What if Students Get Bored in Class with TPRS 2.0?

 I recently did a webinar and I got the following question from someone afterwards. It’s not the first time I have been asked, so I thought it would be a good idea to get my thoughts down here as well because maybe more people will have the same question/concern.

I would love to learn more about how to implement TPRS 2.0 in my Chinese classroom. I teach Chinese 1, 2, 3, and AP Chinese at a public high school, and each of my classes has more than 20 students. One challenge I anticipate is that giving most students the opportunity to answer the circling* questions could take a significant amount of class time. I'm also concerned that students who are waiting for their turn may lose focus. I would appreciate any suggestions you have for managing this in larger classes.

*I am making the assumption that this is referring to the vast amount of circling and triangling questions as well as Describe the Situation. I think it would be easier to break each of them down individually. 

Students Get Bored

But first, I’ll acknowledge the elephant in the room. Students get bored. People get bored. Kids get bored. Teachers get bored (in teacher meetings, right?). It’s a part of human nature that we can’t take or leave. And quite possibly, people’s affinity to boredom correlates to their usage of technology that is constantly getting their brain to fire dopamine throughout the day with texts, emails, apps, etc. 

So, yes. It is quite possible that your students will get bored if you teach with TPRS 2.0. Internally, Craig, Von, and I have been debating what that means for us. We have thrown around the terms: Entertainment and Engagement. And for so many years, to me I thought I was needing to entertain my students to keep them paying attention. But as we dove deeper into our debate, we realized that entertainment is passive. When we entertain, we pay attention, we laugh, we want to know what’s next. Entertainment is also more “me focused” as a listener. I am getting something out of this. But is the listener contributing? I also think of entertainment, especially for our demographic as “funny”. The issue with entertainment is that students might find me “entertaining” (or funny) one moment and then as soon as I try to jump into the lesson, they are back to boredom. 

I like to think of engagement as something similar to entertainment. We have someone’s attention, but it is more active. While someone entertained is listening and maybe reacting with laughter, someone who is engaged is listening because something about what you’re saying resonates with them. The best conversations in my life have been engaging, without needing to be entertaining. Is there a way, then, for us as TPRS 2.0 teachers to get students engaged? I think if they are engaged, that will be a more powerful connection than simply being entertained. This past year of teaching, when I would compare notes to teachers like Craig Sheehy, I realized that I wouldn’t necessarily be funny in class. And my goal wasn’t to be funny. Instead it was to make sure that students listened, looked, answered questions, and retold the story in the language. And I believe that even if I wasn’t always entertaining, most students were engaged. And the data I collected with speaking samples, writing samples, quizzes, tests, etc show growth to support that claim.

Strategies for Engagement

So how do we keep students engaged? We have a variety of tools as teachers. Some things I demo’d were gestures for words. I would ask students to gesture when I would say a word. Not necessarily entertaining, but it forces the student into the active participant role instead of the passive observer who might check out as soon as it isn’t “funny” anymore. 

1. Celebrations are so great for numerous reasons, but they also keep us paying attention while making the class a more positive place. When students answer correctly or Describe the Situation, it’s always nice to celebrate them.

2. Gestures are a great way to bring students in. You could create gestures for question words, verbs/actions, nouns, etc. When you use the words, the students have to gesture along with you to show they are following along.

3. Vocal cues like “OOOOOH” and “OOOOH NO!” show us students are understanding the story and the direction of the story. We are asking them to react to information in the story. For example, if they interact positively to something negative (or vice versa) in the story, we know that they didn’t understand. 

4. Rejoinders can be another fun way because we have students interject to show their understanding with expressions in the language like, “It’s obvious”, “No way!”, “Of course!”, “Poor baby!”, etc.

5. Closed eye quizzes can help too where we get to a point in the lesson and tell students to close their eyes. They can put a thumbs up if the answer is Yes/True or a thumbs down if it’s No/False. 

6. Classroom jobs can help students who can contribute positively to class during class as well to make your life easier. You can phase these in during the year and get rid of them as they are no longer necessary

7. Use recognizable characters in the stories from pop culture, movies, games, etc to bring students into the fictional world more

8. Signals like one for not understanding help keep students engaged because if they want to know what something means before they tune out when they are lost, you can keep them engaged by addressing the problem.

