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The author of the TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling ) method is considered to be an American Spanish teacher (Blain Ray), who applies it “face-to-face” in classes.
The method is based on the theory of the "natural approach" and has gained immense popularity among teachers of "non-traditional language schools", those that teach their students to speak, rather than take exams and improve "levels".
Our brain loves context, loves stories. They already contain all the necessary expressions and structures. That is why the first step in our courses is to understand the story in which the target words and structures are presented.
How to understand a story by ear when starting to learn a language? To do this, we borrowed the most popular technique among polyglots.
Listen to the audio recording several times as follows:
- without looking at the text.
- Looking into the Russian translation.
- Looking into English text
- Repeating and imitating.
Your task is to achieve a complete understanding of the text by ear, and be able to pronounce it after the narrator.
How to learn to use those words that you already understand? To do this, we ask the story we already know, gradually adding details.
- the narrator gives information (listen carefully).
- asks questions about the first point.
- you answer the question.
- The narrator gives his answer.
General recommendations:
- you can look at the text whenever you need;
- you can pause the audio for a response;
- a quick and short answer (yes, no) is better than an uncertain one;
- do not worry about mistakes (this is normal);
- you can answer "silently" or out loud (this is more effective);
- At first, you can just listen without trying to answer questions.
The ultimate goal is to answer all questions confidently without looking at the text.
The thing is that grammar is not a set of axioms to memorize, but a skill that needs to be trained. Grammar is essentially a way of putting words together in different situations, expressing facts from different points of view. This is how we approach it - we tell the story from different points of view, and also transfer events and characters from the present to the past or future.
Learning a language is not so much a matter of the right material as it is of using it. How to get the most out of our courses:
1. Listen to the language every day.
The willpower or enthusiasm that drives you now will end very quickly, relying on them is an initially failed mission. The result brings only what we do, without thinking, every day. To make an action a habit, simply do it every day for 30 days. Direct your willpower not to learning a language, but to fulfilling the specific goal of “putting on headphones every day and listening to a course.”
2. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Learning a language using the storytelling method is very active, but still it is a process and it does not happen suddenly. The quality of assimilation is directly proportional to the number of repetitions. Listen to each lesson multiple times.
3. Don't memorize anything
This is not necessary. It is not the left, the conscious part of the brain that we remember, that is responsible for language acquisition, but the right, our unconscious. He needs one thing - to form as many new connections between words as possible. And they are formed through the repetition of stories and their understanding.
