It works!! Success of TCI/TPRS

I just finished my second semester of a purely (attempted) Comprehensible Input and TPRS class! It's been a struggle, especially being the only teacher in my district to embrace this method fully.  But as I was grading final exams on Tuesday, I jumped for joy and ran around to share a student's work with other teachers.  I had my "a-ha!" moment, my "maybe there's something to this" moment, my "it works!" moment.  I couldn't be more proud of one particular young man's journey into learning Spanish.

I had this young man in the fall of 2014 in my new course "Spanish Language and Culture" which was designed as a 2 year course, taught through TCI/TPRS so that students who would not be successful in a "traditional textbook driven class" would have a chance to be successful learning a language.  My class was filled with students who had learning disabilities- mainly language based- as well as behaviorally challenged students, who had failed the textbook driven class.  This particular student, we'll call him by his chosen Spanish name- Miguel, came to my class with no prior experience.  He had recently suffered from a brain tumor and it left him with short term memory loss.  He wanted to take Spanish, even though he would have a terrible time trying to memorize vocabulary, verb endings, etc.  His special education contact recommended my new course and he signed up.

Miguel did very well in that course, retaining words/phrases throughout the semester, even though he daily had to ask me where he sat, who is partner was, and what class he had after mine.  Miguel ended the course with an 85 average.  That course ended in January 2015.  Miguel did not have Spanish class in the Spring of 2015, and then obviously not over the summer.  He showed up in my Spanish 2 class this past fall (2015).  (Unfortunately, my Spanish Language and Culture 2 year course was not continued, but my admin worked to get all of my students into a Spanish 2 class with me as their teacher).

Now Miguel was in a Spanish 2 class with 20 other students from textbook driven classrooms.  He was actually the only one with a TCI/TPRS background.  Within the first week I could see that he had retained most of our target structures from the previous fall.  I was impressed.  But the real "A-Ha!" moment came at the end of the semester-- Miguel's final exam.  I've posted a picture below, and a link to a PDF here.

This short story may not be super complex and the sentences are short.  But, he has only 2 errors, used complete sentences, used vocabulary from September 2014 (as well as new structures from this semester), and told a very creative story! I would actually say that this was the best story I read while grading final exams, even better than the girl who used complex compound sentences.

It brought tears to my eyes to see what this young man accomplished, even when he wasn't supposed to be able to.  I truly believe this story shows the effectiveness of the TCI/TPRS method.