From the whole to the parts

In Waldorf education we strive to introduce every topic in a contextualized manner, not in isolation. We start from the general to arrive at the specific, and we center our teaching in the human being. In TPRS we are usually teaching whole structures, not isolated words in the form of a list. Although in the beginning, we are teaching and practicing each structure almost one by one, we immediately bring them into context to help the student make connections and arrive at a comfortable place where he or she can hear it and know what is being said without hesitation. Context is as important as personalization and comprehensible input.

Not teaching from a grammar-based syllabus

Using natural, every-day, practical language (the Natural Approach, Krashen), in context. In this way, grammar use arrives naturally through hearing the correct form, and it becomes a discovery rather than a mechanical, abstract rule.

One powerful truth: Giving our students direct grammar rules is like feeding them stones instead of bread. They become dead concepts, and we want to feed them living conclusions. Being aware of my grammarian side, I always strive to keep in mind this recommendation of Rudolf Steiner:

“Too much definition drains the life out of teaching.”

Repetition

The use of repetition that is not boring, but always looking for ways to make it interesting; not just interesting, but compelling. The element of surprise and the unexpected should always be present in our stories, to keep them alert and at the edge of their seats. This brings language to a different level, where students are able to forget that they are supposed to be “learning”, but rather they focus on communication and by doing so, they acquire the language. This makes it compelling for them. In Waldorf teaching we use repetition to help the student engage with her etheric forces and thus appeal to the forces of memory.

Personalization

In order to make our lessons highly interesting and engage the ego in the process of memory, we need to find ways to get the students truly engaged. TPRS proposes a way to give them compelling input by using personalization,

making the speech or the story about them, and letting them add details to it. The more you can personalize any situation, the more attention you will get from the students. And, the class atmosphere will be enhanced, lowering the affective filter (another interesting hypothesis by Dr. Krashen) and allowing the students to feel at ease speaking and listening to a foreign language. Interest is the best way to engage the ego in the learning process.

Separate Reading and Grammar

Regarding reading and grammar, Steiner suggests we don’t do this together. When teaching through stories, it is recommended to not teach grammar per se, but to use opportunities for clarifying and noting, in 15-second comments, how it is used in context. Thus, the reading is barely interrupted, while they can actually see the living usage of a grammar point. We do this often enough that the students can integrate it into their understanding effortlessly. This kind of short reading is not intended to be “cultural,” but it mainly has a pedagogical purpose. As mentioned before, we strive to offer a separate time for silent reading of their chosen books.

Circling

To teach grammar, Steiner suggests we use many examples to illustrate a point, to use it from different points of view, giving it a similar use every time so that the students can make sense of it. This now sounds so familiar and so logical to me when I compare it with the technique of circling, which means using a target structure in many different ways so that the students can get a feeling of how it makes sense in context. It is the first “repetition” step in the process.

Circling is one of the steps we take when we are in the process of establishing meaning, when we are asking questions, and an example was offered in earlier in this paper. In this technique, we are creating repetitive questions that sound

slightly similar, by asking yes/no questions, either/or, who, what, where, how many, and finally why questions. These are just an excuse to repeat the structures as much as we can (our goal is to repeat each one about 70 times in one lesson!) to help them internalize the structure and find its place in the language syntax as well.

Living Conclusions

I had been wrestling for a long time with some of Steiner’s indications on language teaching, especially trying to figure out what he meant in Practical Advice to Teachers (Lecture 9) by “Let grammar and syntax lessons be conversational; those every-day-life sentences are living conclusions.”25

25 “Let grammar and syntax lessons be conversational; those every-day-life sentences are living conclusions. The next day, you come back and ask the children to make up their own examples of the same rule or example you gave the day before (make them participate, let them own the examples-story). This is a soul activity for them.”

Finally I was able to “connect the dots” when I saw that a TPRS “structure,” such as the ones used in the process of PQA, can be considered an every-day-life sentence in context, or a living conclusion. We make up interesting, personalized little stories and situations with these structures, so that through repetition students get ample opportunity to digest and make the new structures their own, through a process that strongly involves their feeling life, especially since it is about them. Plus, their own interest engages their ego forces, thus reinforcing the memory.

