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 meaning, it doesn’t matter how slowly you speak. They will not understand […]
Archive for February, 2017
Slow Down — it’s not just about how fast you talk
Posted by Terry Waltz on February 22nd, 2017
Dear New-ish TPRS Teacher: So, you’ve done the workshop. You’re excited about the possibilities of using TPRS and Comprehensible Input in your classroom. And you’re right to be. You’re starting on the next phase of your teaching career, and you’re looking forward to seeing the results that have been demonstrated in the videos and the […]
Naturalistic comprehensible input: does it work for Chinese?
Posted by Terry Waltz on February 18th, 2017
On a language teachers’ list, the statement was recently made by a teacher interested in the debate about naturalistic CI versus optimized CI: I have some plans to work with some Mandarin teachers to test this [naturalistic input] out. They have not been trained in CI at all but they are eager learners. I am […]
Posted in Chinese-specific, Languages of Unusual Features, Methods, Reading 
Comments Off on Naturalistic comprehensible input: does it work for Chinese?Is more support needed to read Chinese?
Posted by Terry Waltz on February 17th, 2017
On a teachers’ email list, the comment was recently posted: I definitely need more than the text to understand even simple Chinese stories. Translation is ONE way of making tests more comprehensible. But I think we need to exploit other ways as well, including gestures, pictures, body movements, etc. Or not. This is a basic […]