found me and asked if I needed any help for tonight. For tonight? What was tonight? I had planned on going home and watching TV with my roommate. NOPE! It was Back-to-School Night and I had to be ready to talk to parents. I was told our parents were generally very involved, but because their children had a sub for the first month of school, they would be extra present. Mind you, I didn't even know what Back-to-School Night was!

Well, I made it through the night and through the rest of the week. But I sucked as a teacher. I tried teaching the way that my Spanish teacher had taught me eleven years prior (I started teaching when I was 30), but I could barely keep myself interested and awake let alone these 10th graders.

I knew I needed to do something so I searched the internet looking for ways to engage my students. Heck, that was one of my interview questions: "what does student engagement look like?" I'll tell you what it didn't look like. It didn't look like anything that was going on in my classroom.

Now my school sent me to some training called LA STARS in late fall of 2001. That's where I was introduced to TPRS. We really didn't get much hands-on instruction, it was more of an introduction, but I knew that's what I had to do.

During winter break I researched all I could find about TPRS. I joined the TPRS Yahoo! Listserve and bought all of Blaine Ray's "Look, I'm Talking" books. I even purchased some videos of Blaine teaching. I was determined to start TPRS in my classroom at the start of 2nd semester.

And that's what I did. Without any training, armed only with Blaine's books and videos, I looked at my textbook and started to TPR the chapter's vocabulary. And something changed.

My kids were actually engaged. Not just engaged, but actively engaged. They were eating it up. And so was I. I fell in love with TPRS and have never looked back. It was a lot different then than it is today, but the principles are still there.

If it weren't for TPRS and comprehensible input, I would be a teacher still today. Now over 20 years later, my students and I have had a ton of success and there's no job better than this one (yes, even after the COVID years).

So what's your CI story? I want to know how you got involved in CI instruction. Reply to this email and share your story!

I hope to hear from you soon!