Bryan seems to have put his finger on exactly where TPRS is these days, in my opinion:
“I’ve been thinking about how circling as it is usually taught (at least to beginning TPRSers) really is so unnatural, particularly when the goal is to get a student (or even an entire class) to remember a particular chunk of the language. Sure, we want students to comprehend what we’re saying, but if that particular chunk of language is truly that important it should come up again naturally in other contexts and at other times. If it is that high frequency, then it will be repeated. Plus, we need to be casting a language net relatively far and wide (while always focusing on keeping it comprehensible) if we want students to be able to access the language they need next.
“Perhaps the focus on mass repetitions for classical TPRS beginner students is that we are trying to speed up a process that can’t really be sped up. Also, if it is too repetitive then students (and the teacher) will just check out, and that can hardly be the best use of our time. It needs to be personal and/or compelling (or at least interesting) otherwise why would someone want to pay attention to it? (Unless we’re forcing them to…) I’ve never actually even used the counters because it just seems so contrived and unnatural to do. It’s not like you would pull out a counter with your son or daughter as they’re learning a language.”