A colleague called my attention to the method today and I�d like to know if someone has used or has got more information about it. It sounds really interesting.

See more about it at the link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPR_Storytelling

Hi Sophia,　

To me, drilling is fairly rigidly controlled by the teacher and usually involves repeating a target word, sentence or structure after the teacher. Sometimes it proceeds from whole class repetition, to group repetition and then pair work. I �ve done it, in fact I feel I wasted too much time on it and it seems to be somewhat of a mindless activity at times. The teacher, often totally bored with it, is trying his utmost to make the activity interesting for the children. I will stop here and say that very young children to seem to enjoy it but as the children get older they lose much interest in it. Anyway, I can �t imagine going back to this kind of drilling and feel that it is probably the cause of many teachers and students losing interest in what they are doing.　

"isn �t repetition the mother of all learning?" Certainly repetition is extremely important but no one is going to learn a foreign or second language solely by repetition (and I �m not suggesting you think this).

　Pronunciation and drilling: I have heard many teachers recommending drilling of individual words to improve pronunciation but I don �t believe that is the best way to go about it because every language has too many words for this method to work well and it usually doesn �t touch the underlying problem, though it is occasionally beneficial. If you know my materials, then you know that I have a great interest in phonics and it is mostly through phonics that I teach pronunciation. If someone has difficulty pronouncing a certain word, and then phonics helps me to focus on whichever sound or sounds a student is struggling with and once a student becomes proficient in pronouncing a difficult sound, then he is able to use his skill with many other words.　

I teach mostly children and of course children love playing games so I �m always designing games and activities which involves a lot of repetition in order to play the game. This is nothing like drilling at all and it is so easy to get the children to repeat something 20, 30, 40, 50 times without them becoming bored (and with minimal teacher involvement), as to them they are only playing a game.　

So, drilling is out, but repetition is in. And I have work to do, so excuse me.　

David　

"David, why do you think of drilling as of something negative? Could you explain please? Maybe I have a misconception of it... but isn �t repetition the mother of all learning?"
Sophia

I used this method for a certain period of time and I quite agree with David. Repeating a word , a structure or even a story after the teacher is behaviourist approach which has nothing to do with the process of language acquasition, but the student �s memory. Of course, the children can produce the structures  and even the whole stories. But can we learn to use the language productively in real life situations if we learn thousands of poems by heart? I �m not sure about it. To be able to speak a foreign language the children need to combine the words and structures they �ve learnt in different situations.  The structures that have been learnt in a poem or story are � �frozen clusters". The children usually can �t use them correctly in their spontaneous speech. In my opinion, the teachers who want to try this method can use it as a presentation of some words and when they are sure the kids grasped the meaning of the words correctly organise some extra exercises to practice them in well known structures/ situations.