Chris was on one of those language teachers sites* and just now sent me a link in which a teacher said:
….TPRS won’t even be around. Maybe silly stories and such work for your students, but definitely not mine….
*http://teachers.net/mentors/spanish/topic27773/4.16.12.08.53.23.html
Here is my response to that:
Whatever gave you the idea that TPRS is all about silly stories? Now that is just silly! You are clearly judging from an egregiously misinformed point of view. But then, we all see what we want to see in things, and you are very clearly seeing what you want to see – the toe of the elephant. I, for one, haven’t a shred of respect for your cavalier and unfounded comments.
TPRS is about getting kids to focus so much on the message being delivered that they aren’t aware of the means of its delivery. That is because we learn languages by processing what we hear unconsciously, not analytically and consciously.
Next time you hear someone say something to you, stop and look at what is happening in that moment. Will you be focusing on the words that convey the message or on the message itself? That is how you learned your own languages and that is how your students should be learning their languages.
A second year student once got a 4 on the AP French Exam and 70/70 questions on the National French Exam as a TPRS student with no prior background in French. He also discovered a content error on the exam that year that was missed by six native speaker editors.
Email me at benslavic@yahoo.com for validation of all of those statements. See more scores like it at www.benslavic.com. The mistake was admitted by the AATF (they didn’t give him the point on that question, even though they admitted its misinformation about the location of a place on an island in a listening question.) I can also provide you with documentation from AATF and from the College Board on those other scores.
What we do in our “silly” world has nothing to do with focusing on words in sentences and how they change or don’t change or whatever. We teach a ton of grammar, but not by teaching discrete grammar – we teach grammar mainly through correct speech in massive repetitions and also by reading, which is a fine way to learn a language. Real grammar is what sounds right.
What kind of magical thinking makes you think that your students can manipulate a language that they haven’t heard enough? They can’t do it. We weren’t born coded to write – we were born coded to listen first and then write years later.
Think of what grammar is, after all. Grammar is first and foremost correctly spoken speech. Then we can worry about how it is written after we hear it spoken correctly in massive amounts over years, just as young kids learn their first language.
When we focus on writing too early, we confuse kids, and only the 4% who can grasp the analytical construction of the language end up thinking that they are good at languages and kids who are pounded over the head with the grammar hammer quit and hate languages and feel stupid. Nice. But anyone can learn a language!
Just go ahead and explore TPRS beyond just the obviously thin layer you have obviously bounced off of. There is a lot more to it than meets the eye! And retention of students is way higher – I know you’ll like that!
I invite any kind of dialogue with you on this topic. Clearly, nobody has ever told you to stop making unfounded statements. I guess I’ll have to be the one – stop making unfounded statements. I make no apologies for my tone here – you must not go around attacking things you don’t understand.
Below is a link to a French 1 class. Watch what is happening. My students are focusing on the message not the language: