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! 

TPRS 2.0 - week 1 (back in August)

Wowzas. What a week!

Back in the classroom

After numerous years out of the classroom to write novels, work on curriculum, and anything else that came my way, it feels really good to be back. I missed the energy. I missed the interaction. I missed getting to play in the language with students. 

I was hired only a few weeks before school started… Long story short, they were looking for a dynamic, creative teacher who would help the students learn to be successful in Spanish. When I read the job description, I felt like I HAD to try for it! In retrospect, getting hired a few weeks before school reminded me of my very first teaching job. But even with the quick turnaround, this has already been a really unique and energizing experience. I’m grateful to be working with these students again and to be implementing what I think works best: TPRS 2.0. Which I am more convinced of day after day!

my new classroom.- picture 1

This first week was mostly about figuring out how to blend the newer pieces of TPRS 2.0 with some of the things that worked well for me in the past.

Let’s start with the practical stuff.

I was very glad I didn’t throw away my old decorations. I was able to reuse most of them and then upgrade a bit by adding the question word posters and rejoinder posters from the TPRS Books free resources. I printed and laminated them at school and got them up on the walls. I’m sure I’ll tweak things as the year goes on, but for now the room is functional, and honestly, that’s what matters most in week one.

Seating charts are still a must for me. I set the room so there’s an invisible line down the middle, with two rows on each side facing toward each other. I’ve always liked this setup because it naturally increases interaction. It also gives me multiple “front row” spaces, which makes it easier to check in with students who need a little more support.

I’m also back to doing daily quizzes. I really like what they tell me. Not just about student understanding, but about my own pacing and clarity. The first day, some scores were lower than I wanted, but as routines became clearer and I slowed things down, the scores improved. That’s exactly the feedback loop I’m looking for.

Classroom jobs are slowly coming back online too. Nothing fancy yet. In one class, a student passes out and collects nametags. In another, someone is in charge of opening and closing the door. Small things, but they help the room run more smoothly.

My teaching situation this year is actually pretty interesting. I see the 7th graders every other day and the 8th graders every day. Together, it equals one high school Spanish 1 credit. What that really means is I have about a year and a half to just live in the language with these kids.

Not going to lie, but I feel a little like a mad scientist. And I mean that in the best way.

On the instructional side, when I was teaching before, I was already establishing meaning and circling, and I had started experimenting with triangling. But I can see now that I wasn’t doing those things nearly to the depth that TPRS 2.0 pushes.

my new classroom.- picture 2

The piece I’m most excited (and curious) about this year is Describe the Situation (DTS). In some of my private tutoring, I’ve already seen how powerful it can be for unlocking student confidence when speaking. There’s global DTS and individual DTS, and my goal is to build in opportunities every lesson for students to practice. Ideally everyone gets at least one shot, with about five or six individual DTS moments per class.

Still very much experimenting here.

I’ve also added a short daily read at the beginning of class, right after the warm-up. I read it first, then a student volunteers to translate. So far it’s been a nice routine and gives me another window into who is really tracking with the language.

So in short each day from Day 2 onward:

1. Step one: Warm up (matching, translate, etc.)

2. Step two: Daily Reading of previous information. 

• see two readings at bottom of post

3. step three: following the TPRS 2.0 recipe of circling, triangling, and Describing the Situation to build confidence

Days 1-3

As for how the week actually went…

Slide 1 of the George story.
Available at TPRSbooks.com

Day one was mostly about establishing routines and setting expectations for how storytelling will work. I only had the 8th graders that day because the 7th graders were still in orientation, and the classes were only 25 minutes long, so we didn’t get very far. But the energy was good, and students seemed engaged. Two of the three classes performed better on the quizzes, and across the week those scores improved as I slowed down. Here's the slide that I used.

Day two felt more normal. I had two classes of 7th graders for their first day and three classes of 8th graders, all around 45 minutes. That extra time made a big difference. With the 7th graders, I was able to get into triangling and made a point to try to ask every single student at least one question so they were producing language. I could feel moments where attention drifted a bit, but gestures and pacing helped bring them back.

In a couple classes I introduced DTS to the hand and then took a few volunteers. I definitely need to refine the system so more students can do it efficiently, but it was a solid start. The 8th graders in particular seem to notice the difference in this style compared to what they experienced last year.

