讲故事 / Telling Stories (1)

My primary teaching methodology: TPRS. Total Proficiency Through Reading & Storytelling. Also known as Total Physical Response + Storytelling. I like to give the old name, too, because there are three major components:

• learn vocabulary & structures with gestures
• practice vocabulary & structures with stories
• practice vocabulary & structures with reading

The last two years, I've started with adhering closely to the textbook and then end up hardly using it at all by halfway through the year, because I have an epiphany that my kids aren't learning as much with the textbook and are, in fact, hating and resisting learning Chinese more with each passing day.

With the stories, my students get to practice Unit vocabulary in an engaging, wake-up-you-sleepyheads way every class period. My students can put sentences together in a narrative using story keywords (which they rely on less and less after year 1). My students can read full paragraphs ... or *gasp* two paragraphs ... in Chinese characters combining new vocabulary & structures with the familiar story keywords and progression. My students can answer questions quickly and correctly about the stories' main characters and events, and consequently can apply that to questions about themselves and their surroundings.

And selfishly, the biggest perk of all: I love my job. I want to come in even when I feel like crap, because I know I will enjoy myself and my interactions with my students, even the "oh so dreadful class." I spend the day laughing & smiling with my students, successfully teaching them something and seeing them remember things from previous lessons, and I go home with pretty minimal amounts to grade.

This methodology can be really hard to imagine, so I'm going to break it down in a short series of blog entries so that other teachers can get what I'm talking about. I am NOT saying this is the only methodology that can be successful with American students. By breaking it down, I hope that any Chinese teacher reading this can get some helpful ideas on what they can add to their own class. If at the end of the series, you're still interested in learning more about this methodology, I'll be sure to have some links (other blogs of teachers who use it, books for support and more ideas, and websites for seminars to see it in action).