- TPRS/CI is a student-driven methodology. It responds to the linguistic needs of the students at any given time. This makes it free-flowing. Free flowing is a good word to apply to a language curriculum. It’s not a math curriculum and thus left brain/dominant. It is a whole brain curriculum.
- TPRS/CI believes that we should shelter (limit) vocabulary but not grammar. We use grammar naturally. A an actual and real definition of grammar is “properly spoken speech” or “properly written language”.
- TPRS/CI believes that linguistic features are acquired in a natural order and that the brain cannot be forced to acquire a feature out of sequence or before it is ready. This is a scathing indictment of traditional language teaching.
- TPRS/CI believes that each learner acquires knowledge at his/her own pace – that no two students are at the same point in their learning experience at the same time. This is also scathing indictment of traditional language teaching.
- In TPRS/CI we believe that student output cannot be forced. Students need hundreds if not thousands of hours of comprehensible input before they are ready for unrehearsed, spontaneous output. Much like a baby hears his/her first language for thousands of hours before being able to produce meaningful language. We believe that activities practicing output before students have reached this point is counter-productive and leads only to short-term learning goals, not to long-term acquisition.
- TPRS/CI adheres to the Monitor Theory – we believe that direct instruction of grammatical rules in not helpful until upper levels of instruction, after students have acquired these grammatical features through context. At such a time students can use the analytical rules to polish their understanding, and to become truly literate in the language. Prior to this, too much focus on the rules inhibits student production and acquisition – students focus on rules rather than meaning.
- TPRS/CI believes that language instruction should be practical and focused on communication in areas that currently interest students. To me that means student- generated topics based on images that they create.
vs.
- The traditional Pacing Guide assumes that instruction and pacing are based on the curriculum, that they are not student-driven. This leads to a curriculum that is not responsive to student needs and interests.
- The Pacing Guide does not shelter vocabulary. It shelters grammar (properly spoken speech). Students are expected to learn copious amounts of vocabulary for each chapter. Yet, students are exposed to one discrete feature of grammar at a time. The memorization of vocabulary has even crept into the CI world, with disastrous results.
- By sheltering grammar, the Pacing Guide does not honor Krashen’s Natural Order of Acquisition hypothesis. It does not provide adequate exposure to late-acquired features early on and expects mastery of some late-acquired features in beginning stages.
- The Pacing Guide exists to make learning uniform across the district. Every student in the district is expected to learn the same material at the same time. That is not how people acquire.
- The Pacing Guide and accompanying benchmark exams are filled with output-oriented activities. The philosophy is that practice with output rather than time of input produces accurate spontaneous output in students. This is patently false.
- The Pacing Guide, benchmark exams, and department teachers assume direct instruction in grammatical rules. They assume that students will know technical terminology and will be able to discuss the grammatical features in a metacognitive fashion.
- The Pacing Guide etc. assumes that language acquisition is an academic activity that will result in preparation for college and perhaps eventual communication in the language. Areas that currently interest students are not covered if they do not fit into the long-term goals of academic study.
An analogy:
In a way, the pacing guide is like the old practice in manufacturing of ordering and stockpiling a bunch of materials on a rigid and pre-set schedule – it might sit there for a long time without being used. TPRS/CI is like the more modern practice of ordering “on demand”. As something is needed, it is ordered and used. The second way is simpler, more efficient, more natural and more economical. The pacing guide is an attempt to recreate the old style factory production line. Why try to do that when factories don’t even do it anymore – at least the ones that aren’t shut down!
It is no wonder that students find much of their school experience boring, irrelevant, mystifying and unengaging; it is almost diametrically opposed to how they learn on their own. Early 20th-century methods in a 21st-century world leave everyone behind.
You may want to use this article with skeptical colleagues. It’s less stressful than actually talking to them.
*Of course, this article refers also to the term “syllabus”, which is usually taken from the table of contents of the language textbook and is basically the same thing as a pacing guide. I’ll never forget how in so many in-services over the years I have found myself in a roomful of teachers who spent the day just copying the table of contents of their textbook when called to create their department’s syllabus for the year. That’s not a syllabus, at least in terms of what the research says. But who cares about the research, right? Most language teachers are busy designing instruction that makes things easy for them. Heaven forbid they ever think about designing instructional approaches that actually reach kids.