Whenever I post about how I teach, there are some well-intentioned but misguided TPRS/CI purists who point to this website posted below about the research that output is bad. Let’s look at what is being said.
The newest research offered is over 25 years old – on students who did not have computers, social media, internet, nor constant music at their fingertips. It does not take into consideration that when music with helpful phrases catches students’ attention, the words pop out spontaneously. It only puts down speaking because of anxiety – before most of us teachers learned to have students work with low filters with a friendly partner. If the only reason you don’t encourage speaking is because of anxiety, come to my class which is full of joy because of the endorphins being released with musical videos. You can learn how to create a joyful class – especially if you follow my advice for random partners.
If you aren’t setting up the right atmosphere for low anxiety and spontaneous speech because of research from 30 years ago, that is your choice. But for me, with all I know from what is effective in my classroom, I would consider myself negligent if this piece of research prevented my students from doing what they want to do – speak Spanish!
For the record, I agree with points 3 and 7, namely students learn from comprehensible input (and I would go one further and say they learn best from visual and musical comprehensible input created by using a daily tech guide) and that a small amount of the mother tongue (written on the slides in the daily tech guide for clarity) is appropriate.
The Research Supporting the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis and C.I. Instruction
