From a language teachers’ list: TPRS is used for teaching fluency. We use it whenever students don’t have “ease of expression”. Ease of expression means they speak with confidence, accuracy and without hesitation. It is been my exprience that “ease of expression” does not happen in just four years of Spanish. I agree that TPRS works […]
Posts Tagged ‘Proficiency’
TPRS™ and the Issue of Initial vs. Target Fluency
Posted by Terry Waltz on November 22nd, 2014
Posted in Chinese-specific, General 
Tags: Fluency, Micro-Fluency, Proficiency 
Comments Off on TPRS™ and the Issue of Initial vs. Target FluencyWhat is Fluency? What is Proficiency?
Posted by Terry Waltz on December 27th, 2011
Fluency is being able to use all the language you’ve acquired unconsciously and correctly. Proficiency is being able to do that and also having enough vocabulary to make things happen in the world.
How do you learn new words if everything is known?
Posted by Terry Waltz on April 23rd, 2011
On a Chinese-learning forum, a user asked: I understand how CI develops the ability to recognise and produce appropriate structures and functions in a language, but if the input is all known to the learner (in terms of vocabulary used) how does the learner acquire the long lists of vocab needed to actually use the […]
Posted in Methods Tags: Comprehensible Input, Micro-Fluency, Novices, Proficiency, Unknowns 3 Comments »Does fluency occur in stages?
Posted by Terry Waltz on March 21st, 2011
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 for every tense (not to mention different endings within a […]
Posted in Chinese-specific, Methods Tags: Advanced, Fluency, Novices, Proficiency, TPRS Comments Off on Does fluency occur in stages?There’s time for a variety of “techniques”, right?
Posted by Terry Waltz on March 8th, 2011
Um, no. There really isn’t. Or, more precisely, it depends on what you mean by “techniques”. The thing that I think a lot of people do not understand is that while it is very accommodating to say “there is time for everything” in the foreign language classroom, the cold hard fact is that there is […]
Posted in Methods Tags: Legacy Methods, Proficiency, TPRS Comments Off on There’s time for a variety of “techniques”, right?