TPRS® (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) is a comprehensible-input method to teaching second language developed by Blaine Ray.
TPRS® has it’s roots in both the natural approach and classical TPR (Total Physical Response) and adapts Stephen Krashen’s ideas on comprehensible input and reading to the classroom.
TPRS® aims at replicating as much as possible the experience of first-language acquisition in the atmosphere of a second-language classroom by immersing students in the language, making that language comprehensible at their level, translating only when necessary to facilitate comprehension, and using scaffolded, differentiated, repetitive questions as the vehicle to getting the language to “sound” right in the students’ heads.
In order to keep the input interesting and fun for the students, TPRS® employs story as the medium for the comprehensible-input. Whether the story be oral or written, students contribute to the overall plot by adding details and twists which keeps the engagement high as the language is effortlessly acquired as the story is developed.
Originally being vocabulary-based and having seven steps to complete daily, TPRS® has evolved into focusing on the most frequent of structures which include high-frequency vocabulary and having only three steps that are worked through throughout a week’s time.
TPRS Steps
- Establish Meaning—establish the meaning of the words and structures
- Story—ask a story using targeted structures
- Literacy—read a story using targeted structures