Teaching with TPRS is a fantastic experience, but also a challenging one. Knowing how experience moulds our brains, you'd think TPRS teachers have some quite special brains in there. We took a closer look and found a series of special features of the TPRS teacher's brain :-)
1. A well-developed empathic system and strong social intelligence wiring. If not already socially sensitive by themselves, TPRS teachers are also trained to be very much aware of student's experiences and wellbeing in the classroom.
2. A very active language system, for at least two languages, creating a stronger, faster brain than those of non-bilinguals.
3. Creative left- and right hemispheres. Not only are TPRS-teachers always thinking up new stories and finding ways to use fun props, we also have to think on their feet when developing a story in the classroom and incorporating student's ideas in the story. This improvisation skill is sometimes called "the essence of creativity".
4. A strong courage center, because every single TPRS teacher has shown they can overcome fear of failing, fear of trying something new and fear of being different.
5. A firm perseverance region, because we all know it takes time, patience and a lot of practice to learn how to do TPRS well, and we need to overcome many stumbling blocks.
6. Many active regions for humour, as we're always looking for possible running gags, twists and unexpected details.
7. A limbic system filled with love. Love for the language, love for our students, love for our profession and love for TPRS, because teaching our students a beautiful language through TPRS can be so fulfilling and give us so much joy. And also: love for ourselves, because we are the ones doing all of this.
So, if you ever feel tired after a long day's teaching... now you know why ;-)
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by Kirstin Plante
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