This post came through on a listserv and I thought it so interesting that the poster confidently states the teacher used tprs. On this listserv in the past, that alone would have attracted the ire of many listserv members, but I predict it will not elicit any ire, i.e. no one will take umbrage with a teacher using tprs, leaving the readers free to take in what that teacher accomplished. tprs purists may take umbrage with a few of the techniques mentioned, but that happens any time something takes off and becomes used generally. As I’ve said, I see tprs becoming the dominant paradigm in fl teaching over the next 20 years.
I was an advanced student in high school, and when my teacher caught me reading instead of paying attention, he started giving me books to read in Spanish. It wasn’t much, but I ate it up. If that teacher hadn’t done that, I probably wouldn’t be studying to be a Spanish teacher today.
As far as increasing the rigor of a whole course, one of the teachers I did practicum with decided that her first year curriculum didn’t move fast enough, so she decided to skip it. She teaches the most important vocabulary from the first year in the first 9 weeks of school. Then she moves on to the 2nd year curriculum. 2nd year curricula always review the material from the first year anyway, so she teaches everything from the first year, just accelerated. She uses a TPRS curriculum, and has verb conjugation charts that students get to use on the quizzes. Students aren’t required to memorize conjugations of anything outside of the third person singular and the infinitive the first year, but I most students had picked up the present tense conjugations pretty well anyway. So far they have learned to use present tense, imperfect, tu commands, and a little bit of subjunctive.