February Red Rabbit (19).jpg May 2026

What is it?

TPRS® is a specific instructional strategy involves the co-creation of a narrative through story asking, using high frequency vocabulary, and providing lots of input in the target language with small amounts of translation for clarity. Story asking is the process where the teacher asks the the students questions to determine the details of a story. Skills involved in this process are circling, pausing & pointing, using gestures, comprehension checks, pop-up grammar, and so forth. Literacy is a huge component as the created narrative becomes a text for extension activities, follow up stories, and so forth.

February Red Rabbit (19).jpg May 2026

Tell me more!

TPRS® was invented in 1990 by a Spanish teacher named Blaine Ray. Blaine was inspired by the works of Stephen Krashen as well as James Asher, who stressed the importance of gestures and movement to help in the language acquisition process. TPRS® has grown and evolved quite a bit over the past three decades. Formerly known as Total Physical Response Storytelling, TPRS has evolved thanks to the thousands of teachers who have contributed, expanded, and refined the strategy. There is also a huge body of research on the topic. For some of those resources and to see it in action, see the resources below.

TPRS in Action

Featured video: Watch Aya Shehata as she gives a TPRS demo in Japanese, including background about the strategy and how she incorporates it into her class.

February Red Rabbit (19).jpg May 2026

A widowed schoolteacher who brings a necessary groundedness to the madness. Why February?

What specific details or visuals from the image (Novel Review) Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian

A mysterious, silent ward who gives the book its title.

If you haven't picked it up yet, Red Rabbit is a genre-bending odyssey. It’s a Folk Horror Western that follows a ragtag group through a wild west haunted by more than just outlaws. The cast is what makes it shine: A crotchety witch-master with a dark past.