9. Varied questions via circling and triangling, which we will touch based on momentarily.

10. Describe the situation, which we will also touch based on momentarily. 

For a moment, let’s consider that TPRS 2.0 classes are probably unlike most classes students will experience, especially in Middle School and High School. Since we need students engaged to understand the language, a lot of what we are doing is built to maintain that engagement. And the best ways to do that are through Circling, Triangling, and Describe the Situation. In the next sections, let’s talk about how those build into engagement, but also what to do if students are losing interest.

Boredom during Circling

Circling questions are great because they are simple questions that show the understanding of the content at the class level in one-word answers. When you hear strong and healthy responses from the class, you know they understood and felt confident to respond. However, students might get bored during circling because they feel like they understand since it’s on the board and translated. But understanding superficially and being able to express themselves int the language as we play around with the language are two different things. 

There are times when class responses can be weak. That’s generally for one of two reasons: 

1) Students didn’t all answer because they didn’t understand the question. In that case, ask the class in English, “What did I say?” Then allow a student to translate it. Then I ask again, slower to see if they got it. And I might come back to that question later to make sure students can understand it.

2) Students didn’t all answer because they didn't want to. It’s a classroom culture thing. From day one, I have to teach my expectations that they are letting me know they understand the information by answering, gesturing, etc. I have to coach them when they aren’t doing a good job. If some students aren’t answering along with the class, maybe I ask them individually the questions. Or I ask them to translate a question I ask. Not as a punitive thing, but to check in with them. And if there are problems in comprehension, we can work on those. 

Something I have to do all year is to remind my classes that their job is to listen, look, answer questions, and retell the story. If I don’t hear the whole class answer, I assume they aren’t all understanding, so I have to go slower to make sure they do understand. And then I proceed to go slower to make sure and see if they start answering. Whenever given the option, some students will choose passive over active. I have to remind them that they need to show me their understanding in class.

Boredom in Triangling

Triangling questions are also useful because they are simple questions that show the understanding of the content at the student level in full sentence answers. When you hear strong and healthy responses from the class, you know they understood and felt confident to respond. However, students might get bored during triangling because it’s talking to individuals instead of to the entire class. So some might think they can check out at that time. Here are some ways I try to help combat that.

1) I remind students that whenever someone is speaking in the Target Language in class, they should be listening

2) I give them the challenge to answer in their head faster than the person speaking

3) we celebrate when the different people answer, helping students check back in

4) I like to randomize who I call on. Just because I called on you doesn’t mean I can’t come back. I also like to ask numerous questions sometimes. For the students who do better, there are times I ask them a few questions to show off.  

5) Sometimes I go from triangling back to circling to ask the class some questions again, to get them to check back in

6) Sometimes I repeat back the wrong information so students correct me.

Boredom in Describe the Situation

Oh, Describe the Situation, or DTS. This is such a huge part of what makes TPRS 2.0 successful as it is so important for all students to actually speak in the language to really experience where they still aren’t confident about the language from the story. Yet it also can potentially be a place where students tune out due to not being engaged. 

There are three basic components to DTS, the teacher retells the story to class, the students all retell the story (to hand, partner, etc), and individual students retell for the class. In the last layer, that is where we typically see that students can tune out.

Some ways to bring them back:

1. Remind students: While the language is being spoken, you need to make sure you listen and understand.

2. Remind students: Try to retell the story before they do.

3. Remind students: Listen in and see if they say anything interesting.

4. Break up individual DTS: Have 1-2 students go after me. Then describe to your hand/partner/etc. Have 1-2 more students go.

5. Have students retell different characters/parts of the story

6. Vary how students retell (“Retell to me. I am George.” “Retell, but you are George.” etc.)

7. Lies from students are fun because there are times I tell students, “Try to slip in a lie.” And then the class can yell out, “Mentira” when it’s wrong. 

8. Lies from me in the retell/recast. Once a student Describes the Situation, I will often retell the information back to them in perspective. But I can tell lies to catch the class as well. This was a helpful one to find out students were listening and paying attention even if they weren’t always looking forward.

