Why You Should Consider Attending NTPRS or IFLT in 2020

NOTE - I am only addressing NTPRS and IFLT in this blog post, because those are the two weeklong conferences which I have attended and on which I can speak from personal experience. Any omission of other weeklong CI conferences should not be taken personally and does not reflect my feelings for or against them. If you would like to write a guest blog post about another weeklong CI conference such as Agen or Express Fluency, contact me.

Although summer is now over and school is back in session, I write this blog post to challenge you to consider attending a conference like NTPRS or IFLT in the summer of 2020. If you have never attended weeklong CI conferences before, you will not be disappointed in what they have to offer. This is not to say that one cannot learn from a 1-2-day regional conference like TCI Maine, Mitten CI, or CIMidwest. Receive CI training wherever you can and as often as you can! And while online groups, professional learning communities/networks, and blogs are so important to the CI community, they can only go so far.

However, in my own experience, all I can say is that there is absolutely nothing like the weeklong concentration of being in a full CI training environment which you do not experience in a 1-2 day conference. I cannot explain what it is. Maybe because one has a week, there is more time to be immersed in a CI environment and to learn and to experience it all. Maybe because since pedagogically everyone there is on the same page, one is not constantly having to defend one's use of CI. Maybe it is the coaching sessions where one can be coached on a particular CI skill in a positive setting. Maybe a week gives participants time to ponder over, to process, and to experiment at a slower pace, since there is ample time to do so, as opposed to a single day at a training where everything is thrown at you at once. Maybe it is the overwhelming amount of practical sessions addressing CI implementation in the classroom. Maybe it is the tangible care and enthusiasm which the presenters, coaches, and leaders exhibit in creating such an accepting environment. Maybe because it is so much dang fun!

Although each summer I am a regular attendee at the American Classical League Summer Institute and as much as I look forward to the professional camaraderie of being with other Latin teachers from around the country, honestly, I cannot say that I walk away feeling pumped to return to my classroom when it is over like I do when I attend a NTPRS or IFLT. That is not to say that I do not enjoy attending the ACL Summer Institute, but the conference just has a different focus for me. I do appreciate though that the number of CI sessions at the ACL Summer Institute has increased each year and that we seem to have reached a critical mass in the CI movement in the Latin community.

This past July, I attended IFLT, and even though I was there wearing many different hats (sub-cohort leader, coach, and presenter), I got SO MUCH out of the conference! I cannot tell you how much I learned that I already have used in these past five weeks with students. If you have read my past few blog posts, they are all related to ideas which I learned at IFLT this summer. I attended a session where when the presenter saw me come in, she said, "Wow, what are you doing here? You know all of this." I responded, "That does not mean that there is still not more for me to learn." And yes, I walked away with so much from her presentation that I am now implementing in my classroom. Compared to the summer of 2018 where I did not attend a NTPRS or IFLT and felt "flat" entering the school year, this year already after five weeks with students, I am still SO pumped and jazzed to be in the classroom. IFLT so charged my CI batteries!

So which one is better: NTPRS or IFLT? I cannot answer that, because they are both different. In my opinion, one is not "better" than the other.

• NTPRS is five days, while IFLT is four days. 
• NTPRS is held in a hotel and has a more "conference" feel to it, while IFLT is held on a school campus.
• Both conferences offer tracks for their participants based on one's experience with CI.
• Both conferences offer coaching for their participants.
• IFLT offers language labs, where participants can observe master CI-teachers teaching a language class with actual students. In my opinion, this is where the magic happens. I could observe Linda Li forever work her magic in teaching Mandarin, and I would never get bored.
• NTPRS has organized nightly events, such as receptions, language-immersive dinners, and a talent show. This year, IFLT had one night session on Readers Theater, which was a blast!

The downside of attending a weeklong conference like NTPRS or IFLT is that it is not cheap when one starts to factor in the price for registration, travel, food, and lodging costs. That is why I encourage you start thinking now about attending. Find out if your school/district will pay for you to attend. Look into scholarship opportunities with your local/regional WL organizations. 

2020 dates for NTPRS and IFLT

• IFLT - July 14-17 in Southern California (yes, I know that it is rather vague at the moment, but I am assuming either in Los Angeles or Orange County)
• NTPRS - July 20-24 in Minneapolis 

So I encourage you to consider attending NTPRS or IFLT next summer. I have attended both conferences before. My blog posts on having attended each:

• NTPRS 2014
• IFLT 2016

I look forward to seeing you next summer at one of these conferences!

