(Note: this post, though interesting to its writer, is probably too long to actually read.)
Yesterday in a comment here Diane Neubauer said this:
…It seems to me that among the TPRS and CI teaching community, there are people with various roles. Some are more like CI activists and mentors/trainers. Ex, I think Ben, especially able to remind us of the unconscious nature of language acquisition and the imperative to teach in a way that does not demean the students or deny their ability to acquire another language. I think Terry is another like that though with different emphases.
Others have a position allowing them to relate to those in the mainstream of teaching (ex, Carrie Toth, Martina Bex, I think of others). Those with more of that sphere of influence speak more carefully, maybe, and talk in language that the mainstream understand or could accept better. I don’t think it means a change of focus necessarily. Carol Gaab seems somehow to do both the activist and advocate side and yet have a voice with the mainstream….
At first this looked pretty true on the surface and I made a nice kumbaya comparison with us all floating down a river and ain’t it great that we all have various roles and all that (I was feeling very Kurt Vonnegut when I wrote that ).
But then I saw this from Diane as I looked back over what she wrote above:
…I don’t think it means a change of focus necessarily….
And I had to admit that it does for me. In my mind the fact that there is a group within the TPRS community that can be said to advocate for “mainstream” TPRS instruction does mean, in my mind, a change of focus in the TPRS community. A big one.
Because if everything in language acquisition is done when the learner is focused on the meaning and not the message, and that is the Dr. Krashen’s principle point in his Comprehensible Input Hypothesis, one that I personally find both critical and stunning, then there can be no “TPRS mainstream of teaching”.
When did this new kind of mainstream TPRS teaching appear? Where are its roots? Where is it going? How is it going to affect old-style TPRS? I wish I could answer those questions but I do not know anything about except that I believe from what I have read and heard from others, that it differs fundamentally from Krashen in that it involves a more conscious analysis of the language than the old form of TPRS, which strives for almost complete focus of the students’ minds on the message and not the vehicle for its delivery. I don’t think that this new style of TPRS is aligned with Susie Gross. The reader who disagrees on that point is asked to explain how and why, because I am trying to educate myself here.
The problem I see is that this new “mainstream TPRS” is now undermining the old kind of TPRS, but that may be a good thing. It is possible that this new kind of TPRS might allow the approach to actually work in schools by aligning TPRS instruction with school curricular models and departmental outcomes. It might even allow teachers to work in peace with their textbook-oriented colleagues by making common assessments work in their buildings. Thus current (and devastating to careers) departmental wars would be avoided, and teachers who are unsure about TPRS in general would get to have “lesson plans” in front of them. Thus things would be much better when, as we are finally learning, the old hippy kind of “just hanging out with the kids” TPRS just can no longer be stuffed into a classroom of unmotivated kids, insufficiently trained teachers, and insane teacher assessment models.
True, as implied above, this new kind of TPRS, which we might call “TPRS2”, might represent a watered down form of TPRS as it is presented by Ray, Gross and Krashen. But after twenty-five years it is certainly not much of a surprise that some teachers would start trying to corral the wild horse that TPRS really is and tame it and get it to obey more just to be able to keep their jobs in their schools. No blame there!
In truth the old kind of TPRS, which we might call “TPRS1”, has never rally worked in schools, not really. I know that because I just spent the last fifteen years trying to make it work. The horse is just too spirited. There are just too many stupid administrators, unmotivated kids, hostile colleagues and insufficient teacher training to make it work. TPRS2 may be the way to go now. It can’t be a surprise to anybody and we should thank Carrie Toth and Martina Bex and the others who have given us this new kind of TPRS, because TPRS2 does what the old kind of TPRS couldn’t do – align or at least try to align with ACTFL.
Why has TPRS1 even worked in schools this long? Well, the term “worked” is a relative term. Anything would work better than the old textbook schlock. We all know that because we have all been there and experienced it. But now that TPRS2 has flexed its muscle and is ready to possibly supplant TPRS1, it’s time for a big sigh of relief by the many including myself who have strived so valiantly to corral the fine TPRS1 stallion over these past twenty-five years to where we succeeded to a certain limited point but couldn’t quite get that fine horse, the Shadowfax of horses, to be fully tamed in the hostile environment of the school corral.
