Greg Stevens teaches Spanish in San Francisco, California. He is an AP Spanish teacher and a Comprehension-Based Methods coach for new foreign language teachers. His school district has officially adopted Blaine Ray’s “Look, I Can Talk” materials district-wide and are implementing Comprehension-Based Methods one level at a time in a pilot program.
After attending one workshop in San Francisco in 2005 with Karen Rowan, Greg began using the coaching chapter in Fluency Through TPR Storytelling to coach himself one skill at a time. At the National TPRS Conference in Vermont in 2006 his remarkable talent at Comprehension-Based Methods was so evident he was hired to work for Fluency Fast on the spot.
Greg now teaches our Advanced Spanish for non-native Spanish teachers class, our highest level of Spanish. The class is intended for Spanish teachers whose proficiency in Spanish does not yet allow them to teach third-, fourth- or AP-level classes. French teachers who are required to also teach Spanish but find their Spanish too rusty also benefit from the class. The class is taught at approximately the Spanish 4 or 5 level, using advanced structures, imperfect subjunctive, if clauses and present subjunctive in TPR Stories. Teachers acquire fluency in Spanish the same way their students do and are subsequently more confident in presenting advanced structures in their classes. This class includes extensive, high-frequency vocabulary, junk reading, discussion and stories, and is presented entirely in Spanish. Teachers also have access to free reading materials that they can check out throughout the class. Class contact time is approximately 15 hours; total time including outside work is approximately 30 hours.
Greg has also worked for Blaine Ray Workshops, Inc., as a coach and presenter. Greg will present Advanced Spanish for non-native Spanish teachers in July 2008 at the Denver Language Institute and at the TPRS® Pre-conference.