9. Have students recast the information instead of me. Once one student describes the situation, have a student retell in perspective to that other student. I do this later in the year and just explain (playfully) how tired I am. Could someone help me out and do it for me this time (or today).

Perspective and buy-in

Something I have also been wondering about as I used this last year in my classes was the difference between this and CI methods, TPRS 1.0, and/or storytelling. In those, the students are more passive and having to understand. But they don’t have to output the language. And they often aren’t the characters themselves. In TPRS 2.0, we are asking students to interact with a story in the language, and then respond to questions as the characters.

Somehow, this little tweak is magical. Because not only do students get to speak in the first person forms as the character, but it also seems to invest them more in the story because they get to pretend. For example, when we talk about George wanting a Coca-Cola, the students have to pretend they are George and they want a Coca-Cola. And we created a back-story where his enemy drank the Coca-Cola. When they would retell the information, I would playfully say, “Poor thing” (in Spanish) or react to what a terrible person his enemy is (in Spanish). And students would learn to do this too. These types of reactions and playfulness with being the character were infectious and also helped students develop empathy for the character’s situation. And by the end of the story, the class applauded when George finally got a Coca-Cola weeks after we had started the journey. By the same token, one of our parallel characters also got friends and the class cheered and smiled. 

While I could be wrong, I believe us having the students pretend to be the characters also connects them to the story in a new way as they put themselves in the shoes of the character, so the story means more.

Brain Breaks

But even with all these amazing strategies, sometimes it’s a matter of sitting for too long in class. I believe I have heard something like younger students’ attention spans require them to get up and move every 10-15 minutes, while older kids might be 15-20 and adults around 20. But we will lose students if we have them sit too long. Something that is a simple tweak in our classes is asking students to get up to perform a task. Or integrating a moment or two in the class for students to get up to stretch their legs and move around such as:

1. True/False quiz where they stand up for true answers or sit down for false answers

2. Songs / Rhymes are a nice way to get students up and moving. Sometimes I’ll jump into something like a simple song with gestures for 1-2 minutes to get students up and moving (TPRS Books has some really cool ones in the Spanish curriculum, that hopefully are coming to other languages)

3. Total Physical Response (TPR) can be a nice way to get them up and moving and interacting with language. I find it to be a nice complement to TPRS to give them some more action words in their vocabulary that we can use later in stories. And some days, I build in a few minutes to practice them.

4. Have students get up and DTS to another student

5. Have students DTS to the wall

6. Have students walk in a circle while they DTS

7. Have students tell a partner what something means / how to answer a question / etc. (not getting up, but moving and changing focus for a minute)

8. Get up and grab a piece of paper from the stool, table, etc. (while I could pass them out, them moving is super important) 

While this is hardly an exhaustive list, these are things I have found helpful to get students moving a little during class to help them focus throughout.

Ideally we can maintain 100% of students engaged 100% of the time. Or at the very least, when the students’ minds drift for a moment, we can bring them back pretty well so they can internalize the language and speak it with confidence! 

Of course no classroom is perfect. That’s where we constantly are tweaking what we are doing. And there are students unfortunately that no matter what I do, they will simply not stay engaged. But at least we can try. And hopefully there are ideas in this post that are helpful to you to keep engagement high during class with the TPRS 2.0 formula. Have an idea or comment? Write it below!

NTPRS 2026 in Port Orange Florida

Wow, another NTPRS has come and gone! 

I was trying to think about how many I’ve been to. I think it’s 9 or so. (Reno, San Antonio, Boston, Chicago, Chicago, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Huntsville, Port Orange) Crazy how time has flown by!

I was actually excited to be able to go this year because I used TPRS 2.0 in my classes all last year and was quite impressed with the quality of output in level 1 students (compared to when I had previously only used TPRS, or what we refer to as TPRS 1.0 now). 