By day three, I was still working heavily with just the first two sentences. It’s honestly amazing how slow I need to go to really build confidence — but the payoff is there. I backed off some circling, leaned more into triangling, and brought in more DTS volunteers. One thing I need to remember: let them practice to their hands first before asking for volunteers. They clearly need that low-stress rep to get the wiggles out.

One thing I started that I want to keep up: positive parent emails. I managed to contact about half of my 8th grade families with something good their student was doing. My goal is to keep looking for ways every student can have a moment to shine.

Behind the scenes, I’m also running a pretty nerdy tracking system. I keep seating charts in a binder and mark each time a student answers a triangling question, translates during the daily read (TR), or does DTS. Later I transfer that into a Google Sheet. The whole purpose is to make sure I’m truly spreading opportunities around and not just hearing from the same few voices.

So... week one is officially in the books.

Overall, I’m encouraged. Next week my focus is tightening up my triangling flow and continuing to experiment with Describe the Situation so it becomes smoother and more routine.

But truly… It's good to be back.

Readings to show you how it started off so simple to build in repetition and perspective.

Reading 1: (day 2)

¿Hay un elefante o hay un chico? Hay un chico. No hay un elefante. Hay un chico. 

¿Cuántos chicos hay? ¿Hay diez chicos? No, no hay diez chicos. ¿Hay ochocientos chicos? No, no hay ochocientos chicos. Hay un chico.

¿Quién es el chico? ¿El chico es Bob? No, no es Bob. ¿El chico es el Señor Jordan? ¡No, es absurdo! Entonces, ¿quién es el chico? ¡Es obvio! El chico es George.

¿Yo soy el chico? ¡No, yo no soy el chico! Es absurdo. George es el chico. Yo no soy el chico. ¿Qué soy?

Reading 2: (day 3)

Yo soy George. Yo soy un chico. Yo no soy un pingüino. Soy un chico. ¿Soy una chica? No, no soy una chica. Soy un chico. 

¿Quién soy? ¡Es obvio! Soy George.

Entonces, ¿qué soy? ¿No es obvio? ¡Soy Shakira! ¡Espera! Incorrecto. Yo no soy Shakira. ¡Es absurdo! ¡Soy George! ¡Es obvio!

¿Y tú? ¿Quién eres? ¿Eres el Señor Jordan? Es posible.

TPRS 2.0 - more coming

Holy moly. I have been teaching this year after a few years off and all I can say is: TPRS 2.0 is a game-changer for getting my students to speak! 

I'll need to post more later! 

TPRS / CI and Block Scheduling

*Note: Someone recently emailed me a question about using Block Scheduling. I am no expert, but I found out how to make it work for me during the 3 years that I taught on the block. Here are some ideas that hopefully are helpful below.*

A few years ago I was forced (against my will) to teach on A/B block scheduling when I was hired at a new school. I was forced because it was a bomb dropped on me after I accepted the job (if I remember things correctly). I didn't even know to ask that question in the interview! Oops!

The way that block scheduling worked at that school was 90 minute periods, 4 a day. One day was A, then next day B. Early dismissal Wednesdays A or B alternated each week. So if there were no interruptions whatsoever, then in a two week cycle, I would see each class 5 times total. (One week Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then the next week Tuesday and Thursday).

When I first started it, I hated it. Then after I left it, I sort of missed it because I could more easily see the benefits (that I was able to get out of it). Although I still believe that every day instruction is better for acquiring language (shorter more often) than a big chunk every two days.

Weekend Chat idea

I was talking to THE Bill VanPatten a lot this week about Second Language Acquisition and the possibility of working on some projects together soon.

In one of our convos, he brought up a way he had done Weekend Chat in the past. Now, the way I typically do weekend chat in levels 1 and 2 (where I normally end up teaching for whatever reason), has varied a little bit and evolved since I was doing more textbook teaching.

In level 2, I would use it to practice the preterit and have each student look through the textbook and write 3 things that they did over the weekend. I would check their conjugations and would ask them to share them with the class in Spanish. Then we would move on to something else after we finished.

Simple story - Plays

Someone asked on the facebook group recently about a story involving plays and sports or activities due to constraints they are in. Here were some ideas I gave:

Idea 1: (3 problems model)

Guide words:

1. wants to play (with)
2. goes to talk to
3. says, "I don't want to play that."

modify guide words as needed

Script:
[Student] wants to play something. They play it really well. They play it [embellish]. There is a problem. They don't want to play alone. They go to talk to [character]. The character isn't playing [sport]. They character is playing [sport 2].