Latin at NTPRS 2015

If you have been reading my blog, you know that last summer I attended the National TPRS Conference (NTPRS) for the first time. Although I was the sole Latin teacher there, I still found the entire conference incredibly worthwhile. So I am excited to announce that at this summer's NTPRS, there will be FIVE Latin-specfic presentations. Justin Bailey, Bob Patrick and I will be presenting - below is a description of the five presentations:

Three Latin Lesson Plans with Compelling Comprehensible Input (Justin Slocum Bailey)
These entertaining lesson plans can be used with any curriculum to provide personalized CI with high-frequency structures and to spark scaffolded conversation. The plans are highly adaptable and can be used repeatedly with different content and at different levels. Examples are in Latin, but the lessons work in any language!

Legere et Loqui: How to generate compelling Latin conversations from any text (Justin Slocum Bailey)
Learn to create compelling conversation in Latin around a Latin text of any genre or level by crafting and asking personalized questions based on key structures and themes in the text. Practice using questions before, during, and after reading (viewing, listening) to increase both engagement and comprehensible repetition of structures.

Report from the Field: CI Latin From Start to Finish, and What About AP? (Bob Patrick)
This session demonstrates how Latin teachers in a metro Atlanta public school are creating a total CI program including what they do with AP Latin. The session provides practical suggestions and ready made materials for use in your Latin program including tips for beginning CI work in a traditional program.

Speak Comprehensibly from Day 1 (Keith Toda)
Now that you have experienced CI/TPRS here at NTPRS, come see how to put it all together for Day 1 of class. Though session examples will be given in Latin, everything can be transferred to your target language. Come learn some Latin, and see that it never was a dead language!

Detoxing from the Textbook (Keith Toda)
Want to take the full plunge into CI/TPRS but district/state standardized assessments holding you back? Want to move away from the textbook but unsure how to do it? This session will focus on a hybrid approach of using the textbook purely as a guide but still giving students the full benefits of a CI/TPRS curriculum.


If you are a Latin teacher interested in CI/TPRS, consider attending NTPRS in Reston, VA this summer. Also, Pedagogy Rusticatio will be attendng NTPRS, so there will be a number of Latin teachers there - I'm excited that there will be others in attendance!

Even if you do not teach Latin, you can still apply much from these sessions to your language. I look forward to seeing many folks at our presentations!

NTPRS 2014 Report (LONG)

This post is long, so take a seat if you wish to read this to the end...

I have returned from my first NTPRS (National Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) Conference in Chicago. I had a wonderful experience, and whew, my brain is absolutely full from everything which I learned. 

Quite honestly, I was kind of tentative about attending NTPRS, because although I use TPRS in my classroom, it is not my primary CI method of teaching, as I implement many other CI strategies/techniques as well; folks had cautioned me that NTPRS was directed specifically at TPRS and not other CI strategies. I had wanted to attend the iFLT Conference in Denver the week before, but it conflicted with SALVI's Pedagogy Rusticatio which I was attending, so I decided to attend NTPRS and to glean whatever I could for my TPRS usage. Wow, was I wrong! Yes, TPRS strategies were addressed, but that seemed to be only a part of the entire conference, as CI was the overall theme.

Now going into the conference, I had felt that I already possessed a pretty good knowledge about teaching CI, but gosh, this was like a full-week of graduate school on CI. I have a MUCH fuller and deeper view now on CI and how to use it more effectively in my classes. 

What I enjoyed most was how friendly everyone was but more importantly that I was with other world language teachers who shared the SAME pedagogical view as I did. I did not have to defend my use of CI/TPRS to anyone, because all of us were on the same page! I could openly discuss what I was doing in my classroom, ask others how to do something specific and encourage folks who were just beginning to use CI/TPRS.