Here’s the main difference from what I can tell:

TPRS 1.0	TPRS 2.0
Tell an entire story each 1-2 days Read on a separate day. Use Circling to get students to talk about the story Focus on comprehension to determine class pacing	Tell a chunk of information almost every day Embed reading each day Use Circling, Triangling, and DTS to build comprehension and speaking confidence Focus on speaking from day 1 to determine class pacing

Latin Demos

Something that I have always loved about TPRS Workshops and the NTPRS conference is the focus on learning a language during the week and the power of how that feels. I remember when I first learned French in 2010 and it felt so easy. I wanted to speak. Later at my first NTPRS, I learned Russian. It was so neat to be able to learn languages and get a glimpse into how my own students might feel in my Spanish classes. And it also helped prove the effectiveness of the method to build the language in the head. 

Magister John Ricard was our Latin teacher for the week and while people might not have been convinced after the first lesson, he stayed the course and each class masterfully blended a mixture of asking the class questions (circling), asking individuals questions as the character (triangling ) and asking us to retell the story to ourselves, a partner or for the class. A takeaway from me was how much I was hoping he would call on me so I could try out some of the language and take some risks to figure out if I could say something unscripted. However, there were plenty of people to call on (and later he told me he wasn’t sure if I wanted to be called on). Which is a fun point. But in TPRS 2.0, the best part I learned this past year is that it was ok for me to call on any student and help them if they weren’t sure how to answer with confidence. In a few cases, a student might pass, and I let them know I would come back to them, and when I did, they had more confidence after listening to their peers.

By the final day of Latin, the class laughed together, celebrated each other, and the students wrote in Latin! They did a 5 minute timed write and some students rewrote the story in over 100 words in Latin! And these weren’t people that knew latin 3 days prior. Pretty awesome! Which echos what I saw in my classes last year.

Beginner and Experienced tracks

During the first three days, there were two tracks: Beginner and Experienced. Beginners was for those who didn’t feel confident using TPRS 2.0 in their classroom yet. Experienced were those that were using it and felt like they could do it, but needed more ideas for variety and to sustain it. For the Beginner Track, there seemed to be some that weren’t convinced the first day, but as the week went on, a paradigm shift occurred for many of them here they really could feel their own learning in the Latin class all week and then when other teachers would demo TPRS and try it out in languages like Greek, Russian, and Yupik. I was able to be there for a few moments for the Upic demonstration. It was phenomenal. The teacher was patient and encouraging. She had a calming presence and I could see how impressed she was when people woudl respond in full sentences in the Upic language as the character! 

The experienced track also went well. Whenever I would walk over there to take pictures or talk to attendees about what they had learned, they would have some great takeaways thanks to Profe Craig Sheehy. 

The Final Day

And the final day there were some breakout sessions. I presented on How to Teach with Novels in the classroom (see a similar presentation I gave here) and also one on How to Write a Novel. Since I think I have around 13 or so novels now for TPRS Books. Crazy! I never would have thought I would even write one years ago. 

In the closing, Blaine Ray shared some reflections about his time in the classroom as well to inspire us. 

By the end of the week, the group seemed to be closer then when we all started as strangers and it was a special week that I hope inspired people and encouraged them to try out this seemingly different method that actually gets students speaking in their classes! 

I'm excited to get back to my students in a few weeks and keep working on my TPRS 2.0 skills to push them to higher levels of speaking fluency! 

TPRS 2.0 - How I Assess Language Learners: A Year of "Snapshots"

When I sat down to plan assessment for my Spanish 1 class this year, I knew I didn't want to rely on traditional tests. My students needed frequent, low-stakes ways to show growth. And I needed real data to track that growth over time. What I ended up with was a rotation of four assessment types I call snapshots: writing, speaking, reading, and vocabulary, with listening folded in when I could manage it. Here's how each one works.

Timed Writes: Getting the Wiggles Out

At the start of the year, students did timed writes. These are short bursts of writing, usually retelling a story from a character's perspective (though they could write original content too). We began with just a few minutes of writing, and I told them not to worry about spelling or grammar. The goal was simply to write, write, write.

This matters for a few reasons. First, it gets students comfortable putting Spanish on paper without the pressure of "getting it right." Second, it makes them more aware of what they don't know yet, which pays off later when they're speaking. Third, it's genuinely motivating: since I gave full credit for meeting a low word-count bar, almost every student who was paying attention could succeed.

