Does fluency occur in stages?

by | Mar 21, 2011 | Chinese-specific, Methods

Here’s the problem with an all-TPRS Chinese program: there’s no reason why students would not be able to acquire virtually all the structure in modern standard Chinese by the end of the second year. Unlike the FIGS, where there are six forms to be taught...

“There must be output…”

by | Mar 13, 2011 | Methods, Speaking/Listening

A comment recently appeared — generally in support of TPRS, too — on a language teachers’ discussion list: To make TPRS effective, the instructor needs to go beyond just telling stories in the classroom. There needs to be instances where students are...

What if they…?

by | Mar 10, 2011 | Curriculum, Methods, Outside Forces

My concern is that if these students were to transfer schools and go on to level 4/AP (which our school doesn’t offer yet), would they be totally lost? When is education going to stop playing the “what-if” game? This isn’t a strike against the...

The Culture Club

by | Mar 9, 2011 | General, Outside Forces

The cry goes up: TPRS doesn’t teach culture. TPRS is a language acquisition method based in Comprehensible Input. As such, it believes that the road to acquisition lies in having students hear and read lots of language that they can understand completely. So...