I was surprised by how well run the conference was. Participants pre-self rated themselves based on their familiarity/usage of TPRS, so there were three tracks: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced - I was on the Advanced track. For the first three days, the morning/afternoon sessions were dedicated to one's particular track, and participants had the chance to learn and to be coached according to their levels. Following that, there were elective sessions which folks could attend based on specific CI topics. I will address much of what I learned in later posts, but here are the basics:

• Learning Japanese with Betsy Paskvan - My first day's morning/afternoon sessions were with Betsy, where she taught us Japanese using only CI. Because I am of Japanese descent, I think that most folks in my group (and the instructor too) thought that I already knew Japanese or at least some other Asian language, but the the truth is besides English, I can only speak Latin - I know absolutely no Japanese. In the beginning of Betsy's session, I was lost, because Japanese is such a technically specific language (Latin seems like a cakewalk compared to Japanese), and it took me awhile to get accustomed to the sounds of Japanese, but Betsy patiently brought us along slowly through LOTS of repetitions and of meaningful interactions with the language through listening, questioning and reading. Suddenly, somehow, during those 5 hours, it began to all click and by the end, I was able to speak Japanese (albeit it was limited) and to read/write Japanese (using English letters). It has been 5 days since I had that session, and I have still retained ALL of that Japanese, which I acquired subconsciously through CI. Because I got to experience learning another language via CI, now I know how my own students must feel and just how important it is that I implement these CI strategies both to aid in language acquisition and to keep the affective filter low. I want to move to Alaska so that i can learn more Japanese from Betsy!
• Session with Blaine and Von Ray - Wow, what could be better than 5 hours with the developer of TPRS and his son? Too much to discuss, so I'll leave that for a future post, but I have definitely added a lot more to my TPRS arsenal.
• Embedded Reading - I attended two elective sessions on Embedded Reading led by Laurie Clarcq and Michelle Whaley, the developers of this CI strategy. When I entered their first session, Laurie saw my nametag and immediately said to me, "Keith Toda, can I have permission to use your blog post about embedded reading on my website?" I was absolutely floored that Laurie even knew who I was; that she knew I had a blog post about embedded reading, which I had just written last week; and that she wanted to use it as a link on her blog! I was on Cloud Nine after that! Anyhow, I can listen to Laurie and Michelle present on embedded readings for hours, because first off, they are a hoot to see present in person but more importantly, this strategy addresses so many issues. Even Blaine Ray is a huge believer now in embedded readings! I do not know why English/Language Arts teachers do not use this strategy, since it addresses literacy.
• Research on TPRS - This was an important session to me, because as data now drives our schools, we as CI/TPRS need actual statistical results to validate our methodology; anecdotal evidence (such as student enthusiasm, fewer failures and higher student retention in the upper levels) is nice but that does not prove anything big picture. The presenter, who is a professor at North Indiana University, presented current statistical research which compared results of TPRS students vs. traditional-methods students on standardized language tests and how the TPRS students fared much better. Although this presenter only focused on TPRS and not on other CI strategies, the statistical data showed that this form of CI truly had an impact on learning.
• Reading Strategies with Carol Gaab - Wow, this 5-hour session alone was worth the price of the entire conference. I cannot put into words what I learned from Carol,  because she gave us all such a incredible treasure trove of CI reading strategies/techniques and presented it all with an incredible amount of energy, humor and humility. Carol had me fully engaged during those 5 hours. She gave us reading strategies using excerpts from her CI-based novel Brandon Brown Wants a Dog (which is actually written in Spanish), and now I want to learn Spanish, purely so that I can read that book - I have a bunch of theories about the plot and how it ends, but since I do not know enough Spanish, I cannot read it! Most importantly, Carol imparted the following gem of CI wisdom which has now become one of my CI mantras:

The brain craves NOVELTY - Comprehension/circling questions can get old REALLY fast for you and your students, so change it up with a new activity every two minutes or every 4th question 

The downside of the conference: While it was absolutely wonderful to be surrounded by fellow teachers who were also pursuing a deeper knowledge and practical application of CI, at times, I felt like a total minority/bastard child at the conference; I was the sole Latin teacher there, so in some ways, I never felt like I "fit in" when it came to specific language discussion/sessions. 

At the exhibitors' tables, all of the CI materials/readers were geared towards the modern languages - absolutely nothing for Latin. When I asked an exhibitor if there were future plans for any Latin materials, the person said, "Even if we were to publish readers in Latin, there just aren't enough Latin teachers out there using TPRS to make it cost effective." Well, buddy, maybe it is time for me to write some original TPRS readers in Latin and sell them myself!

So I write this not out of bitterness but more to say "Watch out, NTPRS. I plan to return next summer with a number of Latin teachers hungry for CI in tow, and we will make our presence known!" I really want there to be a Brandonus Fuscus Canem Vult novel! Any other Latin teachers want to join me next year ?