In the 1990s, a Spanish
teacher named Blaine Ray developed a method of teaching called Total Physical
Response Storytelling® (TPRS®). Over the past twenty years, TPRS® has
been largely a grassroots movement, spreading by word of mouth among language
teachers looking for a different approach than traditional textbook programs.
I graduated from university in 2006 and accepted a job at a rural high school. As I worked through the units in my textbook, I became frustrated by the lack of results in my classroom. While my students were memorizing grammar structures and vocabulary, they were not becoming functionally fluent in Spanish. They were not able to use what they were learning in a meaningful way.
In 2007, I attended a workshop with Carol Gaab, who taught us some basic Hebrew using TPRS®. By the end of the workshop, I was bursting with excitement. As I drove back home, I kept repeating to myself, "This makes so much sense! This is how the brain learns languages! This is how I want to teach!"
For the rest of the school year, I experimented with TPRS® with one class, an 80-minute Spanish 1 block that had only ten students. The kids responded enthusiastically and I was hooked.
The next year, I tried to use TPRS® with all of my classes. It was an enormous challenge. I struggled with the scope and sequence of my curriculum. My students thought a lot of TPRS® stories were dumb. I had difficulty managing my classes in the more free-flowing, story-asking environment. Once in awhile, all of the pieces would come together and I would see the potential of this method. The next day, my lesson would flop and I would wonder what I was doing wrong. I read every book I could find on TPRS® (there were no blogs back then) and tried to put the ideas in the books into practice. I tried, failed, picked myself back up, and tried again.
Every year, TPRS® became a little easier. I built up a repertoire of stories, discovered what worked for my personality and teaching style, and found ways to engage my students in the lessons. By my fifth year of teaching, I was seeing success in my classroom on a daily basis.
The purpose of this blog is to share resources, insights, and ideas I have
collected in ten years of teaching with stories and comprehensible input.
Because I currently teach elementary school, most of the posts will be
about teaching younger students. However, occasional posts will reflect
my previous experience in middle and high school. Whether you are a
seasoned TPRS® teacher or are just beginning your journey of teaching with this
method, I hope the information on this blog is helpful. We all become
better teachers when we work together.
