Total Physical Response [TPR]

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Name: Vidhya Pandya
Semester: MA – 3
Roll No: 32
Paper No:- 12 English language Teaching - [ELT]1
Enrolment No: 2069108420190031
Email id: vidhupandya10497@gamil.com
Year: 2018 -20
Submitted to: Department of English , Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.
Assignment's topic: Total Physical Response [Method]

● Background:-

Total physical response widely considered as “TPR”. This method developed by James Asher. Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical (motor) activity. Developed by James Asher, a professor of psychology at San Jose State University, California, it draws on several traditions, including developmental psychology, learning theory, and humanistic pedagogy, as well as on language teaching procedures proposed by Harold and Dorothy Palmer in 1925. Let us briefly consider these precedents to Total Physical Response.

● What is Total Physical Response?

Total physical response[TPR] is a language teaching method teaching built around the coordination of speech and action, it attempts to teach language through physical activity. In total physical response method instructor give commands to student in the target language, and students respond with whole body actions. Total physical response method is often used alongside other methods and techniques. It is popular with beginners and with young learners, although it can be used with students of all levels and all ages groups.

● Characteristics of TPR:-

1. The coordination of speech and action.
2. Learners roles of listener and performer.
3. Learners monitor and evaluate own progress.
4. Reading and writing is taught after grammar and vocabulary.
5. Grammar is taught inductively
6. Grammar and vocabulary selected according to the situation.
7. Learning language by gestures
8. The teachers and the students are the actors.
9. Students should be more active and talkative.
10. Motorist Student

● Students come to life:-

By Language body conversation, students come to life. It is not only about children, but adults, old aged everyone come to life. They get excited because they understanding everything. What the instructor is saying, everything, every command got clear in mind through physical movements.
There is one sentence that:-

“If you can’t convince students in five minutes that they can learn any language, you will not convince them even if they stay in your class for a year”

That is very significant in context of language learning through Total Physical response method. Therefore it is most powerful tool in linguistic tool box.

●Stress free tool:-

An important condition for successful language learning is the absence of stress. First language acquisition takes place in stress free environment. Total Physical Response prepared students for a successful transition to speaking, reading and writing. This is a stress free tool in which there is no need to remember any phrase or text. It known in worldwide as TPR and has stood over the time in thousands of language with success. The key to stress-free learning is to tap into the natural bio-program for language development and thus to recapture the relaxed and pleasurable experiences that accompany first language learning. By focusing on meaning interpreted through movement, rather than on language forms, the learner is said to be liberated from self-conscious and stressful situations and is able to devote full energy to learning.

● Role of Learners and Teachers:-

Learners have primary roles of listening and performing. They listen attentively and respond physically to commands given by the teacher. Learners are required to respond both individually and collectively. Learners have little influence over the content of learning, since content is determined by the teacher.
Teacher plays an active and direct role in Total Physical Response. He is the director of the stage and learners are the actor. Teacher decides
What to teach, who models and presents the new material for classroom use.

● Application of TPR:-

1. Reading: predicting skills and reading the text
2. Writing: making dialogue, picturing
3. Vocabulary: reality, demonstration and conversation
4. Structure: reality, demonstration

● Internalizing language:-

With total physical response students can internalize any language as easy, fast as they can. With this method students can get great success in short span of time without getting bore.

● Comprehension Approach:-

This method is an example of the comprehension approach to language teaching. There are two purposes of listening and responding:-

i)                   Quickly recognizing meaning in the language.
ii)                Means of passively learning the structure of the language itself.

● Vocabulary:-

Total Physical response method helps a lot in learning vocabulary especially idiomatic terms (wikipedia contributors).Asher saw the conversation between parents and children; he has noticed that form of speech delivered by parents followed by a physical response from the child.

Three Hypotheses based on this observation:-

i)                   Language is learned primarily by listening
ii)                Language learning must engage the right hemisphere of the brain
iii)              Learning language should not involve any stress

Asher hypothesizes that speech develops naturally and spontaneously after learners internalize the target language through input. And that it should not be forced.

