Kristin Archambault has been a French and Spanish educator for over twenty years. Her emphasis for fourteen of those years has been on teaching through TPRS strategies and encouraging other teachers to do the same.
She first learned about TPRS at a workshop conducted by Blaine Ray in 2006 – even going so far as to joke that she has been ‘Blaine-washed.’ TPRS now features prominently in her teaching because, as far as she is concerned, it is the best approach teachers can use to help students develop language proficiency.
As Vice President of the Rhode Island Foreign Language Association, Kristin often arranges and conducts professional development for Rhode Island teachers. Her hope is that those same teachers will seek out more information on TPRS, start using TPRS techniques with their students, and see the same amazing results in their classrooms as she has seen in hers. She also regularly attends workshops and conferences herself, such as the NTPRS conference in 2018, where she won a free day of training from Blaine Ray at her school in Mansfield, Connecticut. On the day Blaine visited, Kristin opened her classroom to other language teachers, who came to observe and learn about TPRS from its inventor along with her. You can read more about Kristin’s day with Blaine Ray on her WordPress blog, I Heart Input.
In 2019, Kristin started submitting articles in French and Spanish to TPRS Books, which resulted in the chance to adapt the teacher Simpli-Guide to the book Jean-Paul et ses bonnes idées from Spanish to French, available here now. She is now working to finish the Simpli-Guide for the sequel, Jean-Paul et ses bons amis, with the hopes that it will be available before the end of the year.
Kristin believes that it can be easy for language teachers to become complacent and stagnant over time. She thinks that effective teachers should strive to be life-long learners who push themselves to keep refining their classroom practice. And she says that with the many resources and trainings available both in person and online, TPRS Books is instrumental in helping teachers learn and grow.
Would you like to see a favorite TPRS teacher of yours highlighted? Email: craig@tprsbooks.com with your nomination!
