TPRS in the Realm!

Teenagers have a natural interest in things medieval. It is possible to create a European realm from the fourteenth or fifteenth century as a setting for stories. The stories (called episodes in the Realm) combine over time to create a year long mega-story.

In this virtual community, students play static roles as kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, wizards, witches, court jesters, soldiers, blacksmiths, town criers, pigs, mules, and myriad other characters. This permits the development of personalities over time, resulting in much greater depth and interest in the class.

There is so much natural interest and student ownership in the Realm that the traditional three steps of TPRS are not necessary. Instead, meaning is established at the same time the story is asked and read.

Since they choose their own personas in the Realm, the students are heavily invested in the success of the stories, and their imaginations really take flight. The students’ desire to understand the target language is intense in the Realm because they really want to know what happens. The greatest prerequisite for language acquisition, meaningful input, is far more abundant in the episodes of the Realm than in stories.

In the Realm the slow circling of questions, which is the basic tool that makes TPRS work, seems effortless. And since there are no steps to worry about, the complexity normally associated with TPRS simply disappears. All that is needed is command of the most basic skills of TPRS, and an open mind and heart.

Being a static place, a tranche de vie in a section of France, the Realm has a much more natural feel than those started from scratch every day. The pressure to have a story script prepared for class disappears as well, replaced by massive suggestions from students whose intense participation, instead, drives story lines.

The development of personalities and recurring themes characteristic of village life over time add interest. Themes are usually humorous in nature, and each class develops an eye and ear for the bizarre. This is TPRS in its best, and most effortless, form.