“A reasonable hypothesis is that the brain and the nervous system are biologically programmed to acquire language, either the first or the second in a particular sequence and in a particular mode. The sequence is listening before speaking and the mode is to synchronize language with the individual’s body”.
-                                                                                                   -Asher
Total Physical response is most popular among the beginners who have just begins to learn new language. It was not restricted to any specific group or age.

● Basic Principles of TPR:-

1. Listening ability and vocabulary must be developed first.
2. There must not be any stress in the class.
3. Regular repetition
4. Action verbs are the core of TPR.
5. TPR is also a technique of teaching vocabulary
6. No forcing but exploit  the students errors for exposing others structure points.
7. Expose the natural use of language.
8. Create an artificial English community in the classroom
9. The more often we trace memory, and the more intensively we repeat, the stronger the memory associations are and the more likely it will be recalled.

● No force:-

In total physical response students are not forced to speak as it do not requires spoken output. Teacher will wait until the students will acquired enough language. The ultimate goal of this method is to develop oral fluency. It is the most efficient way of developing spoken language skills.
● Primary focus on meaning:-
This very method differentiates with Grammar translation by putting its main aim to meaning rather than grammar, verb. In this method Grammar is not explicitly taught, but is learned by induction.

● Philosophy of Language Teaching:-

It is a teaching technique in which teachers do not have to limit themselves because the students are only expected to listen and not to speak. Teacher can decide that what inputs a student can hear.
Asher suggests that students can learn between 12-36 words for every hour of instruction, depending on their language level and class size.

● Code-breaking:-

Students in this method are subconsciously acquire the grammatical structure of the language through exposure to spoken language input, in addition to decoding the messages in input to find their meaning. Therefore this approach to listening is called “codebreaking”.

● Skilful use of the imperative :-

Asher does not directly discuss the nature of language. However, the labelling and ordering of Total physical Response classroom drills seem to be built on assumption that owe much to structuralist or grammar-based views of language. Asher claims that “most of the grammatical structure of the target language and hundreds of vocabulary items can be learned from the skilful use of the imperative by the instructor” (vobs contributors).

● Right Brain Learning:-

Asher sees Total Physical Response as directed to right-brain learning, whereas most second language teaching methods are directed to left-brain learning. Asher refers to neurological studies of the brains of cats and studies of an epileptic boy whose corpus callosum was surgically divided. Asher interprets these as demonstrating that the brain is divided into hemispheres according to function, with language activities centralized in the right hemisphere.

● The Advantages of TPR:-

1. The method is fun, easy and memorable
2. It’s good tool for building vocabulary
3. It can facilitate student with the meaning in real context.
4. It does not require a great deal of preparation
5. It helps the students immediately understand the target language
6. TPR is inclusive and works well a class with mixed ability level.
7. It benefits the struggling students
8. Creates positive thinking

● The disadvantages of TPR:-

1. Students are not generally given the opportunity to express their own thoughts in a creative way.
2. It can be challenged for shy students
3. It is not a very creative method
4. Certain target languages may not be suited to this method
5. It is limited since everything, cannot be explained with this method.

● Conclusion:-

Therefore in total physical method, teachers are responsible for giving commands and monitoring actions taken by the learners. On the contrary, the learners are imitators of teacher’s verbal and non-verbal models. The interaction between a teacher and learners is signified by the teacher speaking and the learner responding nonverbally. Later on, the learners become more verbal and the teacher responds nonverbally.

● Work Cited:-

Sperling, Dr. John. The Total Physical Response by Dr.James J. Asher.Cambridge university, England, 1973.

vobs contributors. Total physical response.<http://www2.vobs.at/ludescher/total_physical_response.htm>.
Widodo, Handoyo Puji. "Teaching children using a total physical response method." 2 august 2005. <https://www.slideshare.net/asmarany3/total-response>.

wikipedia contributors. Total physical response. 12 august 2018. 3 november 2018