by Terry Waltz | Aug 29, 2019 | General, Speaking/Listening, Unfounded Tripe
I get all kinds of things popping up on my feed on a popular social media site. This one recently came up. Are you struggling with your accent in [language]? Or do you have a difficult time understanding native speakers? This course is for you! We’ll start from...
by Terry Waltz | May 25, 2018 | General, Methods, Speaking/Listening
Except they really aren’t. They are not (for the most part) familiar stories, which means you can’t use background knowledge. They are not simple stories, which means lots of words are needed. IMO these stories don’t belong in a Chinese L1. You might get away with...
by Terry Waltz | Jul 5, 2017 | Drift / Is This TPRS?, General, Methods, Speaking/Listening
On a web group for CI teachers, a comment was recently made: Intake(the part of the input that is comprehended) could be different for each student. This is to say one man’s targeted CI is another’s non-targeted CI. In light of our TPRS/CI lens, I have...
by Terry Waltz | Jul 2, 2017 | General, Methods, Speaking/Listening
There is so much talk these days about untargeted input. “Just speak the language with your students.” “You don’t have to pre-plan what language you will teach.” “They’ll get enough repetitions over the course of the year....
by Terry Waltz | Apr 7, 2017 | General, Speaking/Listening
On a teachers’ list, a hypothesis was recently posted: The more compelling the input, the more listeners and readers can tolerate noise. Maybe they can. But should they? I believe that the goal of teaching a language class does not lie in engaging students. I...
by Terry Waltz | Feb 26, 2017 | Speaking/Listening
This is perhaps the most basic skill of the entire TPRS repertoire. Because if you do not establish meaning, the students cannot comprehend. If you don’t establish meaning, all the gestures in the world won’t make up for it. If you don’t establish...