I ran timed writes about once a month, gradually increasing the target word count by 5–10 words each time. My goal was for students to reach 100 words in 5 minutes by year's end. Many blew past that… In fact, some were writing 100+ words by the halfway point and 200+ by June. What impressed me most wasn't just the volume, though; it was watching the quality improve alongside it: richer vocabulary, more detail, more varied sentence structure.

Speaking Snapshots: Low Stakes, Real Growth

(see examples here)

Speaking and writing were my two priorities, because I believe strongly in the value of output, that is showing what students can actually do with the language, not just what they recognize.

This year I added a new speaking assessment: students recorded themselves retelling a story using a simple recording tool, then uploaded the file to Google Drive for me to grade. I deliberately avoid calling these "tests." I call them snapshots instead, partly because my students (at an independent school, often quite hard on themselves) don't need extra performance anxiety, and partly because it reflects what they actually are: a quick check-in, not a high-pressure exam. They still count as a test grade in the gradebook, but the framing matters.

Early on, I graded without a rubric and quickly realized how arbitrary that made things. I built a rubric to grade more fairly since students are speaking extemporaneously, without formal "studying" beyond showing up and staying engaged in class. Their preparation is being present and doing the work day to day. I also made sure to add in additional categories so they could get the score without having to do everything, since what they say varies from student to student.

I ran these about once a month, and the growth was genuinely neat to watch, including from students who started at a lower level. They were acquiring new structures and new language in real time.

Vocabulary Snapshots

(see examples here)

Vocabulary snapshots were straightforward matching exercises. Usually 20 to 30 terms, matching a word to its meaning or concept (quiere to "he/she wants," quiero to "I want," etc.).

One grading choice I made here: if a student identified the right verb but used the wrong form, I still gave half credit. At this stage, they often haven't fully internalized the morphology (i.e. the endings), but they do understand that a word like quiero relates to wanting something. That's meaningful comprehension, even if the form isn't perfect yet, and I didn't want to penalize it too harshly.

Reading Snapshots

(see examples here)

For reading, I mixed things up depending on what we were working on. Sometimes students translated a paragraph from our class story or a daily reading either in full or in part. Other times I'd mix in unfamiliar sentences using vocabulary we'd covered in class, so they couldn't just rely on memorization.

I also liked using visual formats, like a MovieTalk or the TPRS Books’ powerpoints, where students match an image to a sentence. For example, matching a picture of a character wanting a Coca-Cola to the sentence describing it. It's a simple, low-pressure way to check reading comprehension.

Listening Snapshots

(see examples here)

Listening was the one I did least, and honestly, something I want to improve next year. When I did run listening snapshots, students either translated sentences I read aloud or matched spoken sentences to pictures. One that worked well: using illustrations from María en Miami (our February class read), I'd read a sentence aloud three times and have students match it to the corresponding picture. Students did really well with this since it's a "receptive" skill, and like reading, it tends to come more easily than the "productive" skills of speaking and writing.

That's actually one of the reasons I value having a mix of assessment types: some students are quieter but have excellent comprehension. A rotation that includes reading and listening alongside writing and speaking lets those students show what they know, too.

Putting It All Together

My rough goal was 3–4 snapshots a month, rotating through the four types, with writing and speaking prioritized whenever possible. If a week didn't allow for one, I'd swap in another, but I always tried to make sure speaking and writing got covered regularly, since those are the skills I most wanted consistent data on.

By the end of the year, this rotation gave me something I really valued: a clear, ongoing picture of how each student was growing across all four language domains, not just a handful of high-stakes test scores, but a real story of progress over time.

What do you think?

Was there something in this article that was helpful? Do you have better ways of assessing your students? Let me know!

TPRS 2.0 with an observer

Ok, like everyone, I get down on myself and my teaching. There are days I get frustrated with how it seems like I am throwing language to my students and they are lost. Or only a few strong students answer and the rest don't. Or kids are being kids.

Yesterday was one of those days where I had to remind classes of their responsibility to answer questions to show me they understand. 

Nevertheless, I was down on myself after some lackluster responses. 

So today, I came in with lower expectations. And we started with the Daily Reading...

