Questions+and+Answers

Post all your questions and answers on this page.
What do you do with students who don't find TPRS fun? - This happened in my 5th grade Chinese class. One child got very bored with classmates who didn't "get" what I was doing and were confused and not paying attention. What helped was reviewing the goals and expectations for them: Listen in order to comprehend; sit up and focus eyes where the action is (me/the board/a student actor); ask questions if you're lost. Ben Slavic's website, http://benslavic.com/, was very helpful for me. I also realized I needed to do a lot more pausing & pointing at Chinese/English as I spoke. I directly told them that I was going to ask questions exactly based on a story they could see in print - that was so they could hear the words used many times and in different ways, which helps their brains remember them. I also privately talked with the skeptic about the value of the method if he let himself try it out for a week. The skeptical student improved. I also got better at stories and circling, which certainly helped!  - Another idea from Ben Slavic: get personal details from your students and use them. If a student is trying to get lots of attention from classmates, make him or her the central figure in a very positive storyline.

So: where would be YOUR beginning point for TPRS in Chinese?
 * 这是男孩.
 * 要买.
 * 快乐.

不然怎样？

According from what we have learned from the workshop, would it be: What do you think??
 * 这是男孩吗？( + ) 是
 * 这是男孩，还是这是女孩？( or ) 男孩
 * 这是女孩吗？ ( - ) 不是
 * 这不是女孩. 这是男孩. ( restate the negative and restate the positive statement )
 * 这是谁？( who? )