Now, lest we confuse the two kinds of TPRS that are out there now, I would like to offer four not-very-professional-nor-based-in-any-research hypotheses. We can read them and decide what TPRS “boat” we might want to ride on in our careers as TPRS/CI teachers. Pick the one that is best for you. If you pick TPRS1 (Ray, Gross) then you will have to continue to deal with hard-to-reach kids who don’t know how to be mentally present in a classroom with other people, hostile colleagues, ignorant administrators and angry parents (“How dare you make Johnny show up in your classroom as a human being? He’s going to college!”). If you pick TPRS2, however, your new lesson plans and your organized TPRS lessons that might better align with ACTFL will allow you to experience a much less hassled existence as a professional language teacher in schools, and you can work your way to the top of the Chutes and Ladders board with a lot less falls down the slides than those who choose to stay with TPRS1.
So we need to get on one of the two boats. It’s not possible to ride on two boats at the same time. The boat that Ray and Gross built, the SS TPRS1, which Blaine built consciously and purposefully while studying Krashen’s work, is fully based on the idea that learning a language is a fully unconscious process and so the teacher has to design lessons with that fact fully in mind all the time. The idea of output in the form of speaking and writing should really only appear at the third and fourth levels of study at the earliest. Those who want to avoid the task of keeping the students’ unconscious minds focused fully on the meaning of the language and not on the vehicle used to deliver it should probably get on the newly launched SS TPRS2 and be happy that the new strategies and lesson plans offered by Toth and Bex and others will sail much more smoothly and higher in the waters through the rough school seas of today.
Even though TPRS2 does not fully align enough with Krashen, it might be worth that loss, given that the old TPRS1 boat is now officially leaking and taking on water. (This last statement may draw the ire of some, but I only mean it in the sense that teachers are still having as hard a time making the old kind of TPRS work in their classrooms as they had twenty-five years ago due to the factors mentioned above. Even with its obvious limitations, TPRS1 is well received in schools simply because the old grammar system was just so pathetic that the echo of the loud sucking noise it made might possibly be heard on the other side of the moon as we speak.
So two kinds of TPRS have happened. It was unavoidable and there is nothing bad about this split. Teachers who in the past couldn’t make the old kind of TPRS work for them and yet who want to use TPRS because the alternatives no longer worked for them can now do so by purchasing or creating their own TPRS lesson plans and thus teach in a lot safer environment than before. People who would rather stick to the old model, which is a crazier class experience but offers advantages of its own if the right strategies are used in the right way, can do that. It all depends on how much the teacher wants to make her classroom into one in which the student is focused on the message all the time (the old kind of TPRS) with very little use of L1, or make it more like school and mix some conscious analysis into class (the new kind) with more use of L1 in class.
This dichotomy between TPRS1 and TPRS2 was actually acted out at a recent Maine conference when Carrie Toth was presenting on TPRS2 in one room and in the next room was Anne Matava presenting on TPRS1. The group was able to split up and attend the one they wanted to see. I won’t go into the details, because I wasn’t there and so I hope I even have this story right, but I bring it up here in order to show how great it is that we now are starting to see, in conferences, more choices in ways to do TPRS. This has been needed for a long time.
Again, the fact that there are now two TPRS boats floating around out there in the field of foreign language education should be a source of great comfort to those who have tried to make the old TPRS boat float (the one based fully on Krashen and the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis which states that the unconscious mind is fully in charge and that the conscious analytical faculty of the human brain has no business in the process of acquiring a language). Such teachers who couldn’t get the SS TPRS1 to float in their classrooms can’t be blamed. This new form of TPRS has the potential to do something wonderful for a tremendous amount of teachers.
