There has been a recent thread on whether PQA or stories are easier to do, or bring the best gains. My thought is that it depends on the teacher. I personally have gone back and forth on this, as I am sure many of us have.
One year I might prefer PQA to stories and the next year I prefer stories. This year I am in a big stories mood and so are my students. I see the power of scripts and I see the power of readings created from scripts (Step 3 of TPRS) as opposed to generalized PQA and the less powerful R and D readings from novels.
Whether you are doing PQA or stories, you must make sure that your comprehensible input is narrow and deep. If you stay on just one structure in PQA you’re going to be better off.
This morning in my French 3 class the topic of “drinking coffee” came up. I decided to pursue that topic before starting class, because I was interested to know how many of my seniors drank coffee and when those who did started drinking it. So I started to get some reps on that topic with those questions in mind:
(Level 3): Monica, Monica hey Monica! (Annoying Orange technique). Do you drink coffee? (no)
Class, Monica doesn’t drink coffee! (circle circle).
Hey Monica, I saw you drinking coffee at Starbucks this morning! (no)
Yes! Monica! Monica! You were drinking coffee at the Starbucks on Belleview this morning! (no!)
You weren’t? Well then who was that at the Belleview Starbucks drinking coffee this morning? Ringo Starr? (no)
How do you know that that wasn’t Ringo Starr drinking coffee at the Starbucks on Belleview this morning? You weren’t there drinking coffee! (ohh!)
Hey Monica, if you drank coffee, where would you drink it? (Starbucks)
Monica, you would drink coffee at Starbucks if you drank coffee? (yes)
Did you drink coffee this morning? (no)
Why not? (I don’t drink coffee.)
You don’t drink coffee? (no)
But you would go to Starbucks if you drank coffee? (yes)
Will you drink coffee one day? (yes)
Are you going to drink coffee next year? (maybe)
How old were you when you started drinking coffee? (I don’t drink coffee)
If you drink coffee next year, where will you go to drink it? (I don’t know.)
In this example, the words surrounding the target of “drink coffee”are words that I am certain that my French 3 students have acquired. How do I know? I just know.
Another point here is that seven verb forms of “to drink” are in this short interchange: present, passe compose, imperfect, future, near future, and conditional, including the infinitive.
Clearly then, this is focused PQA and not general PQA where we go around the room getting general facts but not in the narrow and deep way. I call that shallow and wide kind of PQA “skating on thin ice” because there are no rebar (see category) rods/target structures holding the CI together. So if PQA is going to be effective, it has to be narrow and deep. And if a story is going to be effective, it also must be narrow and deep and that is why I prefer tighter scripts with only two targets.
I spoke with Annick today about this topic and she agreed. Here are some thoughts she offered during our discussion (we share a common planning period at the end of each day). I just wrote down what she said pretty much verbatim:
1. You don’t need PQA or random CI discussion if you have great stories because when stories are compelling the discussion becomes riveting like a magic play. So PQA isn’t needed because you have a compelling story.
2. You don’t need both PQA and a story to have a great class. You don’t have to even start a story with PQA to get reps – you can just start the story if you suck at PQA or simply don’t want to do it [like Eric said he does in a comment today].
3. When you have a script in your hand it is safest. Or you can do PQA if you want but you can’t go all over the place introducing new structures when you do it and cluttering up the board. When the board is cluttered they don’t understand.
4. It is a lot easier to work from a story script. Either one of the two works, and if you are strong at PQA of course do it. If you are strong at stories do them.
5. You can’t create a story from nothing. You have to plan it and write it. It is very rare that a strong story (the only interesting kind) will spring up from PQA.