In a comment here today, Greg wrote:
“When asked, a major TPRS trainer said earlier this year in a presentation that they only do oral TPRS stories until November, then they start on novels.
“So that’s August, September, October of oral stories (3 months)
and November, December, January, Februrary, March, April, May (7 months) of reading novels.
“My question is- why are conferences spending so much time doing demos of the TPRS storyasking if that is only 3/10’s of what they do? I mean I get it that the storyasking can help teachers develop foundational skills of circling and establishing meaning, but I think a lot of teachers walk out of these conferences literally thinking that TPRS teachers do oral stories every waking minute of their classes. Hey if you could do it, more power to you. It’s super-enjoyable when it works correctly. It’s just not true that TPRS teachers do oral stories daily, nor is it sustainable for most.
“I think that Ben has really hit on something with exposing the unsustainability of doing traditional TPRS story-asks every day. It’s something that is not talked about in the conferences. Also- of COURSE demos in conferences will go well- you have a whole crowd of adult language educators.
“To me, a traditional TPRS story is an advanced skill, not something that teachers should be attempting after one 3 day or even week long conference.”
My response could be five thousand words long. I will keep it simple. Greg is right. Reading class sets of novels is a problem that drags many CI classes down and the teacher doesn’t even know it. I won’t go into that – too big a topic – but it is all about the equity piece and building community, which cannot be done when some kids can perform and read at high levels and some can’t. Let’s leave that powder keg alone.
Greg’s point about conferences giving the impression to new teachers – who are already completely overwhelmed – that we do stories all the time is also poignant and finds the mark. How indeed can a new teacher go back to their classroom after a conference and make stories work? They can’t. It’s impossible.
It took me 8 years to make stories work after my first Susan Gross workshop in 2001. And I almost quit many times out of frustration. But I’m a Taurus and could never dream of going back to the 24 years of failure to reach and retain through four years my incoming 9th graders up to the AP level ever year. So much pressure for so long! So I made TPRS work. But the cult of stories and class reading of novels that I learned at the conferences was a bitch. So I ended up taking the Tina Train to a new land. And never looked back.
Greg has amazing insights and I am so glad that he shares them with us here. What he wrote above is nothing short of genius level insight. And it’s all very innocent. He is not attacking anybody, just asking questions that no one has yet asked. Here is my favorite sentence from Greg’s comment, well worth repeating:
“To me, a traditional TPRS story is an advanced skill, not something that teachers should be attempting after one 3 day or even week long conference.”