Total Physical Response

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Total Physical Response

• Dr. Chen Chin-fen

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Introduction

• TPR, Total Physical Response approach, founded by
  Dr. James J. Asher in 1970s is based on the
  premise that the human brains have a biological
  program for acquiring any natural language on
  earth.
• The learning process is visible as infants
  internalize their first language through body
  conversation.

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Process of NL Acquisition

• At the beginning, Infants imprint the patterns
  and sounds of the target language in their
  minds. After the child decoded enough of the
  target language, speaking appears spontaneously.
• At first, the infants speech might not be
  perfect, but gradually the childs utterance will
  approximate more and more that of a native
  language.

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Four Basic Theories

• Trace theory The oral repeat, gesture or body
  action can help the recall or association of
  memory.
• Imperatives The language that kids contact most
  before they speak is the imperative that parents
  said. Thus Asher asserted that the adult should
  learn imperatives first.

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Four Basic Theories

• Emotion Asher thought emotion affected the
  result of learning, and in the process of
  learning, the tension should be lowered to
  promote learning effects.

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Four Basic Theories

• Comprehension Approach Comprehension should be
  formed before production. So, listening ability
  should be trained first in language teaching.
  Only after the students have developed cognitive
  listening ability can teachers start to train
  their oral expression ability.

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Characteristics

• Using comprehension as a means to speaking.
• 1. To clarify meaning, the teacher issues
  commands then performs the actions alone.
  Learners just listen and do nothing
• 2. Teachers issues the commands and learners
  demonstrate that they can understand the command
  by performing the actions.
• 3. Switch roles and students give the commands.
  

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Characteristics

• Using imperatives to direct behavior The main
  technique to teach TPR
• 1. Imperatives is a powerful tool that can be
  used to guide students to understand as it
  manipulates their behavior. The actions will make
  the meaning of the imperatives clear.
• 2. Imperatives is an easy way to promote students
  to move about and to loosen up.
  

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Characteristics

• Movement and action sequences
• Skills in SLA can be more rapidly assimilated if
  the teacher appeals to learners
  kinesthetic-sensory system. So understanding and
  retention is best achieved through total movement
  of the learners bodies in response to command
  sequences. For example Take out a pen-Take out
  a piece of paper Write a letter Fold the
  letter Put in the envelop Seal it Write the
  address.

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Characteristics

• Role Reversal The teacher interacts with the
  entire class through oral commands, to which they
  provide physical responses. After 10 to 20 hours
  of instruction, students begin to speak and they
  can also command their teacher and classmates to
  perform some actions. But students should not be
  encouraged to speak until they are ready.
  

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TPR MI
Linguistic-verbal (listen speak)

• 
  
• TPR

Bodily-kinesthetic (perform actions)
Logical-mathematical (link up sequence)
Visual spatial (charts, samples, pictures)
Interpersonal /social (Role reversal)
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Advantages

• Long-term memory intensive listening, physical
  actions and response make learning more
  impressive.
• Stress free- like playing a game, interesting
  comprehensible input
• High speed instant understanding
• Suitable for all levels
• Useful for newly arrived ESL students direct
  and visual instruction

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Disadvantages

• TPR is magical to jump start people of all ages
  into the target language but repetitive practice
  will tire the learners.
• It can not do entire job of language and need to
  cooperate with such other methods The use of
  language background and pictures, telling
  stories, extensive reading and sheltered subject
  matter teaching (content-based)

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Is it hard? Of course not!

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