Adriana Ramírez, Teaching a CI Novel, María Cano, Command Performance Language Institute

CPLI, www.cpli.net, publishes dynamic foreign language and ESL materials used by language learners and teachers the world over. Our books, interactive software, CDs, DVDs and teacher volumes, with few exceptions, employ the extraordinarily effective TPR and TPR Storytelling approaches to language acquisition.

Our Spanish, French, German, Russian and English graded readers for 1st through 3rd year students are top sellers. The Live Action series of TPR books for English, French, Sqpanish, German, Italian and Japanese teachers and learners are also very popular. Live Action Interactive software programs for English and Spanish are student and teacher favorites and have won widespread acclaim for their usability and effectiveness.

CPLI products are in use at the U.S. Defense Language Institute, the Canadian Ministry of Education, the Malaysian Ministry of Education, the University of Kentucky and the Groton School, in addition to middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities throughout the world.


CPLI was founded in 1979 by Contee Seely, who co-authored Fluency through TPR Storytelling. Drawing on more than 30 years of classroom experience, Mr. Seely also co-wrote the Live Action series of books and TPR Is More Than Commands, a teacher's resource. With a team of language acquisition experts and teachers, he in turn developed the Live Action Interactive software. Since 1979 CPLI has been publishing world language and ESL materials used by language learners and teachers the world over. Our comprehension-based readers, methodology books for instructors and other products employ the extraordinarily effective TPRS (TPR Storytelling—Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling) and TPR (Total Physical Response) approaches to language acquisition—both based on CI (comprehensible input). We publish the key teacher guides for both approaches—Fluency Through TPR Storytelling (TPRS) by Blaine Ray, the originator of TPRS, and Contee Seely and TPR Is More Than Commands by Contee Seely and Elizabeth Kuizenga Romijn, as well as the Guide to Reader's Theater by Karen Rowan.
Our Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian and English graded readers for 1st through 4th year (and AP) students are top sellers. In 1998 we published the very first of this genre, Casi se muere by Blaine Ray, in Spanish. (Command Performance no longer publishes those books. TPRS Books established its own publishing company in 2016.)

Headquartered in Berkeley, California for 40 years, we now ship from Denver, Colorado. On October 1, 2019, Command Performance was sold by Contee Seely, who remains a freelance editor, to Karen Rowan, a former and current author of comprehension-based novels.

We envisioned a new kind of distributor partnership with teacher-authors. In 2019 we began adding comprehensible readers to our collections from a diverse array of authors. These authors tackle LGBTQ topics, immigration, Dreamers, authentic culture in the words of authors from the countries they write about, environmentalism, la Negritude, diverse voices of the Diaspora, conservation of the Earth and animals and a variety of other compelling topics. Our collaboration has brought more than 30 new comprehension-based authors to classrooms since 2019.


Prolific author Adriana Ramírez writes fictional stories set in Colombia. Her newest book in the Revolucionarias series is Teresita, La maestra del piano.
A.C. Quintero is the author of many readers in Spanish. Her Trilogy is a binge read!
Pablo Ortega López, also known as POL, has illustrated many of our books and is the author of En busca del monstruo. For information, see his website: www.polanimation.com


Command Performance Books (CPLI) products are in use at elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities throughout the world as well as at the U.S. Defense Language Institute, the Canadian Ministry of Education, the Malaysian Ministry of Education, the University of Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State University, military academies in Turkey and in many other places.

Contact us at 510-524-1191 or [email protected].

English books are now available through our partner, Spring Book Center.

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic or national origin, ancestry, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, religion, creed, political beliefs, or disability. We welcome everyone, are conscious in our curation of book titles and are inclusive in our hiring practices. Our mission requires the emphatic rejection of discrimination.