I have been wrestling around with the non-targeted vs. targeted thing for years. There was a period around 2009 when it was a big topic in the TPRS community, but it seems to have faded and most people are targeting structures pretty regularly now, at least from what I can see currently over here in India.
So this week I asked both Dr. Krashen and Blaine to comment on the topic.
First, I asked Dr. Krashen to comment on whether this statement I had written was true or not:
…Dr. Krashen, of course, never stopped promoting non-targeted input over the years, but the TPRS community has largely ignored him on that point as they have on many others, preferring to invent their own versions of TPRS….
He replied:
…not quite. I think that many teachers simply can’t do non-targeted input because they are required to follow a grammatical syllabus….
Then I asked Blaine this question:
…Hey Blaine could you briefly comment on whether you target structures when doing a story? What you prefer to do in terms of targeting? Like in the 1990’s did you target anything before doing a story? I am interested in the progression of it over the years, if it changed or remained the same in your approach to teaching stories….
Blaine responded:
TPRS started with the idea of pre-teaching all vocabulary. As the stories got longer and the vocabulary got more advanced that became more and more of a problem. I remember spending 2 weeks pre-teaching vocabulary for a story. It was awful. The pre-teaching evolved more and more into teaching mini-stories. It turned out that teaching mini stories was the best use of time anyway.
We do put targeted structures in our materials because I don’t think teachers would even look at our stuff without. They are definitely as a group addicted to the idea of structures.
While I don’t know, I really don’t think they are needed. I have been teaching class all week and I don’t use structures. I look for break down and then practice the breakdown. So when I see breakdown, I then have a structure to work on. The structure comes from seeing where the student isn’t confident.
As long as teachers get the idea of teaching the frequency words, I see nothing wrong with using those verbs as curriculum. I think most teachers will teach better with structures.
I was in a class this week where the teacher was using the word “got stuck” in Spanish. At 2 other schools I asked the non native Spanish teachers if they knew the word. Not one of them did. I think working on any verb that isn’t pretty high up on the frequency list is not a very good use of time.
I do think that getting confident is a frequency verb means that the students are at least confident is the I, you, he/she form in the present tense.
This might have been more than you wanted. It is an interesting idea. Krashen is against structures and he very well may be right.
I replied to Blaine:
This describes exactly where I am with this right now and why I asked you. It is very heartening to hear you say this, as it means I’m on some kind of right track, if there is such a thing, right? This in particular really gets my mind straight on my question:
I really don’t think they are needed. I have been teaching class all week and I don’t use structures. I look for break down and then practice the breakdown. So when I see breakdown, I then have a structure to work on. The structure comes from seeing where the student isn’t confident.
I do think that what Blaine said here is most interesting:
… I think most teachers will teach better with structures….
Notice that he didn’t say that it is better to teach with structures, he just said that “most teachers” will teach better with structures….
I might add that as early as 2001 I could see how Blaine looked for breakdown. The topic of looking for breakdown is vastly under- discussed in our community, I believe. It really gets to the entire issue – the fact is that the conscious TPRS teacher who is aware of when her students break down can be said to not need to target or not target structures. They will be effective because they are teaching their students and being aware of what their students are experiencing as opposed to “teaching a structure” or not. I’ll leave all that alone but wanted to mention how much it meant to me to read what Blaine says about sensing where his students break down. It is such a key concept for me when discussing the process of teaching using CI, and something I am working very hard to improve on in my own classroom these days.
Note: There have been lots of articles on this subject here over the years if you just use the search bar, which is far more effective than using the categories.