How can TPRS be effectively incorporated as a teaching tool for languages?

About me

- My name is Ting

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- Chinese and Humanities teacher at Preston High School

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- EAL (English as an Additional Language) to refugee students

Overview

• What is TPRS
• My TPRS journey
• TPRS Mini demo
• Developing a TPRS Unit of Study

- how to write a story

- teaching sequence

- classroom setup

- homework / summative assessment

• Student feedback
• Q and A

What is TPRS?

• TPRS = Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Story telling

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• Introduced by Blaine Ray, a Spanish teacher in 1990’s

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• A language teaching tool focusing on fluency through using highly interactive stories

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My TPRS journey

1. The difference between Chinese and English or other European Languages

• There are no cognates, meaning no similar-sounding words to rely on
• Visually, there's nothing learners can immediately connect with and say, 'Oh, I can relate to that word right away.’

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2. Limited Time

• Students’ engagement in class: 2.85 hours weekly = 114 hours annually

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TPRS stories:

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• Fun - characterised by BEP details (Bizarre, Exaggerated, Personal)

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How can I make sure that students are authentically engaged, having fun, and remembering the material over time, all within the weekly class time of 2.85 hours?

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TPRS stories:

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• Fun - characterised by BEP details (Bizarre, Exaggerated, Personal)

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• Contextualised - put language learning in context, making it more relatable and unforgettable for students

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How can I make sure that students are authentically engaged, having fun, and remembering the material over time, all within the weekly class time of 2.85 hours?

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TPRS stories:

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• Fun - characterised by BEP details (Bizarre, Exaggerated, Personal)

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• Contextualised - put language learning in context, making it more relatable and unforgettable for students

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• Immersion - create immersion by offering vast amounts of comprehensible input in Chinese

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How can I make sure that students are authentically engaged, having fun, and remembering the material over time, all within the weekly class time of 2.85 hours?

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TPRS stories:

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• Fun - characterised by BEP details (Bizarre, Exaggerated, Personal)

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• Contextualised - put language learning in context, making it more relatable and unforgettable for students

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• Immersion - create immersion by offering vast amounts of comprehensible input in Chinese

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• Circling - uses repeated but unpredictable questions to practice new language, build real time communication with students in the classroom

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How can I make sure that students are authentically engaged, having fun, and remembering the material over time, all within the weekly class time of 2.85 hours?

Students’ engagement

Implementing TPRS to boost students’ engagement aligns with their psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in their language journey1

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• Autonomy: students have a sense of ownership over the stories as I incorporate characters they propose at the term's start or those that come up in our casual conversations beyond class

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• Competence: students experience different levels of success in class due to the use of differentiated questions

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• Relatedness: TPRS cultivates a very friendly atmosphere in class, fostering student connections and bonds

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Mini TPRStorytelling demo �

Learning intention:

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I can say that I would like to eat chocolate in Chinese.

Mini demo – What to do to acquire Chinese

• Listen
• Look
• Respond to all questions
• Signal when unclear or too fast

Timer keeper

Remind me when we have spent 15 mins on the mini demo

Yes or No

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ma

Who?

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shéi

Why?

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wèi shén me?

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hái shì

What?

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shén me

Where?

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nǎ?

Comprehension check: �True or false

1. Taylor Swift is laughing.
2. Taylor Swift wants to eat lollies.
3. Taylor Swift goes to Woolworths to buy chocolate.
4. Taylor Swift goes to KFC to buy chocolate.

Choral reading

Step 1: I read, you translate chorally, and we repeat for each sentence.

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Step 2: You read chorally, I translate, and we continue the process for each sentence.

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Taylor Swift哭， 因为 她 想吃 巧克力。 Taylor Swift 没有 巧克力。她 去 Bunnings, Bunnings 没有 巧克力，她 哭。 Taylor Swift 去 KFC, KFC 有 巧克力，她 不哭了。

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• What did you like about the approach?

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• What didn’t work for you?

Where did I start?�A sample approach to a Year 7 unit

How to write stories��Part 1 of story: background information

• Any information about the main character. E.g. name, nationality physical description, personality, hobbies, where they live, etc.

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• Any additional information about the setting. E.g. time of day, weather, day of the week, season, etc.

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• Purpose: adding background information is to allow the teacher to ‘slow down’ and focus on giving the student more repetitions of the basics of the language. With beginners, this means that they will learn a lot of the most frequent verbs of the language and be able to produce them.

How to write stories��Part 2 of story: the problem, 3 locations, and resolution

• Introduce the problem: a problem can be something as simple as Taylor Swift wants to eat chocolate. We introduce the problem in the first location of the story.

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How to write stories��Part 2 of story: the problem, 3 locations, and resolution

Location 2: in location 1, the character makes an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the problem. The character goes to a new location. The problem will not be resolved in this location. You can dramatise the storyline.

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For example:

Class, there was a boy called Shrek. Taylor Swift said to Shrek: ‘Hi Shrek, do you have chocolate, I want to eat chocolate!’ Shrek said to Taylor Swift: ‘I don’t have chocolate, because I don’t like you.’ Taylor Swift was very angry, she cried.

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How to write stories��Part 2 of story: the problem, 3 locations, and resolution

Location 3: successful attempt to resolve the problem. The character goes to a third location. The problem will be resolved in this location. Once they are in the new location, we dramatise the storyline in this location with dialogue.

