An International TPRS Story

Not long ago I was offered a lovely present by two kind friends. Emilie is French and teaches English in France.  She wants to know more about TPRS. Sabrina is also French and she teaches French in a school in Chicago.  An active member on Ben Slavic’s PLC, her insight and enthusiasm about TPRS have often been precious to older, more experienced teachers.

Not too long ago someone on the PLC suggested that we could make videos of several classes making stories with the same structures and compare them.  They called it a class competition, but Ben realized that it would be a competition where everyone won.

I regretted no longer having a class to try it with.  Emilie offered to lend me one of hers and to try it herself in another class.  Sabrina took us up on it and sent us three structures for our stories: cut class- come here right now – has got to go.

It took some time to get permission from the “proviseure” (headmistress) and parents, but before long I found myself standing in front of a “seconde” class in my old lycée.  Since I didn’t know the students we asked them to make cards with their names on them and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they not only did it but remembered to bring them and set them out on the tables without being asked. Our first session was not filmed since we were doing the PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers) that day and intended to film only the story.  Hindsight tells me that it would have been just as interesting to film the PQA, since the ideas that developed into our story came out of the PQA.

I thought it might be necessary to give a short explanation in French, so I briefly explained what we were going to do and told them that their prime responsibility was to let me know if they didn’t understand.  During the following hour with a different class, Emilie gave the same explanation in English, which told me that the explanation in French wasn’t necessary.  Yet, I feel that the fact that I made it clear from the beginning that it was important to me, a stranger they had not met before, that they understand everything I said helped establish a “rapport” that might not have existed if I had started out directly in English. 

So we began talking about who cut classes and I thought for a while that we were going to fall flat on our faces.  This was a good, serious class of capable and ambitious students. They don’t cut classes.  Or at least they weren’t about to admit it in front of teachers. So I went for the conditional and asked them which class they would cut, if they ever cut a class.  And there was a pretty unanimous agreement that it would be math.  The poor math teacher obviously is having a rough year.

So we went around, asking different students if they would cut Spanish or history or English or math or physics, and we came to a tall, pretty girl and there was some giggling and knowing looks and I suspect that she does cut class from time to time.  So I began asking why she cuts class.  No one noticed that I was no longer using the conditional.  I asked where she goes when she cuts class and who she cuts class with.

We soon had her meeting Johnny Depp in the park instead of going to math class.  And I went on to PQA the other structures, keeping the idea of Johnny Depp for our story the next day.

I asked who told them “come here right now” and when and why.  Parents told them to come here right now to set the table, or feed the dog or to stop playing video games.

That context easily led into asking what they have got to do in school, what they have got to do at home, etc.  I had assigned structure counters, a secretary and a quiz writer at the beginning, so we ended up with the ten question quiz.  I was a bit disappointed that I had only 23 repetitions of “has got to”, because I felt I had worked in quite a bit more, but I’m not sure the counter understood that every repetition counts, even that of students and my echoes. 

I then watched Emilie with a different class do PQA with the same three structures.  It was interesting to see how a different class can react in different ways.  The second class was livelier and not at all shy about saying what they do when they cut class or at a loss for ideas.  They go to the swimming pool or soccer matches or the café or to see a girl friend.

It was also interesting to see how similar and how different Emilie and I were in our approaches.  I was there to model TPRS for her, but at the same time I was learning.  She had no trouble in staying in English (our TL) all the time and even gave the instructions and explanations at the beginning in English.  I wonder if teachers like me whose TL is their native tongue are not too easily tempted to switch to the students’ first language simply to prove they can, and sometimes as a way to get around the frustration of not being understood.

After the first session spent presenting the new structures, we were ready to do a class story. I brought in props, a fluffy pink boa given to me years ago by Karen Rowan, and some weird glasses that my grandchildren had left at the house.  The pink boa was for the girl who wanted to cut class so she could meet Johnny Depp and the glasses were for the teacher.  Props always make the story more fun and visual.  Boas are wonderful because they are so easy to put on and immediately the girl has a new personality.  I think props can also help the students to feel more at ease standing up in front of the class, since it’s obvious that they are playing a role, so they can be less inhibited. If I were to do it again, I would bring in a teacher’s coat, the uniform of all French teachers for generations and still worn by a few nostalgics.

So our star in the pink boa wanted to cut math class so she could go to the restaurant with Johnny Depp, but the math teacher saw her and told her to “come here, right now.”  She told him she had to go to the doctor because she had a headache, but he didn’t believe her and she had to go to math class.  Then she tried to cut Spanish class and told the teacher that she had to go to the dentist because she had a toothache.  She didn’t believe her, so she had to go to Spanish class.  Then she wanted to cut history class, but the teacher saw her and told her to come here right now.  I intervened and told the class that obviously our star was not a good actress because no one believed her lies.  So perhaps she should try telling the truth.  So she told the history teacher that she had to go to the restaurant to meet Johnny Depp.  And the history teacher let her go, asking her to bring him back Johnny Depp’s autograph.  The boy said he didn’t like Johnny Depp, so I asked the class why he wanted the autograph and of course they decided he wanted to sell it.  So everyone was happy.

After we wrapped up the story and retold it, I asked the students to write their story in ten minutes. They successfully used the target structures in their fluency writing and Emilie reported that the following week they had no trouble understanding and using them correctly.  She reported that her good students found the activity “easy”, perhaps too easy, but the weaker students obviously felt successful in being able to understand and write up the story.

In all, it was a very rich experience.  I really enjoyed being in front of a “real” class again.  Last year I worked only with small remedial groups, so it’s been a while.  I’m now waiting to hear from Sabrina and Emilie about how the kids reacted to watching their peers make up stories in a different language.  I suspect that seeing the process from another angle will help them understand why we do what we do.

Most of all, having watched Emilie and Sabrina teach the same lesson, I saw things that I like, things that I’d like to adopt.  I think this is a great way to share and grow in our professional development, an excellent way to observe other teachers and pick up little tricks and gestures that we can incorporate in our daily practice.  Sabrina asked me for a report and I told her that such “class competitions” would be an excellent way for isolated teachers who can not easily observe a colleague who uses TPRS to try their wings, using the same structures and modeling their class sessions on the video.