#11: One Semester of Teaching Chinese with TPRS – Part 1

The Bad Chinese Teacher Podcast

On air December 23rd, 2019. Recorded December 22nd, 2019.

It’s the end of the semester, which marks four months of Patricia implementing TPRS methods in her middle/high school Chinese classes. Prior to this, Patricia bulldozed her way through five years of classes using legacy methods, teaching her students Chinese the same way she learned Chinese. It didn’t work.

By moving to TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling), Patricia saw a dramatic increase in engagement, proficiency, and confidence in her students. The rumors are true, y’all — TPRS, even when done by a novice first-timer, changes everything.

In this episode, Patricia talks about her initial skepticism of comprehension-based methods, how she was finally compelled to transition out of using legacy / communicative approaches to teaching, the unique challenges in implementing TPRS for Chinese, specific examples of students naturally acquiring complex grammar concepts through something as simple as attendance reporting at the beginning of class, and focusing on what exactly makes TPRS so effective: the motivating power of the words “I actually understood that!”

Show notes for this episode and all other episodes of the Bad Chinese Teacher Podcast can be found at badchineseteacher.com.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a comment, and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and YouTube. Connect with us on Instagram (@badchineseteacher), Twitter (@badchinesepod), and Facebook. Follow Patricia's personal account on Instagram (@patricialiu), and check out her writing at blog.patricialiu.net.

New episodes of The Bad Chinese Teacher Podcast are posted every Monday at 8am Eastern.