At the risk of angering those who have produced these materials — which are wonderful for the languages they were produced for — My observation has been that trying to use existing TPRS materials written for other languages (Spanish and French, primarily) to teach Chinese, Japanese, etc. does not work well for languages that are structurally […]
Archive for May, 2015
Should I use the Dothaki adaptation of the well-known Spanish TPRS textbook?
Posted by Terry Waltz on May 27th, 2015
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Encapsulated readings
Posted by Terry Waltz on May 26th, 2015
Cold Character reading is a purely TPRS writing form. It relies on reading passages that are long and have a high degree of internal repetition. There is typically a high level of proximal repetition (“clusters” of new words or phrases, especially when they first appear) as well. Legacy teachers, on the other hand, are increasingly […]
“Is it okay to give my kids a grammar packet?”
Posted by Terry Waltz on May 15th, 2015
I believe that presenting analytical exercises AFTER the language in question is firmly acquired is completely in line with CI principles. We present SOME limited analytical input (pop-ups) during acquisition, but the important thing is that analysis is not even close to being the main or the first method or technique getting the students to […]
Teaching with authentic audio
Posted by Terry Waltz on May 11th, 2015
Don’t. Or rather, “Don’t, unless there’s a very good reason, and that reason is not your belief that using authentic audio will somehow get beginners to understand authentic audio.” Practice with fast, accented audio is NOT the most effective way to help people under stand fast, accented speakers, with the exception of that particular audio […]