The effects of teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling (TPRS) method on language proficiency of elementary level high school students in EFL

The purpose of thesis was to investigate possible effects of Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) technique on language proficiency of elementary level high school students in EFL classes. As a technique, TPRS focuses on comprehensible input, personalization, contextualization and storytelling. Furthermore, it enriches the course content with entertaining stories to introduce and reinforce new vocabulary and grammar. It may be beneficial to teach English in an interesting and attracting storytelling context in order to make it contextual and more comprehensible. The study took place in a state school, and the participants were 50 9th grade high school students. They were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (25 male students for each group). While the former was instructed using TPRS, the latter was instructed with the traditional method. After a four-month treatment period, the performances of the control group and experimental group were analyzed according to the data obtained from pre-test, post-test, KET, PET and four achievement tests. SPSS (Version 25) was used to analyze the collected data. Results showed that both the experimental and control group students scored higher where the experimental group was slightly better. However, the difference between the groups was not statistically significant. It can be said that comprehensible input with TPRS does increase the proficiency level of learners. Key Words: TPRS, comprehensible, storytelling, traditional and entertaining