A TPRS Witch

When I present TPRS I feel a little bit like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.  She has this house made out of goodies, candy and sweets and the children start nibbling and it’s really good stuff and before they know it she has them.

Except I’m a good witch, not a wicked witch.  I don’t eat the children that come nibbling at my shutters.  I don’t make prisoners of them.  But the funny thing is that once they’ve come into the house and visited all the corners and met the great people who live there, they fall victim to the spell of TPRS and never want to leave.

The candy and goodies that the TPRS house is made of are techniques that any teacher, using any method, can use.  PQA is a fantastic way to present new vocabulary by personalizing it so students retain it.  Circling is a great way to get in the repetitions that students need. Asking a story with your students gets them engaged and interested and gives them a structure that is easy to remember. Embedded Readings allow weak students to find their sea legs and progress. Pop-ups make grammar relevant and digestible. Teaching to the eyes, barometer students, pause and point, interactive communication rubrics, fluency writing, these are all techniques used by TPRS teachers that other teachers can put in their tool kits. These are the goodies.

Stephen Krashen is the wizard that casts a spell on them and retains those innocent seekers of innovation and effective new tools in the house of Comprehensible Input.  Because once you’ve tasted the TPRS candies and seen how they work with your students, you start craving more and wondering why they work so well.  And you start weeding out less effective techniques that use up the limited time you have with your students.  And Krashen, gently, respectfully, suggests why some strategies work and some don’t. And one day you realize that you are judging every class activity by the standard of comprehensible input, that you have tossed out of your toolkit everything that does not furnish your students with comprehensible input.  Gotcha!