Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
TPRS/NTCI
Share:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Ben Slavic
Get The Latest Updates
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
No spam, notifications only about new products, updates.
Related Posts
CI and the Research (cont.)
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Research Question
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
We Have the Research
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
6 thoughts on “TPRS/NTCI”
What I find sort of sad about this Ben is that it is a horse of a different color that seems to have to be beaten long after it is dead for others to get it. I understand that to some this is radical stuff but really it is in line with SLA research and as you have stated SOOO many times in line with Blaine Ray’s original work as well. But I say keep on trucking because any ground we can make up the better. Better for us and most importantly for our students!
Thanks!
Russ said:
…I understand that to some this is radical stuff but really it is in line with SLA research….
The point is so well-made, and demands that someone unpack and shine some further light on either the radical stuff or the research. That is the only to get to any intelligent conclusions. The research has been unpacked already. So I wish someone would unpack NTCI before condemning it. How can it be looked upon as radical if it aligns with the research? Very odd, really….
What’s really odd is that Krashen has read A Natural Approach to Stories, which lays out the case for NTCI fairly clearly, and said that it was “important” and “clever”. But then not a peep. Actually, CI politics entered the game at that point, and personalities took over.
When that happened, the argument got muddled for good. When personalities take over, truth has a hard time coming out. Look at our government.
I started TPRS this week. It was filled with challenges and fun. Challenges in getting the droids to accept the new matrix, but I think they are beginning to see the freedom it affords.
I read about a third of Ben’s book, A Natural Approach to Stories, agree with the theory, but I decided to go ahead, for now, with TPRS instead of NTCI because my district is married to the Avancemos 1-3 with its sequences for grammar and vocabulary For now, I have to have targeted structures. I am the only one doing TPRS/CI so it may take a while before the district is ready to transform. I may be the litmus test for moving away from the Audio Lingual and the Grammar Translation methods that currently drive our modern language curriculum. I think the revolution will take place where I am first, in the Middle School, where I have some interested colleagues.
No harm no foul on using TPRS. Upon request, anyone in this group who is doing TPRS and wants any or all of the four main TPRS books I’ve written in the past can have them at no charge. They include:
TPRS in a Year!
PQA in a Wink!
Stepping Stones to Stories!
The Big CI Book
TPRS and NTCI both work fine in high school, but the teachers who need them most right now are middle school teachers. The kids still have signs of intellectual vitality and curiosity in them, and any teacher w a heart would not try to shove a textbook at those younger kids.
The shift will occur when middle school kids trained in CI methods arrive in high school and flat out demand the change, w parent support of course. Structures topple because they are eaten away from the inside, and eventually too many CI kids are going to go into the belly of the beast (high school) and eat away at the textbooks and it will all come down with a gigantic, nationwide THUD!
Dude if you can get the “droids” (love it!) to show even 5% approval in APRIL then that has got to be a record. Teachers trying to hone their CI skills at this time of year to practice for next year and get ANY results are doing something right!