You might notice I color coat things to help them make sense of certain parts. They might not even notice, but I like doing it.

Then, we reviewed the story with them Describing the Situation of different parts of the story. They got to choose the character and then spoke to me in perspective for the other. For example:

I am a girl. My name is Elena. I live in Minneapolis in a house with my grandparents. I am in Target. I am wearing a blue t-shirt and brown pants. I have blue hair and am dark-skinned, generous, and kind. I like plastic monkeys.

You are a cat. You call yourself Garfield. You live on Maple street in Muncie, IN with your owner Jon and a dog named Odie. You are lazy, fat and orange. You like to eat, sleep and watch TV. (optional: You hate Mondays.)

My name is Elena. When I was a little girl, I had a plastic monkey. I was six years old and lived in Sydney, Australia. One day, I went to the park. When I was at the park, another little girl went over to me, told me "I am hungry," took my plastic monkey and ate it in front of me. I am sad.

You are a cat. Your name is Garfield. You want to eat lasaña but you don't have lasaña. You went to your refrigerator, you looked for lasaña and you didn't see any lasaña (or there wasn't any lasaña). You ate all the lasaña yesterday and you are not happy.

My name is Elena. I want a plastic monkey. I am in Target and I look for a plastic monkey, but there are none. I leave Target, I go to my car and cry for 24 hours, and then I return to my house.

You are a cat. Your name is Garfield. You are sad because you don't have any lasaña because you ate all the lasaña yesterday. You leave the kitchen and go back to the living room. You watch tv and think about a solution to your problem.

Then I wanted to continue building my story chunk from yesterday and today (practicing "usted" now for the first time actively this year). After I reviewed, triangled and added the information of I like to swim in my money and count my money, students described to me (and if they used tú, I would jokingly say "woah... I need respect!" (in Spanish):

• Usted es un pato.
• Usted se llama Scrooge McDuck.
• Usted es tacaño, viejo y rico.
• Usted tiene mucho dinero. Usted tiene mil millones de dólares.
• Usted vive en una mansión que compró en Duckburg.
• A usted le gusta el dinero. A usted le gusta nadar en el dinero y contar el dinero.

And we got numerous students to try it out and it was awesome to hear! I am glad I waited to introduce it at this point in the year because now their changing perspective has become so natural, this was just a little tweak for them and those who tried were picking it up so quickly!

Of course I was more nervous because a teacher from another school came and observed my classes today to learn more about TPRS 2.0. After seeing two of my classes, she was impressed with what my students could do in Spanish 1!  

And afterwards she said, "After watching you, I know I can do this now!" 

TPRS 2.0 for the win!

then reviewed the new information and focused on triangling that and DTSing that new chunk, and they did great all day! Super neat since this was when I finally introduced a character with usted (formal), and they were picking it up so quickly. 

Of course I was more nervous because a teacher from another school came and observed my classes today to learn more about TPRS 2.0. After seeing two of my classes, she was impressed with what my students could do in Spanish 1!  

And afterwards she said, "After watching you, I know I can do this now!" 

TPRS 2.0 for the win! 

Attached are some slides with the daily reading (based on adapted Elena story from 1.3) and attached slides I used for them to DTS and then where I added "I like to swim in my money and count my money."

Two Weeks into TPRS 2.0: Early Classroom Reflections (from August 2025)

We’re now about two weeks into the school year, of me playing a mad-language-acquisition-scientist... and I’m starting to see some interesting patterns emerge as I continue implementing TPRS 2.0 in my classes.

The first couple of weeks are always a time of adjustment. Students are getting used to the routines. I’m adjusting pacing. And we’re all learning how this class is going to work.

But already, a few things are becoming very clear.

Triangling Is a Game-Changer

One big difference in my classroom this year has been triangling.

Instead of asking varied questions to the entire class, now I’m asking multiple students the same question in slightly different ways as the character. The result is that far more students are mentally engaged in the conversation, because they will have to answer individually and also role-play as the character in full sentences. And I can ask them as many times as I would like. I can come back to them. I can randomize who I call on so they never know. 

It also prevents the common classroom pattern where a few confident students answer everything while others quietly sit back.

