TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR)

1. Definition

Total physical response (TPR) is a language teaching

method developed by James Asher, a professor emeritus of psychology .
It is based on the coordination of language and physical movement. In
TPR, instructors give commands to students in the target language with
body movements, and students respond with whole-body actions.

The method is an example of the comprehension approach to

language teaching. The listening and responding (with actions) serves two
purposes: It is a means of quickly recognizing meaning in the language
being learned, and a means of passively learning the structure of the
language itself. Grammar is not taught explicitly but can be learned from
the language input. TPR is a valuable way to learn vocabulary, especially
idiomatic terms, e.g., phrasal verbs.

To create a brain link between speech and action to boost language

and vocabulary learning. He noticed that interactions between parents and
children often took the form of speech from the parent followed by a
physical response from the child. Asher made three hypotheses based on
his observations: first, that language is learned primarily by listening;
second, that language learning must engage the right hemisphere of the
brain; and third, that learning language should not involve any stress.

2. Procedure

 Prepare : Select some vocabulary that you want to teach and maybe
you can add the picture to make students easy to illustrate and
understand the meaning of word.
 Teacher modelling : Say the new work for students with gesture,
body movement or facial expression to illustrate the meaning of
words and students will guess it.
  Student modelling : Student volunteers mimic the same gesture,
facial expression or body movement as teacher says the word.
 Student participation : All student mimic the same gestures, facial
expression, use body movement modelled by teacher and student
volunteers.
 Writing : Write the word where students can see to make the
connection between oral and written words.

3. Practice

 Teacher show some picture to students, like you give students a

cycle’s picture. You must practice how you ride your bicycle , you
guess that and students say it together.
 Then some students will be volunteer one by one, teacher give a
word or a sentence maybe, then a student gives some clue and
practice to other, and students will be guess it by body movement
of the volunteer, if the clue can be guess, students must practice
and say it together
 The last game is sing a song. Students must sing and practice what
are they sing together. Word by word will be replace with clap.

There was a farmer who had a dog,

And Bingo was his name-o.
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-N-G-O
And Bingo was his name-o.
There was a farmer who had a dog,
And Bingo was his name-o.
(clap)-I-N-G-O
(clap)-I-N-G-O
(clap)-I-N-G-O
And Bingo was his name-o.
There was a farmer who had a dog,
And Bingo was his name-o.
(clap)-(clap)-N-G-O
(clap)-(clap)-N-G-O
(clap)-(clap)-N-G-O
And Bingo was his name-o.
And so on. . . .

4. Advantage of TPR

 It is fun and easy

 It does not require a great deal of preparation on the part of the
teacher.
 It is a good tool for learning vocabulary.
 Class size does not need to be a problem.
 There is no age barrier.

5. Disadvantages

 It is not a very creative method. Students are not given the opportunity
to express their own views and thoughts in a creative way.
 It is easy to overuse TPR.
 It is limited, since everything cannot be explained with this method.
It must be combined with other approaches.