TPRS Training, Tips, and Strategies

Michele wrote:

Maybe all TPRS classes are more similar than they are different.

It made me think that, in a CI/Krashen department, if my bike or car had a flat and I couldn’t get to work on time, I could call one of my team members, and they would teach my class, and I could teach one of theirs later in the day. The kids wouldn’t lose any instructional time.

Plus, it would be fun for the kids to speak French with someone else. I would feel very close to my colleague, too, as we shared our teaching and our students and developed kind of a big open door community.

The kids would think kind of like, “Who’s teaching us today? They would learn to respect our differences, and we theirs, and there would be kind of a big team feeling to the whole thing. We wouldn’t need to think any more in terms of who teaches what level - we could just share, always working for the best outcomes for the kids.

This is part of a greater discussion of doing away with levels of language instruction altogether, in the interests of aligning with the new standards that, if they are not in your state yet, are certainly not too far away on a posse of fast horses.

But if my colleague didn’t do CI, and, rather, just talked in English about the language, then, I can understand, the person wouldn’t feel comfortable going in there with my kids. There would be a feeling of closed doors and mistrust. The kids would be the ultimate losers of this mistrust between the teachers.

I mean, I could teach the non-CI class. I just wouldn’t want to, because the kids would probably know that I did CI and want to hear some of the language they are studying in more than just a perfunctory way.

On the other hand, if my non-CI colleague (25% or less target language used in the classroom) were to come in and try to work with my kids in their area of strength, about three of them would be into it. The rest wouldn’t care.

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We had a minor argument a few months ago about assessment - whether it should evaluate participation or not. I would like to say that I am moving more and more in the direction of doing that, of holding my kids more socially responsible, and tying their grade more to what I see in their eyes, and less what I see coming out of their pencils.

I know many teachers don’t feel that way, but I do. Language is an intensely social thing, and, with the machines now taking over for real, maybe we who espouse the idea of CI can work against the dehumanization of our society by holding the kids responsible for how they sit and and interact with us in our classes.

For me now, it is about 70% participation rubric (not the self evaluation which I use less now) and 30% how they do on the quick quizzes. No long term testing at all. Long term testing sucks. It destroys their good will. And I’ve dropped the Thematic Units except for AP track kids and others who want to do it as extra credit.

[OT note: the blog entries I am receiving as emails are stacking up and jamming things up. So they are in queue, but I can't just blog ten a day or we wouldn't have time to read all of them. Just FYI].

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Student Generated Stories, a.k.a. Skeleton Stories (first term is mine, second is Michele’s) have really been getting some practice by some of us these past few weeks. I have already stated how they seem to take the pressure off of regular stories (although I will always do those as well because they are just plain fun). Below, Laurie gives a report on how they worked for her this week. Laurie I am sure I am speaking for others in registering appreciation of the details of how the week unfolded, as it makes it easier for us to grasp:

What a week!

I’ve had so much fun.  You are right Michele…getting the seeds of a story from the kids is very powerful.  I feel like I have more material than I can squeeze into a week!! 

On Thursday I gave the phrases just about to start, without rest, and had the desire to my first period class.  Here is what they came up with:

Athletes have the desire to record a “We Are The World” song to raise money.  They are just about to start to sing when some of the athletes, who practice without rest, keep throwing a ball and won’t stop. (this is working out great…I’ll share the final version)

[ed. question: Laurie, could you expand on why you think the script above is working so well? The first thing I noticed in that one was how tight it was, with practically no extra words except the target words all neatly tied up in a bow. Did that help, do you think?]

Dora and Diego are practicing without rest to run in a race.  They have the desire to win the race.  They were so busy practicing that they didn’t notice that the race was about to start.

Sean has the desire to win the baseball game.  He practices without rest.  When it is his turn to bat he is so tired that he cannot hang on to the bat. His turn at bat is just about to start.  He swings and cannot hold on to the bat.  It flies out of his hands and….

Kora and Mike have the desire to get an A on their school project.  Mike wants to work without rest.  Every time they are just about to start working, Brittney wants to do something else.

Sam is a famous model.  All of the photographers have the desire to take her picture.  She is in Brazil.  They are just about to start a session, but there is a problem.  All of the photographers are staring at her beauty without rest.  They do not want to pick up their cameras.

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So on Friday, I chose the one about the athletes to “story-ask” first period.  Without any inner pressure (theirs or mine!!) to “get somewhere” with the story….we were able to use the phrases all kinds of ways!!  I’m working on the embedded reading for this one based on what we put together in just 10 minutes!

Third period I found out that the story about Sean and the baseball bat turned out to be semi-true.  In 7th grade a student let go of his bat and nearly knocked out an umpire!!  This kid is not in this class, and because I have a strict rule about “gossip”, they knew that we would create a new character and just utilize this great piece of drama to get a fantastic, but different, story.

In the fifth period class, I handed over the race story…but told them “two characters” instead of Dora and Diego so that they could create their own spin on it.  It WAS OUTSTANDING!!!!  I blogged it.  I had to share it! Now we are on a serious Star Wars roll with that.  Amazing!!

I’ve also been taking on Ben’s challenge of upping the amount of Spanish in class.  It is really working.  It is pushing them through the “I can’t” barrier.  With love.  They trust that I have a good idea of what they can and can’t do…even when they don’t.  They trust that I will not embarrass them.  I am finding that trust more and more important.

