Commuicative Language Teaching

Total Physical Response

Research on the Application of Total Physical Response Approach to

Vocabulary Teaching in Primary Schools

Lecturer: Muntaha, M. Pd

Arranged by:

          Arie Ardiansyah                     153221119

Aqidatul izzah saefudin           153221136

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

ISLAMIC EDUCATION AND TEACHING TRAINING

FACULTY

THE STATE ISLAMIC INSTITUTE OF SURAKARTA

SURAKARTA

2017

PREFACE

First of all, thanks to Allah SWT because of His help, the writers could finish writing the paper entitled “The Silent Way” right in the calculated time. The purpose in writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that was given by Mr. Muntaha, M.Pd as the lecturer in Technique and Principles in Language Teaching. The writers truly get a lot of challenges and obstructions in arranging this paper. By getting enough help from many people, those obstructions could pass.

The writers would say thank you to all the people who help during the process. The writers realize that this paper still imperfect in arrangement and the content. Thus, the writers look forward to the criticism from the readers so that it can help the writer in improving the arrangement of the next paper. The last but not the least, this paper is supposed to be able to help the readers to gain more knowledge about TEFL major.

Surakarta, September 22^th 2017

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Total Physial Response (TPR) is a method of teaching a foreign or second language (target language) by developing listening comprehension through a series of commands to which students respond with physical activity. It was founded by James Asher, a professor of psychology, in the late 1960’s and is still considered and used as a valuable linguistic tool in teaching a target language, especially in initial stages of instruction. It combines language and gesture, thus making language acquisition more natural and memorable (Asher 2007; Curtain and Dahlberg 2010; Larsen-Freeman 2004; Morley 2001). Learners are not expected to speak while performing actions, which makes TPR stress-free and suitable for teaching beginners, either young learners, teenagers or adults (Asher 2007). When teaching young learners, TPR can be very beneficial as it responds favourably to their tendency to learn best by doing; it also respects children’s need to develop listening comprehension before speaking and to take as much time as necessary before they feel ready to speak. As Peck (2001, 143) notices it, children „seem to learn language quickly and thoroughly when the brain and body work together“. The physical aspect of TPR learning process makes it possible to integrate physical exercise and play into lan

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

Dr. James J. Asher originated the Total Physical Response approach to second language acquisition which is known internationally as TPR.

·        Is not a linguist or language teacher.

·        He has degrees in radio and television (1955) and psychology (1957)

·        He wanted to study problems with training, specifically skill learning

Asher wanted to select a problem that was complex and could be applied to the real world.

Research work

He chose foreign language because

• it was a complex problem in skill learning
• most other psychologists abandoned research in FL because it was tough to get clean results, therefore meaning there was little competition for financial support.
• Asher had not been able to master FL in school although he mastered many other subjects

In his first research project (1961) Asher learned that VISION produced more efficient learning and retention when compared to HEARING.

In a 1966 and 67 study Asher discovered that acting out the commands resulted in better retention than writing the English translations.

For long term retention, students who act with the model remember more 2 weeks after the session than those who merely watched the model.

Popularised in the 60's and 70's by Dr. James Asher, TPR allows students to acquire vocabulary in a manner similar to how a child learns his or her first language.

TPR has been used successfully in thousands of classrooms with children and adults learning languages such as English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, and even the sign language of the deaf!

The success of TPR is built upon these foundational principles of second language acquisition theory:

·         Languages are best learned when the learner receives lots of comprehensible (understandable) input. In other words, for a true beginner, listening to a radio broadcast in the language is not nearly as effective as listening to simple "hear and now" talk directed at the learner.

·         Beginning language learners can benefit greatly from a "silent period" in which they learn to understand and respond to parts of the language without attempting to speak it. This is also referred to as "delayed production," and of course reflects that path that children follow when learning their first language.

THEORY

1) TPR is based on the theory that the memory is enhanced through association with physical movement. 

2) It is also closely associated with theories of mother tongue language acquisition in very young children, where they respond physically to parental commands, such as "Pick it up" and "Put it down". TPR as an approach to teaching a second language is based, first and foremost, on listening and this is linked to physical actions which are designed to reinforce comprehension of particular basic items.

3) TPR is also based on the premise that the human brain has a biological program for acquiring any natural language on earth - including the sign language of the deaf. The process is visible when we observe how infants internalise their first language.

The secret is a unique "conversation" between the parent and infant. For example, the first conversation is a parent saying, "Look at daddy. Look at daddy." The infant's face turns in the direction of the voice and daddy exclaims, "She's looking at me! She's looking at me!" Dr. Asher calls this "a language-body conversation" because the parent speaks and the infant answers with a physical response such as looking, smiling, laughing, turning, walking, reaching, grasping, holding, sitting, running, and so forth.

Notice that these "conversations" continue for many many months before the child utters anything more intelligible than "mommy" or "daddy." Although the infant is not yet speaking, the child is imprinting a linguistic map of how the language works. Silently, the child is internalising the patterns and sounds of the target language.

When the child has decoded enough of the target language, speaking appears spontaneously. The infant's speech will not be perfect, but gradually, the child's utterances will approximate more and more that of a native speaker.

Children and adults experience the thrill of immediate understanding when you apply this powerful concept in your classroom.

Benefits:

Successful with children and adults learning any language. It works, because...

1)      It imitates the way a baby learns its first language. (hours of listening, decoding through body movements, delayed speech, no formal grammar)

2)      The language enters the brain through the right hemisphere where understanding of language is stored. (Speaking is stored in the left hemisphere)

3)      It is low stress

All language input is immediately comprehensible, often hands-on, and allows students to pass through a silent period whereby they build a comprehension base before ever being asked to speak. Once language is internalised, production emerges, thus setting TPR apart from traditional "listen-and-repeat" methods.

In a TPR lesson, teachers model actions which students then mimic as they simultaneously hear vocabulary words and commands in the target language. As a particular action is associated with each vocabulary word or phrase, students rapidly and naturally acquire language while establishing long-lasting associations between the brain and the muscles.

There are 2 phases in the TPR learning process.

1) Modelling by the instructor

2) Demonstration by the learner

A typical TPR activity might contain instructions such as "Walk to the door", "Open the door", "Sit down" and "Give Maria your dictionary". The students are required to carry out the instructions by physically performing the activities. Given a supportive classroom environment, there is little doubt that such activities can be both motivating and fun, and it is also likely that with even a fairly limited amount of repetition basic instructions such as these could be assimilated by the learners, even if they were unable to reproduce them accurately themselves.

Weaknesses

The above examples, however, also illustrate some of the potential weaknesses inherent in the approach. Firstly, from a purely practical point of view, it is highly unlikely that even the most skilled and inventive teacher could sustain a lesson stage involving commands and physical responses for more than a few minutes before the activity became repetitious for the learners, although the use of situational role-play could provide a range of contexts for practising a wider range of lexis. 

Secondly, it is fairly difficult to give instructions without using imperatives, so the language input is basically restricted to this single form. 

Thirdly, it is quite difficult to see how this approach could extend beyond beginner level. 

Fourthly, the relevance of some of the language used in TPR activities to real-world learner needs is questionable. 

Finally, moving from the listening and responding stage to oral production might be workable in a small group of learners but it would appear to be problematic when applied to a class of 30 students, for example.

In defence of the approach, however, it should be emphasised that it was never intended by its early proponents that it should extend beyond beginner level. (In theory it might be possible to develop it by making the instructions lexically more complex (for example, "Pick up the toothpaste and unscrew the cap"), but this does seem to be stretching the point somewhat). In addition, a course designed around TPR principles would not be expected to follow a TPR syllabus exclusively, and Asher himself suggested that TPR should be used in association with other methods and techniques. In terms of the theoretical basis of the approach, the idea of listening preceding production and learners only being required to speak when they are ready to do so closely resembles elements of Stephen Krashen’s Natural Approach.

Short TPR activities, used judiciously and integrated with other activities can be both highly motivating and linguistically purposeful. Careful choice of useful and communicative language at beginner level can make TPR activities entirely valid. Many learners respond well to kinaesthetic activities and they can genuinely serve as a memory aid. A lot of classroom warmers and games are based, consciously or unconsciously, on TPR principles.

