Welcome to The Comprehensible Classroom

I became a better teacher when I stopped teaching grammar at the beginning of a unit. My students were happier. I was happier. And their results improved. That one shift changed everything about how I thought about languages teaching.

It started with a name some young graduates kept pushing on me: Gianfranco Conti. I was curious but sceptical, the way teachers often are when someone claims there is a better way. But the more I read, the more I recognised something. Here was an approach, Extensive Processing Instruction, that addressed everything I was seeing in my classroom: disengagement, uneven access to the work, shrinking post-compulsory classes.

What followed was five years of real, messy, rewarding whole-school change. None of it would have happened without my colleague and partner in the work, Ellie, who pushed relentlessly for excellence and is equally responsible for what we built. We started with one Year 7 class and developed a sequenced EPI curriculum across Years 7 to 9. In 2023, 47 students chose languages into Year 10. By 2025, that number was 120.

If you are here for EPI, MARSEARS and Conti-style teaching, you are in the right place.

Sarah Milthorpe, Founder,
The Comprehensible Classroom