So first, students hear the structures being used correctly over and over by their teacher, and then, one or two students might be asked to retell the story, which allows students who are faster learners to put it into practice and the others get a chance to hear it again. Once we have taught in this way, Steiner suggests

that the next day we let them make up their own examples of the same structure. This is exactly what we are doing by bringing in the next day the same story in print for them to read this time. In many cases, we allow them to write a different end to the story or their completely new, own story.

In light of these concepts I came to the following interpretation of the steps to learning foreign languages. Steiner says in Lecture 9 of Study of Man, that the teacher has to present living conclusions to the students, and they formulate a judgment inwardly; next, they will arrive at new concepts:

Conclusion ----------> Judgment -------------> Concepts

As I mentioned on the first section of this work, in my interpretation for language teaching, this same scheme could look like this:

Images or words perceived -------------->Making sense of them in our feeling -----------> Acquired language

Now, after looking at the methods of teaching through storytelling, a new interpretation could be:

Introduction of new language structures (STEP 1) ---------->Bring them into context (story) (STEP 2) ------------> Review read, retell (STEP 3)

Enthusiasm

Steiner also states that in a language lesson there should be such enthusiasm in participation that children do not sit firmly on their chair for the whole lesson! I really connected to this when I heard a master teacher at a conference say that a language lesson should sound a bit like gossip, in the sense that everyone is interested and enthusiastically participating in making up the story. Truly, with this method I have experienced the most amazing involvement and excitement by most of the students of a class, even in the middle school and the high school level. Once I was teaching a Spanish II class in high school and I saw some of the students giggling and passing something. I asked them to give it to me, and to my surprise, they had made a “flying snail” (caracol volador) out of aluminum foil, because that was the transportation means we always used back when they were in sixth grade and the story of the day reminded them of it! Talk about owning the story, making it funny, and memorable!

Feelings

For Waldorf education, working with the feeling realm (emotions, personalizing, interest, affective filter) rather than intellectually is one of the main principles in language teaching.

Reading

The way we “fill in the gaps” that Steiner mentions, as we said before, is definitely through the practice of reading. Reading is what ties all the strings together, what brings the language into context and allows the mind to finally cement the use and meaning of the new structures.

Use of translation

In TPRS, direct translation and the use of L1 is kept to a minimum, especially during the early stages. When we have to translate during this first phase of establishing meaning, we usually do so on the blackboard, trying not to speak in L1, but just pointing at the words that can otherwise not be taught through a gesture, a prop, or an illustration. Once the story begins we usually switch to no L1 spoken. In Spanish class we have a phrase that goes: “Uno, dos, tres, no más ingles!” (One, two, three, no more English!”). In this way our goal is to stay in L2 for 90% of the lesson while we are doing the Story Asking (Step 2).

Translation is used later on, when we start reading, fundamentally to assess their comprehension. This is also what Steiner recommends as a useful practice, not to necessarily translate every single phrase, but just to give a gist of what has been said. It is specially relieving to some children who cannot handle ambiguity and uncertainty very well. In TPRS, translation plays a bigger role, since we aim at making everything as comprehensible as possible, so that our students will not tune out because of the challenge of not understanding what we are doing. The older they are, the more clarity they need.

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Steiner also suggests that we may discuss a topic in the mother tongue and then have the students repeat the discussion in the target language. This would not be possible to do in a TPRS classroom, as we try to keep the use of L1 to the minimum, plus, we try to keep it comprehensible.

Thinking

Steiner mentions that we should strive to create certain capacities for our students that they will use in the foreign language classroom… My take on this is that during class we are exerting the brain to think and react in the target language only. This is only achieved when we are able to keep our use of L1 to a bare minimum and thus our students will start thinking in L2. After a good chunk of time of being immersed or “showered” in the language, the students’ minds really do go into a different state. This is, in a way, similar to the idea of having them feel transported to a different country, at least for 45 minutes, even twice a week.