Triangling has helped me make sure I’m checking comprehension across the room and bringing more students into the interaction. I rotate who I call on, but I also honor volunteers when students want to jump in.

The overall effect has been more energy and more accountability across the class. And I love celebrating when individuals get it right! 

DTS: Powerful but Time-Intensive

Another strategy I’m continuing to experiment with is Describe the Situation (DTS).

DTS gives students structured opportunities to speak by describing what’s happening in the story. It’s a great bridge between input and output.

The challenge so far has been time.

In a 40-minute class period, the minutes disappear quickly. Between warmups, checking work, triangling, reading, and quizzes, pacing becomes a real challenge.

Right now, I’m still figuring out how to balance all the pieces of the TPRS 2.0 “recipe” while making sure the lesson moves forward and students stay successful.

Stories Grow Slowly (And That’s Good)

Our first story this year centers around a character named George.

At first the information was very simple. As students grew more comfortable, we gradually added more details.

George is in California in his house in the bathroom.
Eventually we introduced another character, which lent itself to other locations like a park, and a dance-club.

This slow growth keeps the language comprehensible while giving students repeated exposure to the same structures.

For example, students are encountering ser and estar repeatedly in meaningful contexts. Some students are already developing a feel for the difference. Others are still figuring it out, which is fine, but neat to see the process.

Watching Students Experience Success

One moment this week stood out to me.

There was a student who had been missing one or two questions on the daily quizzes each day. On Wednesday, that student finally got all six questions correct.

Moments like this are easy to overlook, but they matter. They show that when students receive enough understandable input and support, their confidence begins to grow. Now the goal is to replicate that success and continue building on it.

Why Emotion Matters in Learning

During the week I was reminded of something I recently heard on the Hidden Brain podcast in an interview with neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (see notes at bottom).

The host summarized it this way:

In order for students to learn, they have to care about what they are learning. Emotion has to sit in the driver’s seat.

This aligns closely with what we see in TPRS classrooms.

Students don’t acquire language because we explained grammar clearly. They acquire language because they are emotionally engaged in the communication.

Stories, humor, personalization, and participation all help make the language meaningful.

A System to Encourage Participation

Another experiment this week has been developing a clearer participation system. Next week, I will try out my revised participation system so I can try to make sure students can all get 10 points per week via translating for class, miscellaneous participation, triangling questions, and describing the situation. 

Students can earn participation points through:

• translating during reading

• answering triangling questions

• describing the situation (DTS)

• other contributions

My goal is for each student to accumulate about 10 participation points per week in 8th grade (and slightly slower pacing in 7th grade).

I think all but DTS have a one point value and DTS has a 3 point value. 

So ideally, each student can get 10 points easily per week, but they are also being encouraged to speak. It’s also meant to help me call on various students to make sure they get their participation points. So far, so good. Craig uses a participation system where they simply reflect on their participation. But I want to hold myself to calling on all the students so the expectation is they will have to speak in class.

Basically, I have papers in a binder with a seating chart on top and then a roster on the bottom. There are different categories on the sheet: Absent/Tardy/Bathroom; translation, triangle, DTS, misc and a total column. 

The purpose isn’t to pressure students. It’s to help ensure that everyone has opportunities to participate and to help me intentionally spread those opportunities across the class.

The Early Takeaway

Two weeks in, the biggest takeaway is this:

TPRS 2.0 works best when I (as the teacher) focus on student success moment by moment.

That means checking comprehension often, giving students numerous opportunities to speak, slowing down when necessary, and celebrating small wins along the way. When they don't get it, take time to make sure they feel that they understand and have more confidence with the information.

It’s still early in the year. But already I’m seeing students become more comfortable interacting in Spanish. And that’s a great place to be after just two weeks.

Nevertheless, I am going WAY slower than I ever did with TPRS 1.0. But I'm here for it because I can already see them speaking with more confidence in perspective.

TPRS 2.0 and what sets it apart from TPRS 1.0

Ok, so maybe we should define terms... pretty much all of this blog before this year (2026) chronicled my experiences with using TPRS (and other tools via the lens of TPRS) in my classes.

