Students' perceptions of the motivational pull of TPRS

Spanish teacher Liam Printer, a keen practitioner of the TPRS approach, kindly sent me a copy of a paper he has had published in The Language Learning Journal (January, 2019). Liam works at an international, English-medium secondary school in Switzerland and he carried out his research with his own pupils. He wanted to focus on the motivational nature of TPRS, seen through the prism of a particular model of motivation called SDT (Self-Determination Theory). Let me concisely summarise his very clearly written paper, then add one or two reflections of my own.

To teachers with little or no knowledge of TPRS, Liam explains how it works. (He focuses on the story-asking aspect of the approach, although TPRS teachers also use a range of other strategies which are easy to find online.) TPRS stands for Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. It was developed by Blaine Ray in 1997 and focuses on acquiring language through storytelling, reading and personalisation of themes. It's based on Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis and theory of ‘comprehensible input’ whereby a second language is acquired simply by understanding messages. As to how a typical TPRS lesson unfolds, let me quote directly from Liam's paper:

(1) Show: First, the teacher selects three to four high frequency, target language structures as the central component for the story. For example, a beginner or novice story may use the three target structures: went to, forgot and gave her. Meaning is then established by gesturing, acting and translating.

(2) Ask: In TPRS, the teacher ‘asks’ rather than ‘tells’ a story. A pre-written script is used as an outline, but specific details such as the characters’ names and locations, are contributed by the class as the story progresses. A specific method of questioning, called ‘circling’, allows for repetitions of the target structures in various formats to maintain student interest.

(3) Read: After listening and contributing to their story, students then read various versions of it and may also write it. Students will also read other stories with a similar plot and the same target structures as their story, but details will have changed.

So how motivating is this approach? That's the question Liam is addressing in the paper, not the effectiveness of its outcomes. (It's hard to imagine that these two are disconnected, by the way.) Liam briefly summarises the existing, fairly scant and unscientific literature on TPRS, which on the whole paints it in a positive light and tells us about the motivational theory he is using. Let's look at that for a moment.

SDT is one of several competing theories of motivation, but one which has been a growing centre of research in recent years, eclipsing some other theories which focus more on the workings of the mind, rather than the external effects of the teacher and classroom atmosphere. Liam writes; "Ryan and Deci’s (2000) SDT postulates that satisfying the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness leads to enhanced intrinsic motivation and when thwarted can result in diminished motivation. Autonomy is concerned with choice, opportunities for self-direction
and student ownership of their learning. Competence includes students’ perceptions about their capacity to achieve success, while relatedness refers to a sense of belonging, support and inclusion in the classroom." So the aim of the study is to see to what extent TPRS satisfies the three needs.

Without going into the details of the experiment, suffice it to say that classroom observations and focus group reports strongly suggest how effective TPRS is in supporting feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness. It's clear that the students' previous experience of language learning was not an entirely positive one. Reports include references to a lack of classroom communication, too much writing, gap-filling and verb learning, for example. Importantly students say they see language learning as essentially about learning to speak and that TPRS satisfies this requirement far better than the methods they had previously encountered. Although there was a perception that a bit more might be needed than TPRS (the idea that writing and grammar are somehow more serious), the overwhelming view coming across from students is that TPRS allows them to express themselves, develop skill and confidence and a real sens of enjoyment and belonging in the classroom. Because students dictate the course of stories themselves they feel an important part of the process and a sens of belonging to the group. Liam makes the point that the teacher's role is crucial in the process - whatever one's personality, extrovert or otherwise, being an authentic participant in story-asking is a must if students are to get engaged.

Let me add one one or two observations of my own:

As Liam acknowledges, this sort of research is bound to have its limitations, but is surely worth doing. Further points which occur to me would be the following;

• Students' previous diet of language learning is bound to affect how they perceive the change to a different method. In this case it seems that at least some of the students had received a pretty dry experience. Liam's lessons must have been a breath of fresh air.
• Their prior experience had clearly left at least some feeling that learning has to be somehow "serious", and that meant more writing and traditional grammar. That may be a challenge when applying TPRS to some educational contexts.
• It's hard to divorce the method from the beliefs, skill and commitment of the teacher. Liam is, I know, very committed to this approach/method and no doubt delivers it with suitable panache. I would ask how easy it would be for all teachers to take the plunge with an approach which might be quite alien to them. If you can't deliver an approach well, you have to change it.
• Story-asking has some things in common with other communicative-style approaches, notably in terms of the use of questions to produce repetitions of target structures and vocabulary. Can alternative approaches produce similar levels of motivation? Most likely yes, when done well.
• Classes are small in Liam's school. No doubt it's a greater challenge to get everyone involved in a teacher-led approach with a class of 30 or more. 
• All teachers can use aspects of TPRS to complement their existing eclectic approach. Story-asking is not at all unknown within the communicative framework.

To digress a little, UK teachers could learn a few things from TPRS practitioners. While there is not a great amount of empirical evidence that it actually produces better linguists in the long run, its proponents are passionate not only about its strengths but also its value in terms of social equity. The argument goes that traditional grammatical approaches such as PPP favour certain types of "academic" student since they focus on conscious learning, whereas "natural", comprehension-based approaches such as TPRS (where grammar is occasionally focused on in "pop-ups") allow all students to utilise their natural language learning capacities, which all students possess whatever their school attainment. I've yet to be convinced about this argument myself, having seen that schools with all abilities and socio-economic groups can do well using methods quite unlike TPRS. To buy into TPRS you also have to go along with the input hypothesis which, to my mind, is only one part of the overall picture, albeit an important one.

Here is the link to the abstract of Liam's article:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09571736.2019.1566397

For more information about TPRS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPR_Storytelling
Here is a recent webinar about TPRS: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_q2e8vx46