(You say that like it’s a bad thing…) More people (including other language teachers!) trying to stuff the acquisition of new languages into the same mold that fits fact-based disciplines, like — well, like everything else. I can understand clueless monolingual administrators who hated their own hours in high school Spanish doing that. Their experience […]
Posts Tagged ‘Theory’
“Your class has a reputation for being ‘easy’…”
Posted by Terry Waltz on November 22nd, 2014
Posted in General, Methods 
Tags: Acquisition, Comprehensible Input, Theory, TPRS 
Comments Off on “Your class has a reputation for being ‘easy’…”I+1 or I+100?
Posted by Terry Waltz on July 22nd, 2012
TPRS is based on comprehensible input, and believes that students learn by input. Other major approaches to date have been based on output, and believe that student learn by outputting language. So, the two are not really compatible. They are based on completely opposite things. It’s true that many factors come together to support acquisition, […]
CI in Short
Posted by Terry Waltz on May 13th, 2012
After a reader had slogged through a 28-page forum discussion on Comprehensible Input-based language teaching, the question came out: Could someone post a very brief, 3- or 4- point summary of the basics? This is my take on that. Comprehensible Input: the brain acquires language by hearing language it can understand. It takes many repetitions […]
Tagging for acquisition
Posted by Terry Waltz on November 3rd, 2011
We can’t see exactly how the brain works its magic in generalizing from many examples to just knowing what structure to automatically use to express a meaning it has never tried to express before — which is what fluent speakers can do. What if we think of it in terms of tagging? It’s sort of […]
Posted in Curriculum, General Tags: Acquisition, Comprehensible Input, Curriculum Tagging, Repetition, Theory Comments Off on Tagging for acquisition“Oh, I do TPRS®, I just add some extra words.”
Posted by Terry Waltz on September 30th, 2011
Lots of people out there these days saying they “do” TPRS®. What has to be happening to make a statement like that true? Teachers who teach using TPRS® are using Comprehensible Input. There are other ways to teach using Comprehensible Input. TPRS® is just one of them. The main hallmark of TPRS® is the insistence […]
Posted in Methods Tags: New Teachers, Theory, TPRS, Vocabulary Comments Off on “Oh, I do TPRS®, I just add some extra words.”What are we really counting?
Posted by Terry Waltz on February 23rd, 2011
A poster on a prominent foreign language teachers’ list recently commented, in the context of a second poster’s question about research comparing methodologies: …while it is difficult to do true scientific research where we isolate one variable, we can assess our students’ proficiency based on the ACTFL proficiency scale using instruments such as the OPIc, STAMP, or […]
Posted in General, Methods Tags: Assessment, Evaluation, Research, Theory Comments Off on What are we really counting?