But since two boats cannot have two captains nor two orchestras two maestros, it is perhaps wise that we point out in the future which form of TPRS we are talking about in trainings at summer conferences, online, in books and articles, etc.
Now, at this point, the Krashenistas who want to stay fully aligned with Krashen but who also like the feel of the much smoother ride in Boat 2 may be in opposition to my point here. They may suggest that their Boat 2 TPRS classes can be fully focused on the message and not on form/structure.
I say no to that. I don’t think that it is possible. I offer the four hypotheses below in defense of my position, to again focus the reader on the sobering and powerful fact that learning a language is a completely unconscious process and no amount of watering it down with a little focusing on form/structure by the conscious mind here, a pinch of grammar there, a smidgeon of some incomprehensible input there, and a soupcon of output there can qualify as Boat 1 teaching.
It’s one way or the other. If a teacher puts the focus on form, that’s not Krashen. We must not fudge on this point. Why? Because teachers as a general group are inveterate liars. Even Boat 1 teachers lie about how much they put the focus of their classes fully on meaning. If they are liars, then Boat 2 teachers cannot hope to convince people that they are fully aligned with Krashen.
One thing I know about language instruction, the true one thing that I really do know, is that most TPRS teachers do not know or appreciate the fact that when the conscious mind is involved in the learning process, nothing happens, there are no gains. Eric spoke to that here today, or yesterday, whenever that was.
So here are the hypotheses that I now offer to defend the fact that, where Boat 2 TPRS Teaching may work in schools better than Boat 1 TPRS Teaching, Boat 2 TPRS Teaching is not really TPRS teaching, it is “TPRS Teaching for Use in Schools”:
1. If language acquisition is an unconscious process in which the unconscious mind acquires by focusing solely on the meaning of the message and not on the words (that are merely the medium for the message), then focusing on output too early, which seems to be accepted in the greater TPRS community, is not possible and that classroom would have to receive the TPRS2 designation.
2. If language acquisition is an unconscious process in which the unconscious mind acquires by focusing solely on the meaning of the message and not on the words/structure of the language, then asking “TPRS” students to focus on the other C’s in the standards, especially the Culture standard, would automatically require the involvement of the conscious mind and so cannot be called TPRS1. Even if the culture lesson is based on a story that is written in the TL, when the ensuing discussion takes place in L1, then that classroom would have to receive the TPRS2 designation.
3. If language acquisition is an unconscious process in which the unconscious mind acquires by focusing solely on the meaning of the message and not on the words, then any focus on an IPA is not really TPRS, and so the classroom should receive the designation of “TPRS2”. (For more on the IPA topic: https://benslavic.com/blog/ipa/)
4. If language acquisition is an unconscious process in which the unconscious mind acquires by focusing solely on the meaning of the message and not on the words that are merely the medium for the message, then any classroom that is project based, hence requiring a lot of output and group work from the students, would receive the TPRS2 designation.
Skip Crosby has said, “I think my issue with ACTFL is that though they claim to espouse 90% CI – it seems that MOST everything else they espouse seems to detract from true TPRS.”
Skip also says, “I also secretly wonder if our definition of keeping the class 90% CI and ACTFL’s definition of keeping the class 90% CI differ.”
This is a key point. Skip is saying what we all know to be true – that very few so-called “TPRS” teachers actually even try to keep their classes at 90% CI and so those classrooms would have to receive the TPRS2 designation as well.
A fitting end to this lengthy ramble, which I wrote more for myself to help me define what is going on in my own head right now, would be to quote Skip Crosby again:
“Finally, what exactly does ACTFL gain by insisting on backwards design, early production, project and thematic based assessments, and the Connections, Communities and Cultures standards? Why can they not JUST focus on the proficiency piece and moving students along their well articulated proficiency scale?”
What do these comments by skip have to do with the overall point of this article? It is my view that teachers who espouse the new TPRS2 are trying hard to bring what they are doing into alignment with ACTFL. I don’t think it can be done due to my points above about the supreme role of the unconscious mind in second language acquisition, and skip’s points support mine.