It is the approach that makes the difference.  It is still, and even more, about them.  The story ideas?  From them.  The details?  From them.  The ability to communicate in Spanish.  Because I know THEY CAN DO IT.  Not because the curriculum/test says that we should.  That slight shift is inspiring.

Thank you thank you thank you!!!
with love,
Laurie

[ed. note: I would also add here that all you have to do is click on Laurie's link to the right here - "Other TPRS Blogs" - to keep up with Laurie's and others' thoughts that are not being blogged here. Actually, I would urge anyone following the skeleton story/embedded readings thread here to go to her blog right now and read the recent posts there. Gold Mine City.]

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Ben:

Your recent comments about the hit and miss nature of TPRS, depending on moods and relationships, was really encouraging.  I have had some fun conversations with students the last month… the Olympics, the Superbowl, and the phrase “what are you going to do this weekend?” were really fun with various classes. 

I found a little trick on that last one for playing the game.  I asked my students what *I* was going to do on Monday.  They said go to school, eat.  It was really easy for me to completely deny those things as ridiculous because we were talking about me. Nobody got offended or confused.  And it was totally believable. (Sometimes it’s not so easy when it’s about them… that’s one of the missing pieces for me.)

I just kept asking “what else?” until they said I was going skydiving. Then I asked them what they were going to do on the weekend.  They were a lot freer and more playful about the whole thing. 

Even my class who’s least likely to bring themselves into class… it turned into so much TPRS fun.  I was going swimming with the dolphins off the gulf of mexico.  And so was J, just the weekend before.  She was going to go with D, but he wouldn’t swim there because the water was dirty.  He was digging to China that weekend because he likes fortune cookies. As we fished for why J was swimming with the dolphins, we found out that she wasn’t trying to catch penguins, but S was, to make them to fly.  She thinks every bird has the right to fly.  S is one of the least likely to involve herself, so this was highly encouraging!

Thanks again for your seemingly tireless commitment to students and teacher training.  I am ever thankful for your gift of starting good conversations on important topics related to teaching language.

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What Should We Say In Job Interviews?

I got this excellent question from a young Denver area teacher - please answer below in the comment section if you have any ideas that might help.

Hi Ben!

A year or so ago, I was doing my student teaching and had heard a lot about TPRS and came to one of your presentations with your students at your school.  So cool!  I bought one of your books and I am reading it currently (PQA in a Wink!).  After my student teaching, I spent my last semester abroad in Brazil learning more Portuguese (I am licensed to teach Spanish, however). 

I am currently working in  a middle school as the Native Language Tutor (supporting ESL students in their core classes), but am applying for jobs as a Spanish teacher in Colorado (Boulder, Jeffco, Adams 12, St. Vrain, Denver, surrounding area). 

When I do get a job, I optimally would love to launch into TPRS teaching, but I wanted your recommendation on what you think for a first year teacher teaching TPRS. I know some schools are for it, some are vehemently against it. Do you have a recommendation for what a good way would be to ease into TPRS teaching methodology so as a first year teacher I can make some kind of transition?  What, in general, should I expect if I talk about it in interviews?  I want to make it accessible to people who might be hiring me, but not have it be threatening to their school’s expectations of a traditional language class. 

Thanks for your input and response, it is truly appreciated!

My response: I don’t know what to say about your question. Some of us just fly our freak flag and others are cautious. If I were you I would be cautious. There are a lot of people with experience in schools who, at the first whisper of the term, get really weird. The term TPRS has just been so misrepresented! So sad, and yet very very true. And it is getting worse as at least nine of ten teachers do the method without a clue of how far what they are doing is from Krashen and Blaine’s original vision. I don’t think that a day goes by that somebody is turned off to the term TPRS, and for no other reason than because somebody in their building is shredding it. Why is that? Who knows? But, pretty soon, within a year possibly, the term won’t mean anything. (I could be way off the mark on this - I hope I am - but all I ever see now is one person doing actual TPRS in their rooms and like fifty doing a truly mangled version of it. How can we blame our colleagues for putting up a red flag when they see this? I would! I know of one case where a teacher claimed to do TPRS but spoke the target language maybe 15% of the time. What are people to think when that happens? So I wouldn’t mention it. I would use the term “comprehension based methods”, or something like that. Tell them you teach for acquisition, that you want to communicate in the target language with your students. Give them a demo right there! Have them fill out a Circling with Balls card and do that (see this site/resources/workshop handouts). Stay in L2 and have fun with them and watch yourself get offered a contract. A few summers ago, I did that with the Adams 14 superintendent (wasn’t applying for a job, he was just curious) and it worked, but then the people working for him crushed it in that district). But show them, don’t just tell them, that you don’t SPEAK ABOUT the language in the classroom; you SPEAK the language. If you know that the department you are wanting to join is open and aware to the new Colorado standards (Dec. ‘09), search a little on my blog and look for them and make sure you talk about them in the interview and how “comprehension based teaching” perfectly aligns with the standards. If the principal seems even half conscious of our new standards (some actually are!) then you definitely want to tell her that her department will be aligning more and more with them if you are hired. Feel lucky to be in Colorado, because most people doing comprehension based teaching can only say that they align with the national (ACTFL) standards, because most states are still driving covered wagons on that deal. I will put your question on the blog for the experts, but that is my general feeling on this topic.

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