  Variations of TPR : TPR-B, TPR-O, TPR-P, TPRS

So the basic idea of TPR is that a language learner hears something in the language and physically responds to it.

However, TPR is not just limited to whole body commands such as walking, turning around, and pointing to your nose. In fact, there are four major types of activities that can be done using the TPR mindset. I like to refer to them as TPR-B, TPR-O, TPR-P, and TPRS. (TPRS is the only one of these expressions that is widely known, the others are terms I've made up.)

I refer to TPR-B for "TPR with body", which includes everything that can be done with general body movement: stand up, sit down, turn around, turn right, turn left, lift up your arm, touch your nose, etc. This is best done in a room with some space to move around.

TPR-O stands for "TPR with objects". This is best done sitting a table that has some objects on it. For example, one day you could raid the produce stand and then sit down with your Turkish friend to a table of fruit. That day you could not only learn the words for "apple", "banana", "orange", and so on, but also, "give me", "take", "put", "smell", "bite", "roll", "peel", and "show me".

For this activity, your friend could start off with: "This is an apple. This is an orange. This is an apple. This is an orange. Where is the apple? (You would point) Where is the orange?" Once again new words can be fairly quickly built up one at a time.

TPR-P stands for "TPR with pictures". Pictures are extremely effective language learning tools. Let's say that you're actually living in England and have gone around and taken 150 or so pictures of people doing different things and then arranged these pictures in an album. Your English friend could go through and say "This is a man. This is a boy. This is a man. This is a boy. Where is the man? Where is the boy?" Gradually both background and foreground objects in the pictures could be learned, as well as verbs: "The carpenter is hitting the nail with a hammer," leading to requests such as "show me the man who is hitting something". Even verb tenses can be incorporated by asking your friend (or tutor or teacher) to talk about all of the pictures as if they happened last week, or now, or next week. The actual physical response with pictures is fairly basic--pointing at something--but the opportunity for vocabulary acquisition is a broad as the types of pictures you can use.

In addition to taking your own pictures, you can probably find some children's picture or story books that are also useful for this kind of learning. Newspaper and magazine pictures work well too.

TPR-S -was developed by Blaine Ray and is being used in classrooms throughout the United States. It involves the teacher (and eventually the students) acting out simple stories as a means of understanding the story and internalising vocabulary. The last section of this article gives an internet link for more information about this approach. You'll find more information at: http://www.tprstorytelling.com/story.htm

What about Speaking?

If you are just starting your language learning and are using TPR, at some point you are (hopefully!) going to feel the urge to start speaking. Don't push it, but at some point you can begin saying things for your friend/tutor to do, from "stand up" to "turn the volume down" to "show me the man who ate fish yesterday". You can also speak about a table of objects: "This is a ball. This is a key. This is a book. The pen is on the book." And finally, you can describe pictures in any tense: "The man ate fish. The boy read a book."

Assessing and Testing TPR

  Assessment is constant. You don’t move on to the next step until you know that most of your students understand the current commands.

  For formal assessments :

1. Matching pictures with statements
2. Match actions with commands. You say a command and either you or another person acts out a command. If the action matches the words, the students check YES or RIGHT on an answer sheet.
3. You say a command and the students write it out in English. (Asher said that this type of assessment produces lower results)
4. You say a command and the students draw it out.
5. You say a command and the students act it out. (This is time consuming)
6. Logical/Illogical sentences: You say a command and the students need to determine if the command is logical or not, i.e. Turn the blackboard around. (This one my students find extremely difficult.)

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Total Physical Response (TPR) is one of the teaching methods that emphasize active learning through actions. It means that learners’ speaking skill through listening to their teacher and before requiring them to speak, and asking them to practice using verbal communication accompany by physical actions. Three basic steps that used in this method are to listen, watch, and imitate repeatedly. It is evident that TPR is not the traditionally way to learn any language, but this unique method makes learning a second language simpler, fun and adaptive because of its intense participation. It is already been proven to work for babies that learn their first language.