Comprehensible Input Through Storytelling

Karen Lichtman

Comprehensible Input Through Storytelling

Karen Lichtman

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Creating Comprehensible Input and Output omprehensible Input Through Storytelling y first job, while I was still in college, was teaching young children in a before-school Spanish program. The students seemed engaged in the vocabulary activities and songs, but I gradually realized that they were remembering almost nothing of what we had done the day or week before. The following year, my group was the hit of parents’ night with a funny skit, and one of my third graders remarked, “I’ve taken Spanish for three years, but this is the first year I can remember the words!” What happened between those two school years? I was invited to a workshop on TPRS (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling). At the workshop, I realized that my students were not getting even close to the amount of comprehensible input and repetition they needed to be able to cement Spanish words and structures in their long-term memory. I tried out storytelling and found that the negotiation of meaning that happened as I built a story with my students allowed me to use new words and structures repetitively yet naturally in multiple meaningful contexts—in turn, allowing students to build robust representations of how the language fit together. In the last 5 years, research studies on TPRS have shown that it offers significant advantages for students’ speaking, reading, and grammar skills. The method has been around since the 1990s, but it has not received as much coverage in methods textbooks as one might expect given its wide use. In addition to the many educators who teach stories according to the steps outlined in this article, a growing community of teachers has taken core ideas such as comprehensible input, highfrequency vocabulary, and repetitive questioning, and has started to use them in broader ways, referring to this less structured practice as “teaching with comprehensible input.” 46 By Karen Lichtman What Are We Going to Talk About ? An October 2012 article in The Language Educator about staying in the target language posed the questions: “How do we make the target language comprehensible to our students?” and “How do we persuade students to resist the easy path of English when speaking with one another?” For me, structuring class around a story answers a third important question: “What are we going to talk about?” What do you and a classroom of students with no prior knowledge of the target language have in common . . . that can be expressed with minimal high-frequency vocabulary? TPRS structures class dialogue around a shared story, created by the teacher, but influenced by the students. This story may be anything from a silly student-centered scenario with talking animals or celebrities, to a hard-hitting narrative from the target culture, to the simplified plot from a piece of authentic literature. The important thing is that it provides what Helena Curtain and Carol Ann Dahlberg describe in Languages and Children: Making the Match (2008) as a “shared context”—so that although students have differing amounts of background, world, and academic knowledge, when discussing a shared story, they are on an even playing field. Teaching Language Through a Story To guide comprehensible input, TPR Storytelling suggests three general steps: 1. Establish meaning. The meaning of new vocabulary words like mujer [woman] and structures like quiere comprar [wants to buy] is established using gestures, pictures, props, and/or translation. This step is the most similar to traditional Total Physical Response, and takes up little class time. The Language Educator n Oct/Nov 2014 2. Ask a story. The teacher uses the new words and structures to create a story with the class, usually acted out by students. Rather than just telling the story (“The woman wants to buy coffee”), the teacher asks the students for input on what the woman wants to buy, taking the most interesting student suggestion to advance the story. This negotiation of meaning is done using lots of cognates and proper nouns with absolute beginners, but moves on to more advanced vocabulary as the students gain proficiency. The repetitive questioning inherent to “asking a story” allows the re-use of words and structures in new, interesting contexts. It is also one of the more truly communicative techniques I have seen used with beginners, since the students genuinely do not know where the story will go, and the teacher does not know what the students will suggest. This step uses a mix of interpretive and interpersonal communication. 3. Read and discuss. When the story has reached a satisfying conclusion, the class moves on to the reading step, which provides another hefty dose of comprehensible input and interpretive communication. A first reading is usually a longer version of the story, prepared by the teacher according to how he or she thinks the story will go. This allows the students to read something they have just seen acted out in front of them, facilitating comprehension. The discussion may include how the written story differs from the class story, what additional details could be added, how the story could end in a different way, or what would happen if a student from the class experienced a similar event. Sometimes students retell or rewrite the story, incorporating presentational communication. To provide additional reading material, many teachers use comprehensible novellas specifically written for students. Several online sources now provide these novellas, which shelter vocabulary but not grammar. In other words, the total number of non-cognate vocabulary words may be limited to a few hundred, while the preterite, imperfect, and subjunctive show up exactly as they would in authentic language use, providing students with natural exposure to advanced structures. Lest teachers worry that these novellas will be too immature for their students, I just had a returning college student with a BA in Spanish read and enjoy a Level 1 novella. His endorsement of the book highlights the lack of comprehensible reading in programs at all levels. Don Quijote is a great masterpiece, but our less proficient students muddle through it only with the help of their professors and a dictionary in one hand. Novellas can fill the gap between the limited language of textbooks and the challenges of authentic literature, building both reading skills and confidence. Moreover, there is a substantial body of research supporting the benefits of extensive reading for second language proficiency. Considerations There are three major worries that dissuade some teachers from using TPRS strategies: translation, grammar, and culture. First, teachers worry that the use of translation will take away from teaching in the target language. Translation should be used only in very limited ways based on explicit instructional decisions. To establish meaning, translation may be used to introduce more abstract vocabulary words—often by writing the target language word on the board along The Language Educator n Oct/Nov 2014 with its English definition. Since it avoids a frustrating game of charades, I find that this limited use of English actually saves class time that can be used for real communication in the target language. Many abstract words and structures are difficult or impossible to represent through visuals or gestures. A common but less easily justified use of translation is to have students chorally translate a story aloud from the target language into English, in order to make the meaning fully clear to all students. Once students have built some language proficiency, it is preferable to avoid reliance on translation by choosing post-reading activities in the target language—such as asking comprehension questions, discussing reactions to the story, or having students illustrate the story. Second, teachers worry that students will not learn grammar while focusing on reading, telling, and discussing stories. In line with the National Standards, which stress communicative language use, grammar can be addressed through brief “pop-up grammar” lessons, which highlight grammar points as they naturally arise in stories. For instance, the teacher might introduce the third person plural verb ending in Spanish by noting that the -n on the end of a verb is there because two characters are doing the action. Later, the teacher would call attention to the -n on a different verb, asking students to generalize. Finally, a potential problem with a focus on stories is that it runs the risk of neglecting culture. Since the teacher takes suggestions from students (who may not yet be very culturally aware) to guide the direction of stories, it is important for the teacher to also infuse culture into the stories in one way or another. It is quite possible to base stories on traditional folk tales or current events from the target cultures, so that students will learn language and content at the same time. Novellas are another way to provide a jumping-off point for cultural discussions. A common narrative in beginner novellas is that a spoiled American student visits the target culture and reconsiders some of the things that he or she previously found important. While this is simplistic, it can be an entry point for students who have not yet had the chance to experience other cultures. Some newer novellas feature members of the target culture as protagonists, which is a step in the right direction. A Structure for Comprehensible Input TPRS is not a magic bullet for language education; it is merely one structure for class that allows a great deal of interesting, repetitive, comprehensible input. The concept of providing comprehensible input, on the other hand, could be considered a magic bullet. As Stephen Krashen wrote, children—and even adults—are built to learn language via comprehensible input. This learning, while slow, creates robust language representations that can be accessed quickly and automatically, as is necessary to carry on a conversation. Unless your students are already in an immersion program, chances are that they would benefit from more input. TPRS provides many ideas to help create comprehensible input. Karen Lichtman teaches Spanish linguistics and methods classes at Northern Illinois University. Her research investigates age, instruction, and implicit and explicit second language learning. 47

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