In introducing himself to the group, Jeffery wrote:
…yesterday my story lesson bombed completely. Wow, it was embarrassing! However, I am undeterred in my resolve to continue. Like everything else, it’ll take a while before I can learn this skill….
There is not one of us who hasn’t done that. I did it for years. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t going back. I had the same determination expressed by Jeff. It is the kind of determination that is needed in something as challenging as what we are attempting. (I say challenging but in the sense of riding a bike – once we have it, it suddenly becomes effortless.)
So why do stories bomb? First, because we go too fast, obviously. Second, because we go out of bounds. In my opinion, the most egregious errors in stories are:
- too fast. it must be painfully slow for us – then it is the right pace for them.
- using words that they haven’t yet acquired. this is a huge topic too much to go into here but we have many articles here if we can find them, under the general topic “staying in bounds”.
- forgetting this from Blaine years ago which really made the method click for me one day:
I believe people who are the most effective at TPRS don’t tell stories. They ask questions, pause, and listen for cute answers from the students. The magic is in the interaction between the student and teacher. TPRS is searching for something interesting to talk about. That is done by questioning. Interesting comprehensible input is the goal of every class. If we are there to tell a story, we will probably not make the class interesting. We will be so focused on getting the story out that we won’t let the input from the kids happen.
Other ideas about why stories bomb, pls. comment below.