Comprehensible Input

TPRS is doing what people have been doing ever since the Tower of Babel: communicating with others using simple, comprehensible vocabulary in the context of a story.

I was asked to work with a group of young girls and I began by explaining to the parents that I would be making up stories with the girls and playing games, doing things that would be different than what they were doing in school. During my brief explanation of the principles of Comprehensible Input,

I want to explain the difference between the way I teach and the methods that many other language teachers use. You should know that I have been teaching English as a Foreign Language since 1967 and in over fifty years I have been trained in and have used many different strategies, both as a teacher

Out of necessity, he tried to communicate and quickly found the language “spilling out of his mouth”.

“I forgot I was speaking in English.”

“But correction has no real effect. It is learning, not acquisition. It encourages you to rethink the conscious rule and make a better rule.  That’s conscious learning.” Stephen Krashen 

An experienced teacher knows her students, their culture and their needs and her own personality and possibilities better than anyone else. No one can make her decisions for her. If what she is doing is working, if her students are acquiring language, no one can criticize it. If it’s not working, she knows it before anyone else.

We have a very high student success rate and a retention rate of 50-60%
over four years.

“We have built a reputation for working with all kinds of learners including
those with emotional and learning disabilities of which we are proud.”

Language is the lovely, wild flower growing in the forest.

My friend Christine, who has been studying English with me for several years now. I’ve explained to her the principles of Comprehensible Input.  Today she was explaining to me that she had trained to be an “ergothérapeute”. The word was new to me and I asked her to explain what it meant. She said an