Blogs and articles
Previously I wrote a blog on the importance of context. When reading the book While we're on the topic by Bill Vanpatten I realized how TPRS is related to context and why TPRS is such a valuable contribution to real communicative language teaching.
In the podcast The Motivated Classroom dr. Liam Printer asks himself: is input alone enough in the world language classroom? His conclusion: it depends, but in most learning situations input alone is not enough.
Have you ever tried to put an entire bar of chocolate in your mouth in one go? That (probably😉) won't work. You eat a bar of chocolate in pieces, in chunks. That's exactly how you will offer language to your students: in manageable chunks.
When I walk in a museum and look at paintings, I really just look at it to decide whether I like it or not. But when I am accompanied by a guide and hear the stories behind what I see, I like many more paintings that I first thought.
Why should every language teacher tell stories? Creating stories is at the heart of TPRS, one of the best known CI activities. Story Listening, another CI activity, also evolves around telling stories.
"Benim adιm Suzanne". The Turkish teacher points at herself. From the programme I know that Suzanne is her name. So my brain concludes: 'Benim adιm means something like 'I am called' or 'my name is'.
I am with some 4th-year secondary school students. Due to an organisational failure I am not teaching, but the students can't leave either. Time for a chat. And as a language teacher I wish to know: did you choose a language?
"Don't forget ...!" This might be the most frequently used sentence of teachers. Because we don't want our students to forget what we told them in our class.
Or ... DO we want our students to forget?
The headphones were attached to rails on the ceiling of the classroom. The French teacher lowered them and while we were holding our breath, we each took a headphone: we had a French listening test.
In our courses we advise to limit the input of new vocabulary to approximately 3 target structures (chunks) per lesson series.
Why so little?
If you know how the human memory works, you can adjust your lessons to that. Consequence? Students showing greater proficiency and a higher language awareness, students who are more motivated because the lessons fit our natural learning process.
Justin Slocum Bailey gave a very inspiring, practical workshop about how teachers can keep their voice & energy level healthy when teaching language in a dynamic way.
