Teaching interrogatives with TPRS

(someone asked on the Spanish for Teachers in the U.S. group on Facebook about how one might go about doing a model lesson with interrogatives and I replied with, “Any TPRS story EVER”. Here is my explanation on how one might set that up)

Setup the question words displayed somewhere in class like so. Notice the translations are there.

Have a prop like a stuffed animal or maybe something from target country like a Carlos Quinto chocolate bar.

(You might consider downloading the FREE interrogative posters I recently designed for TPRS books here.)

In all honesty, I never was incredibly good at using language with my students before TPRS (relating to students in the target language). So beforehand I might do a lesson on all of the question words, give some ways to remember them and examples and then give a quick quiz or test and assume they would remember them. But I didn’t manipulate the language to help them acquire them. 

Now that I use TPRS, the students not only learn the interrogatives, but learn to use them in context and to make novel questions. So let’s move on to TPRS. 

Story script - wants to impress

This sort of reminds me from an old LICT script I used. Add any additional language you would like. Perhaps, throw in some transition words, or embellish the details to give more language in other ways.

• Wants to impress
• Buys a — for him/her
• Gives it to him/her

My general idea for the story might be:

• Part 1:
• [Character] wants to impress ___. 
• [During time 1], S/he buys a __ for __. 
• S/he buys a __ for __ to impress __. 
• S/he goes to visit __. 
• S/he tells __, “Hello. I bought a __ for you. Are you impressed?”
•  __ is not impressed.
• Part 2:
• [Character] is sad because __ is not impressed with __. 
• So, [character] goes and buys a __ for __. 
• [During time 2], S/he buys a __ for __ to impress __. 
• S/he goes to visit __ again. 
• S/he tells __, “Hello. I bought a __ for you but you weren’t impressed. This time, I bought a __ for you. Are you impressed?” 
• __ is not impressed.
• Part 3:
• [Character] is sad because __ is not impressed with __. 
• So, [character] goes and buys a __ for __. 
• [During time 3], S/he buys a __ for __ to impress __. 
• S/he goes to visit __ again. 
• S/he tells __, “Hello. First, I bought a __ for you but you weren’t impressed. Second, I bought a __ for you but you weren’t impressed. This time, I bought a __ for you. Are you impressed?” 
• __ is impressed.
• (and character’s reaction to the gift. Class can decide if s/he gives a hug or a kiss or destroys it or throws it in the pool, etc.)