I got this from Judy. Comments, additional ideas are welcome.
Dear Ben,
My proposition to present TPRS in a one hour talk has been accepted by TESOL France. It’s in November, so I have time to work on it. Basically, I’m going to be talking to English teachers who work, or would like to work in France. A lot of them seem to be British and work with adults and in enterprises. Any suggestions are welcome.
The TPRS Revolution
Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling* was created by Blaine Ray, a Spanish teacher, in the 1990’s and has evolved ever since with the contributions of hundreds of teachers using the method and exchanging their grassroots experiences on the internet, continually enriching the method with their feedback. Its main strength is in reaching students who are left by the roadside with other methods. Discover why students who are taught with TPRS produce correct language without thinking about it, and improve vastly in comprehension and writing ability.
Teachers who used TPR (Total Physical Response) as developed by James Asher, eventually asked, “What now?” Blaine Ray began creating stories with his students and based his method on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis of Stephen Krashen. The teachers who tried his method were often experienced language teachers who were soon convinced that their students were progressing more rapidly than ever before and attaining higher levels of proficiency at an earlier stage. Today there are tens of thousands of teachers who use TPRS or have borrowed elements of the method. Judith Logsdon-Dubois has been using the method in France since 2005. She will explain the three steps that are TPRS as defined by Blaine Ray and the distinction between learning and acquiring. She will discuss the techniques of Circling, BEP (Bizarre, Exaggerated and Personalized), barometers, teaching to the eyes, pop-up grammar, embedded texts and other elements that have evolved with the method and can be used by any language teacher. She will show how students improve their reading and writing abilities. Then she will demonstrate the method with the public as students, using Breton as their unknown language. Even teachers who may not want to apply all of the method will discover new classroom strategies that will make them more efficient. It is said that there are as many varieties of TPRS as there are teachers using it. Mrs. Dubois will explain how to acquire the method progressively and make it a personal tool that reflects the teacher’s own personality. Américaine, j’enseigne l’anglais aux francophones depuis 1967, au Québec, au Cameroun, en Suisse et depuis 1985 en France. J’ai pratiqué en primaire, au lycée et en faculté d’anglais. J’ai un DEA en études anglophones et j’ai obtenu l’agrégation en 1997.