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For example:

Class, Taylor Swift went to KFC in Beijing. At KFC, there was a boy called Messi. Taylor Swift said to Messi: ‘Hey Messi, I want to eat chocolate. Do you have chocolate?’ Messi said to Taylor Swift: ‘Hi Taylor, I have 56 chocolates. Do you want to eat all of them?’ Taylor Swift was so happy. She ate all the chocolates and yelled: ‘I am happy now!’

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The story ends when the problem is resolved.

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How to determine the characters in your story?

PQA (Personalised questions and answers)

• Do a student survey. Find out their interests. Add those details to stories during the year

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• Find out students’ favorite movie stars, musicians, athletes and use their favorite people in stories

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TPRStorytelling sequences

Sequence 1: Establish meaning

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Sequence 2: Storytelling or ask story into existence (mini demo)

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Sequence 3: Process with reading activities (mini demo)

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Sequence 4: Story writing

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TPRStorytelling sequences

• Sequence 1: Establish meaning

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• Objective: Comprehension of all vocabulary and sentence structures

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• Suggested activities:

- circle the new words / phrases by asking personalised questions

- teach the phrases through games

- comprehensible input activities: using pictures, gestures, realia, etc

- translation: Education perfect, Blooket, Quizlet, etc

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This sequence usually takes one 50 - minute lesson

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TPRStorytelling sequences

• Sequence 2: Ask or tell the story into existence

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• Objective: listen intently to acquire language

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• Suggested steps:
• Establish ground rules
• Telling part 1 and part 2 of the story by circling
• Comprehension check: true or false statements, putting mixed sentences into chronological order according to the original story, etc

This sequence usually takes two 50 – minute lessons

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Circling – the heart of TPRStorytelling

• Circling = asking questions of your class in a particular way to get more and more repetitions.

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• Four types of questions: Yes, Or, No, WH questions and open – ended questions (How?)

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• Student output: verbally response, write response on mini whiteboards, drawing, student actor acts out, etc

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• Tips: use visual supports, go slowly, check and recheck for understanding

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TPRStorytelling sequences

• Sequence 3: process with reading aloud activities

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• For Chinese or other script – based languages, the process of Cold Character Reading 2 is magical.
• Teachers’ role: provide repetitive, meaningful auditory comprehensible input, allowing students to fully acquire the sound and meaning of each phrase. When characters are presented, all students have to do is to sort through different shapes and match each character with the sounds and meaning already stored in their minds.

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TPRStorytelling sequences

• Sequence 3: process with reading aloud activities

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• Objective: students process the information by engaging in different comprehensible input - based reading activities

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• Suggested activities:

- choral reading, reading in style (students choose to read in different voices) ping pong translation, volleyball translation, running dictation, etc

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This sequence usually takes one 50 – minute lesson

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TPRStorytelling sequences

• Sequence 4: story writing

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• Objective:

- produce as much of the target language as possible in an allocated time based on the TPRS story.

- students are granted complete autonomy to determine the characters, events, and endings to their narratives

- students are encouraged when they see how much language they could produce

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• Suggested activities:

- timed writing, parallel story, etc

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This sequence usually takes one 50 – minute lesson

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Homework approach / summative assessment ideas

• Students write or draw a new version of the story. Pair – retell one of the new stories
• Teams create new stories and act out for the class
• Type up student stories and handout to classmates. Ask students to write at least one positive comment on the back
• Have students rewrite stories in past / future tense
• Have students rewrite stories as if they were the main characters, thus helping students conjugate verbs naturally
• Test (turn stories into listening, reading comprehension, etc)
• Presentation – students can write their own story and present to class

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TPRS Classroom setup

Objective: create a happy, relaxing, and Comprehensible Input saturated classroom where language acquisition is effortless.

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Suggestions:

- Posters (E.g. high frequency words, question words, classroom language, rejoinders, etc)

- use flexible seating

- set up differentiation station

- create a classroom library with graded readers

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Image: a Chinese classroom from St. Peter's College in Brisbane, QLD, provided by Xiao Zhang.

TPRS Classroom setup

• Incorporate rejoinders:

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• Rejoinders are those little expressions you use to keep the flow of language going. I share a variety of these with my students, covering various moods, emotions and personalities. Through these, students are empowered to express themselves in a way that feels right for them. Instead of me having to push them to stick to the target language. Together, we maintain that language flow!

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• E.g. ‘WOWSERS’, ‘OMG’, ‘So terrible’, ‘Really?’ etc in the target language

What did my students say about this approach of language learning?

• Four Y8 students volunteered for an interview
• Students were given a minute to think about their responses
• Question 1: How did you find TPRS?
• Question 2: How has it impacted your Chinese language learning in class?
• Question 3: Provide examples of how it supported Chinese language learning.

Acknowledgement

1. Printer, L. (2023). Positive emotions and intrinsic motivation: A self-determination theory perspective on using co-created stories in the Language Acquisition Classroom. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688231204443
2. Neubauer, D. (n.d.). Cold character reading, does it work for everyone?. Ignite Language. https://tprsforchinese.blogspot.com/2014/09/transition-auditory-input-to-reading-in.html
3. Waltz, T. T., Wogstad, K., & Krashen, S. (2015). TPRS with Chinese characteristics making students fluent and literate through comprehensible input. Squid For Brains Educational Publishing.

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Ting.zhang@education.vic.gov.au