How comprehensible must comprehensible input be?
According to Krashen, for language-learning to occur, language input must be comprehensible. I’m teaching a class of university freshmen, in an English Dept. Some of them learned absolutely no English in high school. Some seem to have learned nothing in JHS. Some do not recognize the word “young”. One boy said he doesn’t understand “does” [...]
TPRS Workshop with Susan Gross in Shimabara, Japan, Sep. 2011
A three day teaching skills workshop for teachers of foreign languages, held in Shimabara, Japan. We welcome any teachers, regardless of where and at which level they teach, and seek to build a forum for shared and co-operative skill improvement. An English – Japanese interpreter will be present for all sessions. More info on [...]
Frequency word lists
TPRS-teacher Thomas Young, who teaches Spanish, blogged about Frequency words, which led me to Michele Baker’s blog, who also teaches Spanish but she conveniently included a link to COCA’s Word Frequency Lists. This list is useful because it helps me answer a key question: what should I teach (first) Thomas writes: We can now look [...]
Sy Ying Lee
I got this link from Ben Slavic, and he got it from Beniko Mason. It’s somewhat technical – it’s aimed at language teachers who are somewhat familiar with Second Language Acquisition theory, especially the ideas of Stephen Krashen. If you are new to these ideas, the content of the presentation may contain many “upside-down bananas”, [...]
12 Brain Rules
I’m on a list roll… Here’s a list of 12 “Brain Rules” which look interesting and of interest and relevance to EFL teachers. The link to this was given on the More TPRS mailing list. I’m generally leery of fake-science “theories” and “brain-based learning” seems a prime candidate for that category. Also, I wonder about [...]
Nine Language-Teaching Myths
The following article sums up some key ideas that form the basis of TPRS, an approach to teaching second/foreign languages that is largely based on, and supported by, Stephen Krashen’s theories of language acquisition. It was written by Jack Taylor, an AET in Japan, and originally posted on the TPRS Japan Forum. It is reposted [...]
Lessons learned – how not to use movies in class, and other useful tips
Image via Wikipedia I learned a couple of lessons today. Don’t use the same movie and lesson-plan with both an advanced class and a dummies class. When playing a DVD in the classroom, don’t start up the projector until just 5 minutes before you plan to actually show the movie. The other lesson was more [...]
My TPRS classes online
I have recorded part of some of my TPRS classes with a freshmen class at my university. I have adjusted the settings so that these videos are as available to the public as I can make them, while remaining within my university’s Learning Management System (T.I.E.S.). My university has developed its own Learning Management System [...]
Planned lessons vs unplanned lessons
Quandary. Contradiction. Oxymoron. Storytelling vs. PQA. “Teaching children, not a curriculum.” I’m losing student interest. I’m using stories (Blaine Ray’s Look I Can Talk 1 & 2). Book 2 is more engaging for the university students I teach than book 1 (and I’m using the textbook, not the mini-stories or extended readings). My most difficult [...]
Teaching a foreign language at university level using TPRS
Image via Wikipedia Do you teach a foreign or second language at university? Is fluency a key goal of yours? Are you using TPRS, or some similar approach? If so, you might be interested in what I’ve written below, and I’d be interested in reading your comments. Every teacher who attempts to use TPRS must [...]
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