So far in this series we have talked about how, in the past, we have used CWB and word walls to start out our academic years. We have agreed that CWB is a strong option and I have suggested that those of us who have found success with CWB to start the year continue to do so. (CWB is a power strategy – it brings us instant personalization and instant classroom discipline at the start of our year.)
I have also suggested, however, that we reconsider how we use word walls at the beginning of the year by making them into VERB walls. However, before we talk about how verbs can be used in a word wall setting, which we will do in the next article after this one, we need to review Step 1 of the Three Steps of TPRS. Why?
In my opinion, Step 1 forms the anchor, the glue, to everything we do in comprehension based teaching, so that any discussion about changing even little things that we do in our CI classroom strategy is best housed in and looked upon in terms of the framework of Step 1 or it won’t mean anything, it won’t be intelligible, it won’t make sense.
So in this article I provide a brief review of Step 1 of TPRS, the step that houses in it the magical formula, the DNA, of the method, no matter the acronym and no matter the strategy. If we don’t do these things in every CI single strategy we use, the kids won’t understand what we are saying in the way they do when we stick to these Step 1 strategies:
First, we establish meaning. We take one or two or three (no more) expressions (called target structures), and we tell the class what they mean by writing them down on the whiteboard, making sure to do so in both the target language and in English.
Next, as we continue to establish meaning, we work with the class to generate a gesture for the expression, if one is possible. The problem most of us have, something we all seem to want to improve on in our teaching, is actually remembering to gesture the target structures when we start using them in the second part of Step 1.
(Doing gesturing is just way up there on the level of difficulty in teaching using comprehensible input, along with the annoyingly challenging skills of staying in the target language during class and remembering to speak far slower than is comfortable for us, a skill that is absolutely crucial for our students.)
So the first parts of Step 1 are:
a) writing the word in both languages on the board (and leaving them there during class), and
b) agreeing with the class on a gesture to use during the rest of the work with the target structures (from Step 1 through to the end of Step 3 reading).
Next in Step 1, we move to PQA. That is way too much to go into here.
I don’t know why we just don’t call it the Four Steps, but that’s is what this TPRS DNA really is made up of:
1) Establishing meaning/gesturing
2) PQA
3) The Story
4) The Reading.
Calling it the Four Steps would have been more clear. But the Three Steps it is. All I am concerned with here is that the reader who is new to TPRS/CI be familiar with the Step 1 pattern of establishing meaning and PQA (Step 1), and how it will form the backbone pattern of what we will do when we teach verbs to start the year, if we choose to experiment with the ideas presented herein in the fall.
Moreover, if one grasps the backbone pattern/DNA of establishing meaning, gesturing and PQA, then one can create many different forms of comprehensible input from that, not necessarily a story. The Step 3 reading part, though, should remain the same.