𝐓𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐄

 

A group of students practicing the TPR method with their teacher

The Total Physical Response method (TPR) is a method of teaching language or vocabulary concepts by using physical movement to react to verbal input. This method was created by Dr. James J Asher. It is based on the way that children learn their mother tongue. 

HOW DOES IT WORK?

This method is based on the way young children learn to speak from their parents, through verbal commands and visual support. For example, if a parent shows an apple to his child and says: "look at this apple, it is red" eventually the child will learn both the meaning of the verb "to see", the name of the fruit "apple" and the characteristics of this "red" until eventually, he can understand more abstract concepts. 

In a classroom, the teacher takes on the role of parent and the students attend to their commands, performing physical activities and being stimulated with visual aids. 

PROS AND CONS

Pros

- Students develop a link between their actions and the grammatical structure of the sentences they are using.

- It is less stressful for both student and teacher

- It also allows all the students to socialize and meet each other, which is favorable to improve their social and oral skills

Cons

- It might be stressful for introverted kids at the beginning

- It is a noisy method and students can get distracted easily

ACTIVITIES IN THIS CLASS

For this class, we followed the professor's instructions as we received more commands to follow orally. We formed a group of eight people, and the professor told us to sing "If You Are Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands" making different actions using our bodies. For example: "If you are happy and you know it, turn around".

Sadly, I do not have any visual example taken by myself since I accidentally deleted it (lol) but from my experience, I can say that this class was one of the funniest we had! 

In the following video, we can see how exactly this method works.