In the past as a Spanish high-school teacher, I taught via TPRs (Total Physical Response and storytelling). Basically this method works because it takes a language and brings it to life. The method was started by Blaine Ray, feel free to check out his stuff on youtube. Lots out there!

Why are you doing this? you may be asking. For my niece and nephew, I want them to have the best chance at success once they begin learning Spanish in high-school. I also have students whom I taught who may benefit from this. So I figured I’d make this page to cover it. I will shoot to post two lessons per week. (May change to one per week if it turns out to be more than I can chew).

Here’s how it works in a nutshell:

A perfect example of this method are your parents when beginning to talk to you as a toddler. They didn’t hand you a list of vocab followed by a grammar book in order for you to start talking. They just started to talk to you in very simplistic form. As you improved they added words to your vocab; always keeping it simple. These direct sentences are the building blocks of a language. (Ever been in a different country not known the language and been hungry? The magic word needed there is any-one word that describes the noun or the action. Food, eat, or the motion to represent the act of eating may even work). This is where the P (physical) in TPRs comes in to play. Most people will understand what you are motioning for. Not only that but when looking at the action and the word, it helps your brain remember that word.

So with that said, in this method, language is started with the seven most important verbs; called the super seven. Then we move to the sweet sixteen; all the while learning simple vocabulary as we progress. Keep in mind that the process in the beginning may be slow AND it is not in a classroom setting, since I’m posting lessons on this website via video. Believe it or not, it’s the actual classroom that makes this method fun; so I’m hoping I’m able to recreate that feeling via video lessons. No promises however; absence of actual people in a classroom may hurt this method of learning. Also keep in mind that we are learning past and present tense as we make progress, right off the get go. Why? you may be asking. Well, ever been talking to a friend and all of a sudden you began talking about an incident that happened yesterday? Right. Most of the time that’s a major issue when being taught a new language. We are taught all words in the present, then as we master them, our confidence in talking to a stranger in that language drops, due to the absence and the pressure by not knowing the same verbs in the past tense; the minute they ask how our day was yesterday.

To wrapt it up, TPRs or Total Physical Response and Storytelling, takes a few fictitious characters, created by the same classroom and develops them across a story line using the intended verbs and vocab. In the beginning no more than six words per day are covered. Twice in that week I hand out readings based on what we have covered. This allows you to read what we have been talking about. Once we hit the end of the week you would right the story from memory in the way you remember it. Grammar mistakes are not counted. Just the number of words written in 5 minutes. (A proficient individual in any language will most likely right about 100 to 150 words in five minutes; so a good average to shoot for would be 70 to 100 words written in Spanish in five minutes).

1st lesson to be posted 3/27/24