Kate+Hunt+Bio

Kate Hunt
 During the first 13 years of teaching I moved through all levels of Spanish (I-AP) at the high school level in the Plymouth-Canton school district. I was a successful teacher. My students from level 3 on spoke only Spanish in class due to a reward-based participation grade. Almost all of my AP students did well on the test. Most students enjoyed my class and learned Spanish well enough to pass tests and speak it outside of class. One student in my 3rd year level translated for a doctor trying to explain to a Spanish speaker about her daughter’s health when an official translator did not show up at the hospital she was visiting. By accident, I found out later that at least two students went on to be a Spanish teachers. Clearly, it wasn’t because of me or my style of teaching since they never contacted me to let me know!

Other teachers in my department weeded out students that didn’t perform well, letting them know that foreign languages aren’t for everyone and that their time would be spent better in another class. Once, I tried it. I took the kids who weren’t working into the hallway. Although I couldn’t force myself to say that not everyone can learn a foreign language, I did say that not everyone can learn a foreign language in the classroom and that they would be more successful if they went to another subject. To make me feel better, I added that they would have to go to a country to learn the language. Wow! Class was so much easer after those few left, but my heart was broken.

My reason behind being a teacher was to inspire students to believe that they could be bilingual and that it was worthwhile, even fun. I am the only bilingual person in my family in generations. If I could do it, so could they! Students just needed to be inspired, get through classes and go abroad to learn like I did.

I was so dissatisfied that I decided to try TPR. I mean really try TPR. No English. Only kinisthetic and auditory input. My experiment, thrilling as it was, only lasted 40 days. In the end the students didn’t want to do anymore commands. Most did well on aural tests, but didn’t know exactly what the commands meant in English and were bothered by not knowing. They had no connection to the spelling, so I had to teach most all over again. Since I did the classic form they mostly heard Uds. commands, not a high frequency form. TPR was obviously powerful however, I couldn’t get it to work so I explored the Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) method.

After a week long class in French in Naperville (about 15 hours) I could understand, speak, read and write more French than I believed possible. The story method had me totally engaged at all times. Constantly, I found myself trying to make the story funnier. It was a blast! The teacher, Donna Tatum-Johns, convinced me to go to the National Convention the following year because it had even more to offer than just a one teacher/one language week course.

I’ve been going ever since.

My school is a unique sitaution as there are 12 Spanish teachers in between three high schools all on one campus-- 6000+ students that walk in between schools every hour. As I was the only teacher at the campus who wanted to teach Spanish in the method, a pilot course was started where I taught all the students all years who were in the method. Blaine Ray suggested that multi-level classes would be his prefered way to teach any language. One can pick up so much from being with more advanced students if the input is made comprehensible. Also, stopping to do pop-up grammar for the lower level students helps to reinforce the rules to the advanced students and help their accuracy in writing and speaking.

For the last 5 years I have been running the multi-level class. After much thought and research, I decided to divide the multi-level into two groups: 2/3 and 3/4/5. The Spanish 1s I taught separately. The program has grown to the point that I have to turn away students. In those years, 6 students have taken the AP test. Two received a 2 (one was a 4th year student and the other had been book trained for 3 years), two received a 3 (one was a 3rd year student who also received a 3 on her English AP test); two received a 4 (one had been in my TPRS method for 4 years the other almost dropped out of Spanish Senior year, but was encouraged to take the “Story-based method” of TPRS. Both are minoring in Spanish at the University of Michigan.)

TPRS is an art. Practice and the materials make the artist. And just like art, it is evolving. The road has not been always smooth, but my students are happy to still talk to me in Spanish even if they stop taking it. One even wrote from Argentina after 4 years of not doing anything with her Spanish to tell me that she was impressed how well she could communicate after all those years. Better than the other students who had the same time lapse. Aquiring vs. learning. Long term memory vs. short.

As for me, I have reached more students. More students believe in their ability to become bilingual. What more could I ask for?