I haven’t yet met Chris personally but I can tell from our communication that he is a man on a mission. That is a good thing. During this past year he handled family responsibilities and professional duties and threw in a master’s thesis on top of that.
So he has asked us for some feedback on his thesis and deserves some response. I think that although it is awkward to load the forty pages up the PLC space here, there is every reason to do it, bc he wanted a response. Best thing is to read what you want, and respond in the comment fields with any thoughts, very informally. That is what he wants, I think.
So here is the first installment:
Roberts, Christopher Daniel, An output-focused approach and TPRS: A comparison of methodologies in the second language classroom. Master of Arts (Secondary Education), April 2013
This paper reports a study comparing an output-based approach to teaching a second language and TPRS, Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. Middle school students in a beginning Spanish course were divided into two groups, the output-focused group and the TPRS group. Instruction occurred for the entire school year using each respective approach to teaching. The
Introduction Problem
In our global economy in the 21st century, there is a growing need in the United States for citizens who are able to communicate in another language. There is an even greater need in the United States for people who speak Spanish. According to the US Census, in 2010 there were 37 million U.S. residents aged 5 and older who spoke Spanish at home. As a Spanish teacher, I often have parents tell me during open house nights that they want their children to learn Spanish and be able to use it in the future for communicative purposes. I often hear stories about where it would have been beneficial for people to have known how to speak Spanish at their job. In an increasingly diverse country and global economy, there will be more opportunities to use the Spanish language, along with economic incentives to retain it (Castro, 1997).
What this means is that it will be imperative that the teaching of Spanish, and other world languages, will be done in a manner that results in more acquisition of the language and increase students’ abilities to communicate in the target language. Statistics show that there are high drop-out rates and low fluency levels of students taking world languages in the United States (Marshall, 2007). In order to improve students’ communicative competence in another language, a grassroots movement of language teachers have changed their teaching methods and have begun teaching their respective language with a second language teaching method called Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling, or TPRS. However, this teacher-driven movement is small in comparison to the rest of the world language teaching profession and many language teachers question the effectiveness of the teaching method. On the other hand, some school districts, such as Denver Public Schools, have become districts that teach entirely using this method. The effectiveness of various second language teaching methods is often debated by language teachers and researchers. The most frequently debated methodologies that I have seen are comprehensible input-based methods such as TPRS and more traditional, output-based methods. In such debates teachers often are concerned with what “works”, what gives students some level of competence in the target language.
I have been to two TPRS workshops and I currently utilize this method in my Spanish classes. Because of the debate about the effectiveness of varying teaching methods, along with the fact that I utilize this method in my classes, I felt that it was necessary to conduct my own research to examine the effectiveness this method has on language acquisition in my students when compared to a more traditional, output-based approach to language teaching. The research problem is that there is much divisiveness in World Language departments in many school districts across the country. TPRS is a grassroots movement among language teachers. After being developed in the early 90s, it has gained in popularity among many world language teachers because of the results they have seen. However, the dominant school of thought in second language education has been the traditional, grammatical textbook-based approach to teaching. Most language teachers learned through that approach and believe that if it worked for them, then it works. TPRS has seen little support from textbook publishers and teacher training colleges. Many teachers publish their own materials, teaching manuals and reading materials. Training for TPRS consists primarily of privately run workshops rather than at academic institutions. Because of this, many teachers have neither heard of TPRS or simply do not believe in its effectiveness as a teaching method. Many teachers who do believe in the method are met with opposition within their departments which generally consist of teachers who prefer to teach with a traditional, output-based approach. What I have seen in the world language profession is two main schools of thought develop as to how teachers feel the best way to teach languages are. These two schools of thought that I will examine in this study are as follows:
1. Students learn language by memorizing and practicing words and phrases in simulated situations and memorizing, applying and practicing grammatical rules 2. Students acquire language by receiving comprehensible input through conversations and stories.
While there is much research that backs up the theoretical foundations of TPRS, there aren’t very many empirical studies that show that TPRS is an efficient teaching method. While there are a few studies that do conclude that TPRS is more efficient than traditional methods, the body of research is still generally low. Because of this, many teachers believe that the method works in theory, but is not realistic. What I would like to study is the effectiveness of comprehensible input-based teaching such as TPRS in comparison to the grammar and output-based approach to teaching on student performance.
Definitions Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. TPRS is a method of second-language teaching that uses highly-interactive stories to provide comprehensible input and create immersion in the classroom. (Blaine Ray Workshops, Inc., www.blaineraytprs.com).
