Trying to forget output

Some days the output just pours out of their mouths and other days the output is choppy or totally incorrect. It is hard for a teacher to move on from this. The bottom line is that it lets me know which structures need more repetition.
I teach lower levels and this means that they are still [...]

Catch their attention immediately

This week I learned that you have to catch their attention immediately. You can’t waste time with elephants or monkeys. They don’t care and they especially don’t care about what we like. These are the basics of human behavior. They only care about the stuff they like. Elephants and monkeys are effective in bizarre scenarios, [...]

Bridging from TPR to stories

After taking a look at the Fluency Fast courses in the fall, I decided that this semester would start out with a TPR phase. Some say that it lacks personalization and I would agree that it can. However, there are strategies to make it personal and once you do, it is incredibly engaging for the [...]

Don’t worry about it

I was watching a video of Joe Neilson from the NTPRS 2004 conference. He was doing a section on dramatizing a reading. There was so much energy and so many good ideas. Of course I wrote them down and considered them, but I got something else out of it too.
I realized that Joe has been [...]

What keeps us going?

I read this blog about a year ago and I understand more of what it says now. Talks about the process of learning TPRS. I have seen this process in different teachers, as well as myself. Blaine has a PP with the different stages of TPRS.
Anway, I thought I would add this to my notes [...]

I feel growth

This week I started my new 7th graders on storytelling. We did about three weeks of straight TPR and it went really well. When I told the students that we were going to do stories now there were actually grumbles because they liked it so much. I will say, though, that TPR is most effective [...]

Actors

Up until now I have been having inconsistent results with actors. Sometimes it goes great and it is hilarious and other times the actor is messing around or feels completely awkward.
I knew I was going wrong somewhere, but I didn’t know why or what to do about it. I was coresponding with another TPRS teacher [...]

There is no script

I was watching the movie The Matrix the other day. In the movie Neo is sitting next to this buddhist kid who bends a spoon with his mind. The kid was showing Neo that the rules of the matrix can be broken and are not set in concrete. This is when the kid  makes the [...]

Fluency through TPR Storytelling by Blaine Ray & Contee Seely

This is basically the textbook on how to do TPRS. It is called the green book in many circles because it is the color green. Not much needs to be said about this book. It is a must have and full of so much vital information that it is an excellent resource.
As of 2008, there [...]

How to win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

I was reading the green book the other day, Fluency Through TPR Storytelling, and Blaine mentions a book that had a big impact on him. The book he mentioned was How to win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. At first glance I wasn’t so sure about the title, but I decided to check [...]