TPRS® is a specific instructional strategy involves the co-creation of a narrative through story asking, using high frequency vocabulary, and providing lots of input in the target language with small amounts of translation for clarity. Story asking is the process where the teacher asks the the
students questions to determine the details of a story. Skills involved
in this process are circling, pausing & pointing, using gestures,
comprehension checks, pop-up grammar, and so forth. Literacy is a huge
component as the created narrative becomes a text for extension
activities, follow up stories, and so forth.
02
Tell me more!
TPRS® was invented in 1990 by a Spanish
teacher named Blaine Ray. Blaine was inspired by the works of Stephen Krashen as well as James Asher, who stressed
the importance of gestures and movement to help in the language acquisition process. TPRS® has grown and evolved quite a bit over the past three decades. Formerly
known as Total Physical Response Storytelling, TPRS has evolved thanks to the thousands of teachers who have contributed,
expanded, and refined the strategy. There is also a huge body of
research on the topic. For some of those resources and to see it in
action, see the resources below.
TPRS in Action
Featured video:
Watch Aya Shehata as she gives a TPRS demo in Japanese, including background about the strategy and how she incorporates it into her class.
More Thoughts and in-depth Discussion
What are the foundational steps?
Establishing meaning, story asking, and reading are the core parts of this strategy. To establish meaning, first introduce core structures that will be used in the lesson through TPR and other visuals - words for the characters in the story, verbs for the action, and some prepositions if necessary. Story asking is the process of telling a story where the details are not predetermined and eliciting the details from the students. Through circling, the teacher co-creates the story details with the class to establish a simple narrative. At the end, the teacher writes up the narrative and reads it with the class, going through several extension activities & games to get ample exposure and play with the written text.
Do you pre-plan anything?
Collaborative storytelling can be anxiety inducing if there aren't enough supports in place for the teacher, or the students aren't engaged in the process. For that reason, scripting out the story ahead of time is helpful. TPRS Books has slideshows and teacher manuals where they have done just that - provided visuals, pre scripted narratives, and readings for post-story asking. Other scripts like Anne Matava’s story scripts consist of engaging plots, with windows left wide open to invite in students’ creative
contributions. The scripts are in English, to be
custom-translated by the teacher to suit the particular needs and level
of the class. Parts of the story that students
are to supply are underlined, and questions used to elicit those details
from students accompany each story.
Does this strategy really work?
Thousands of teachers have used this strategy over the years in ALL LEVELS, leading to lots and lots of research showing how TPRS is effective at achieving high levels of proficiency in students. Here are just a few samples of that research:
Teachers who are experienced in TPRS might seem like they can conjure an interesting plot out of thin air! But this kind of confidence has been gained through trial and error and lots of practice! Some teachers rely heavily on story scripts, as mentioned above, to provide the scaffolding they need to keep their language in-bounds and keep things sheltered appropriately. Other teachers prefer the non-targeted approach and run with whatever their students throw at them. Bottom line - don't give up! Start with a short, concise plot - someone has a problem. They need to find a solution. They try place A but there is no solution. Place B? Still no. Finally at place C, there is a resolution!
Reading is one of the essential components to the TPRS process. Once you've co-created your story with your students & written it down, next is time to to extension activities to read the text with your students. Another idea - Re-write it in past tense for the next day to recap what "happened" in the story yesterday. Or try a parallel reading - provide a short reading with similar language to the story that was just co-created and read it together, clarifying for meaning.
Play a game!
Martina Bex has a whole host of games to review stories. Try one of these ones: Is It Possible? A board game for post-reading. The Event is Right! Modeled after the game show the Price is Right. Freeze Frame, a fun interactive way to review a story. Time Capsule Predictions before deciding the end of a story. Another extensive list of activities can be found here.
OTHER WAYS TO ASSESS...
After co-creating a story, do a quick quiz or written assessment. Students take out a piece of paper and answer true / false questions, either/or questions, or open-ended questions about the calendar discussion. This falls under the "interpretive" category - students are receiving input and making sense of it, then demonstrating that comprehension.
Free-writes - Give students 5 minutes to write down anything they can, bullet format or full sentences, drawing pictures or illustrations, to demonstrate their comprehension.
Or try a game as a formative assessment! Here is a list of 10 to get started. And another list of 35+ to dive deeper.
There are so many ideas for assessment! For a better, more comprehensive deep dive into assessments for standards-based and proficiency-oriented language teaching, read Martina Bex's article on assessments for language classes and standards-based grading. Also Scott Benedict's articles on assessments and standards-based grading.
TPRS in your classroom
Have you done TPRS in your class? Do you have tips, resources, a story or video demonstration to share? Drop me a line!