TPRS is different from teaching methods seen in most world language classrooms. In most world language classrooms there is a focus on learning grammar rules, such as verb conjugations, memorizing vocabulary lists and forced output, meaning output and communication is seen as the goal as well as the means to that goal. With TPRS, the focus is on providing students with as much comprehensible input as possible. Comprehensible Input refers to auditory and written language which students can understand. The idea is that students acquire language when they understand messages, when they are focused on messages rather than the language. TPRS is based on the research done by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell which states that languages are acquired through comprehensible input. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis states that language acquisition “only occurs when learners receive an optimal quantity of comprehensible input that is…understandable using background knowledge, context, and other extra linguistic cues such as gesture” (Shrum & Glisan, 2005). Grammar is taught through meaning rather than through teaching grammar rules. The idea is for students to hear correct grammar in various contexts so much that they develop the ability to produce correct language because it sounds right, rather than having to think about the different grammar rules and then produce language.
Comprehensible Input-Based Teaching. When I use the term Comprehensible Input-based methods, what I am referring to are methods based on comprehensible input. Comprehensible Input-based methods are based on the Comprehension Hypothesis which states that language is acquired when it is understood (Krashen, 1981). When I refer to Comprehensible Input-based methods I refer to it with the definition give by Dziedzic in mind which defines this umbrella term as “a variety of methods including TPR, TPRS and Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)…..focuses on providing comprehensible input during 90% of class time” (Dziedzic, 2012, p. 4).
Traditional instruction. When I use terms such as “traditional instruction”, “traditional, output-based instruction”, I’m using these as blanket terms to describe an approach to teaching as described by Dziedzic as “grammar-based instruction that focuses on student output through cognitive exercises by breaking down the language and reproducing it in a structured setting. Traditional instruction focuses on teaching grammar rules and teaching basic vocabulary in a particular order, based on a progression from simple to complex” (Dziedzic, 2012). In a typical classroom that falls under this blanket term, one would see a variety of activities varying from vocabulary instruction, grammar rule instruction and activities in which students memorize and practice words and phrases in simulated situations where they apply the taught vocabulary as well as grammatical rules. It would be common to see information gap activities and other communicative partner activities that encourage oral output in the target language. This type of instruction also typically includes frequent vocabulary and grammar drill and practice, followed by frequent formal assessments such as quizzes or tests.
Literature review
Background and Theory
Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling is a foreign language teaching method derived from Dr. James Asher’s Total Physical Response (TPR) method of teaching languages. The basic principle behind TPR is that students can acquire a second language by responding to commands in the target language with movement i.e. “stand up slowly, run to the window, cry, put the apple on your head.” Blaine Ray, a Spanish teacher in California, used the TPR approach but realized that the students “were not always eager to stand up and sit down”. He struggled with finding ways to make it more interesting. He then resorted to handing out worksheets and switching from TPR to learning grammar. As this happened, “more students tuned out”. After reading The Natural Approach by Krashen and Terrell (1983), he decided to find a way to speak the language to his classes in a comprehensible way, so that his students would internalize it and gradually acquire grammatically accurate fluency. This is when Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS) was developed in the 1990s by Blaine Ray. Ray incorporated the concept of TPR and expanded the commands into short stories (Ray and Seely, 2012).
The method is founded on the language acquisition hypotheses of Stephen Krashen. Krashen has argued for decades that second language acquisition occurs through comprehensible input. Dr. Krashen’s Language Acquisition Hypotheses consist of five parts: the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the affective filter hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis and the natural order hypothesis (Krashen, 1981). Total Physical Response Storytelling was developed to align with Asher’s method of TPR and Krashen’s research on second language acquisition, primarily the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input hypothesis and the affective filter hypothesis. The acquisition learning-hypothesis says that language acquisition is an unconscious process that develops from input, while learning is a conscious process of learning about the rules of a language and memorizing the vocabulary of a language (Krashen and Terrell, 1983). In Fluency through TPR Storytelling, Ray states “language acquisition is not a conscious process. It is something that happens to a person. It happens when one understand messages” (Ray and Seely, 2012, p. 7). The input hypothesis, the second hypothesis on which TPRS is founded says that learners acquire language best when the input is slightly beyond their current competence, that is when learners are exposed to language that is comprehensible and contains “I + 1” (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Krashen says that “current language acquisition theory claims that we acquire language in only one way, when we understand messages, that is, when we obtain ‘comprehensible input.’ Thus, we acquire when we understand what people tell us or what we read, when we are absorbed in the message. More precisely, we acquire when we understand messages containing aspects of language that we are developmentally ready to acquire but have not yet acquired” (Krashen, 2013, p. 3). It is this “language that we are developmentally ready to acquire but have not yet acquired” that is i+1. The third hypothesis onto which TPRS is founded is the affective filter hypothesis. The ‘affective filter’ refers to a metaphorical barrier that prevents learners from acquiring language although comprehensible input is available (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). The affective filter can refer to feelings, motives, needs, attitudes or emotional states. If a learner is tense, anxious or bored, they may ‘filter out’ input, making it unavailable for acquisition (Lightbown & Spada). To combat the affective filter, according to Ray and Seely (2012), interest is increased in the classroom through use of humor, exaggeration, personalization, student actors and using unexpected and bizarre content in stories (pp. 16-17).