I was incredibly excited about it. In fact, I was so excited, when TPRS Books offered me a job, I jumped at it to work with the company that transformed my teaching trajectory! 

But what I was using back then was referred to as TPRS 1.0.

What is TPRS 1.0?

I'm glad you asked. TPRS 1.0 is a method of instruction that utilizes stories to aid in language acquisition. It relies heavily on translation to ensure comprehensibility and works to provide students with repetitive, high-frequency input via engaging stories. 

The steps are:

1. Establish meaning (have target phrases on the board with translation)
2. Ask a story to students*
• reinforce new language with circling (asking repetitive questions that highlight the language  in the target phrases)
• this might take 1-2 days. It would often take me 3 days.
3. Do a follow-up reading of the same story or a similar story
• ask comprehension questions about sentences, paragraphs, etc. 
• personalize information from the reading to students' lives
• this would often take me a day or less
4. Repeat

*This feels a lot like a mad-lib where you have variables and allow students some level of control over the story.

In 2010 when I first learned this, it was better than anything I had ever seen. My students were speaking in Spanish more than they ever had with a textbook. So I was hooked. And I continued to experiment with things like interviewing my characters in the story, reading novels, adding in movie-talks, etc. But all of it revolved around a lot of communication and also reinforcing this with reading.

TPRS 1.0 ask-a-story target structures

See example of old TPRS story target structures to the right.

In TPRS 1.0, it's also important to note that it heavily followed Dr. Stephen Krashen's teachings and the role of input being critical, while not forcing output from students until they are ready. This is referred to as the silent period. 

TPRS 1.0 also involved an entire story that was told over the course of 1-2 days. Students were expected to remember that information. I, however, was afraid to call on my students to retell the entire story, because it felt like a lot of information to remember. I once cold-called on a student and she cried, leaving me to think I was a failure and I needed to honor the silent period.

What is TPRS 2.0?

Example of slide for days 1-3

In essence, TPRS 2.0 takes the best of TPRS 1.0 and adds to it. This is heavily done with Google Slides available at portal.tprsbooks.com. And there is a free version you can try before you pay anything.

1. Establish a new detail
2. Circle 
• ask a variety of questions about that detail to the class
• Yes/No
• Who/What/Where/When/How
• Negative Answer
• allow one word answers
3. Triangle
• ask a variety of questions to students as the character
• Yes/No
• Who/What/Where/When/How
• Negative Answer
• students must answer in a complete sentence
• teacher will recast the information to the student in perspective
• Ex: 
• Teacher asks, "Who are you?"
• Student says, "I am George."
• Teacher says, "Yes. You are George!"
4. Add more details about the main character (on slide or from imagination)
5. Add more details about a parallel character 
6. Describe the Situation
• retell the information students should understand (in perspective)
• Ex: There is a boy. I am the boy. I am George.
• students will listen and then rate their comprehension on one hand 1,2,3,4,5 (see poster below on right)
• then students will retell to their hand as the character
• teacher will ask for volunteers to retell
• Ex:
• Student says, "There is a boy. I am the boy. I am George."
• teacher will recast to those volunteers in perspective
• Ex:
• Teacher says, There is a boy. You are the boy. You are George."
7. Start next class with a daily reading of information.

All of this is done to create a manageable chunk that the students can do. We don't want to add too much to the chunk so that students are not able to have confidence speaking. While we used to only worry about their understanding the information, this aspect has really slowed me down. By wanting to make sure students can say the information, I realize I can't go as fast. 

Finger check poster

Which of course flies in the face of what we previously practiced with the silent period. But having used this method now for over half a school year, I can say that we aren't forcing output in the sense that we are forcing students to go beyond their level. We are pushing them into the pool but they still have a life-jacket on. And it's amazing. I can't believe what students are able to do with the language by retelling the stories. I have students in their speaking snapshots talk in Spanish for over 5 minutes (easily for many of them). Some even try to speak for 10 minutes! It's unprecedented in my teaching! 

So I now believe where TPRS 2.0 teachers told me that they were getting their students to intermediate fluency in under 100 hours. I am at around 60 hours and my students are sooo good and I can't wait to see how much better they get by the end of the year! 

Go TPRS 2.0!