Over years of practice and collaboration among teachers, TPRS had undergone numerous significant developments. Between the years of 2002-2004, the method’s name had changed to “Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling” in order to more accurately describe what the method had evolved into. TPRS now consists of three steps. In step one, Establish Meaning, new vocabulary structures to be learned are explicitly taught using translation, gestures, and personalized questions. In step two, Story, these structures are used in a spoken class story. During the telling, or “asking”, of the story, actors dramatize the story and student are asked questions after each statement that is made and are asked to add interesting details to the story, hence the term “storyasking”. In step three, Literacy, the target structures are used in a class reading, either class story from step two in written form, or a completely new story using the same target structures (Gross, 2007 & Ray and Seely, 2010).
Throughout the three steps the teacher uses a number of teaching skills to help make the target structures comprehensible to students. These skills include, but are not limited to, limiting or ‘sheltering’ of vocabulary, asking of comprehension questions using the target structures, comprehension checks and short grammar explanations. Each lesson is focused on only two to four vocabulary phrases, or “structures”, thus enabling teachers to focus on getting as many repetitions of each structures as possible, thus ensuring each target structure is taught thoroughly and for mastery, only moving on to new material after the students have acquired each structure.
TPRS emphasizes fluency over grammatical accuracy (Ray and Seely, 2012). Teachers who use TPRS argue that the best way to help students acquire both fluency and grammatical accuracy is to constantly expose them to comprehensible input.
Shrum and Glisan, in the Teacher’s Handbook: Contextualized Language Instruction, discuss how a story-based approach to language and grammar instruction is a highly effective approach. One reason why a story-based approach to teaching language is recommended is because it imitates how many children learn their first language, through fairytales, legends and storybooks. Thus it only seems natural to make storytelling a natural part of the language classroom since “it is natural to tell stories orally and to extend the story in various ways..and since individuals have prior knowledge of how stories are structured and expectancies about what should take place in story, their comprehension is facilitated and meaning is established…role-playing scenarios deepen comprehension” (Shrum and Glisan, 2005). By listening to, reading, creating and role-playing stories in the language classroom, students are acquiring the language the same way they acquired their first. A story-based approach to language learning encourages natural discourse and encourages students to comprehend meaningful and longer samples of discourse from the very beginning of a lesson (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002). Unlike many textbooks which provide grammar drills and sentences placed out of context, a story-based approach “invites the learner to comprehend and experience the meaning and function of grammar through discourse in the form of a story” (Shrum and Glisan, 2005). This aligns with psycholinguist Ken Goodman when he says “language is language only when it is whole” (Adair-Hauck and Donato). Goodman tells us that the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. “In terms of grammar instruction, words, phrases, or sentences are not linguistic islands unto themselves; on the contrary these linguistic elements only gain meaning when they are placed in context” (Adair-Hauck and Donato). So rather than learn grammar and vocabulary through drills, repetitions and repeating after the teacher, students experience the language in a whole, authentic way within the context of a story.
Traditional instruction, as defined earlier, is based on the Skill-Building Hypothesis, or Instruction Hypothesis, and the Output Hypothesis. The Skill-Building Hypothesis claims that learners first learn consciously the language skills such as grammar rules and vocabulary and later applies them in real situations by drills, exercises and simulations (Ponniah, 2010). The goal in the Skill-Building approach is to learn the rules and vocabulary consciously, then practice them until they become automatic (Krashen, 2013). The second hypothesis, the Output Hypothesis, was developed by Merrill Swain. The Output Hypothesis argues that learners need opportunities to produce output (Shrum & Glisan, 2005). The Output Hypothesis says that by “focusing on their output, learners eventually develop automaticity and move from analyzing what they want to say to being able to say it with ease” (Shrum & Glisan, p. 20). The idea behind the Output Hypothesis is that we acquire language by producing it (Krashen, 2013). This hypothesis has three functions: the noticing function, the hypothesis testing function and the metalinguistic function (Ponniah, 2010). According to Ponniah, all three functions are related to conscious learning, rather than subconscious language acquisition, as described in the acquisition-learning hypothesis.