dạy tiềng anh theo phương pháp total physical respond

In TPR, instructors give commands to students in the target language, and students respond with whole-body actions.. The method is an example of the comprehension approach to language te

TRỊNH NHƯ

THE INTRODUCTION OF TPR Total physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching method developed

by James Asher, a professor of psychology at San José State University It is based

on the coordination of speech and physical movement In TPR, instructors give

commands to students in the target language, and students respond with whole-body actions

TPR linked to the “trace theory” of memory psychology (Katona 1940)

which holds that the more often or the intensively a memory connection is traced, the stronger the memory will be recalled Combining tracing activities such as rehearsal accompanied by motor activity, hence increase the probability of successful recall

Asher developed TPR as a result of his experiences observing young

children learning their first language 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

Asher saw that most of the interactions that young children experience with parents or other adults combine both verbal and physical aspects The child

responds physically to the speech of the parent, and the parent reinforces the child’s responses through further speech Asher also observed that young children typically spend a long time listening to language before ever attempting to speak, and that they can understand and react to utterances that are much more complex than those they can produce themselves  Children respond physically before they begin to produce verbal responses

The method is an example of the comprehension approach to language teaching:

• Comprehension abilities precede productive skills in learning language

• The teaching of speaking should be delayed until comprehension skills are established

• Skills acquired through listening transfer to other skills

• Teaching should emphasize meaning rather than form

• Teaching should minimize leaners’ stress

In the book English through actions: “ No method of teaching foreign

speech is likely to be economical or successful which does not include in the first period a very considerable proportion of that type of classroom work which consists of the carrying out by the pupil of orders issued by teacher” (Palmer)

HOÀNG ANH & QUỐC DŨNG

EXPERIENCE FROM A REAL TPR CLASS

Today, I will describe the lesson based on the one in Asher (1996)

1. The teacher comes into class and asks Ss to sit at the back of the class After that the teacher will present and explain the approach they will use to learn English in L1, in particular, Swedish: ‘the way to learn English is the same to the way to learn Swedish There is no word spoken from you (It means Ss) And he will ask four volunteer Ss to come here and do along what he requires in L2 with him.’ After choosing 4 volunteer Ss, the teacher as well as Ss takes a seat in line and face to the rest of the class And the teacher will ask the other students to watch and listen

2. The teacher gives the command “Stand up” to the four students and does it, at that

time they will follow

3. The teacher continues to say and do another command in English “Sit down”, the

four volunteers will carry out like he does

4. The teacher and the Ss do the two orders several times through his command And

he stops at the order “Stand up”.

5. Next, in English the teacher says a new order “Turn around” and act out The four

Ss will follow him and face with the chair

6. The teacher continues to use this command one more time in order that the volunteer Ss face to the class as before

7. “Sit down Stand up Turn around Sit down” the teacher says in turns slowly

8. The teacher continues with the new command “Walk”, and they start to walking

towards to the class together

9. Next, to stop the volunteers, the teacher gives a series of command beginning with

“Stop Jump Stop Turn around Walk Stop Jump Stop Turn around Sit

down” And all of them act out together.

10. The teacher performs these commands again and changes the positions of these

commands with Ss: “Stand up Jump Sit down Stand up Turn around Jump.

Stop Turn around Walk Stop Turn around Walk Jump Turn around Jump Sit down” And this time these orders will be faster.

11. Once again the teacher gives commands But this time, he will do nothing, just sit

and say The Ss carry out his commands “Stand up Sit down Walk Stop Jump.

Turn around Walk Turn around Sit down”

12. Then, the teacher motions to one of the four Ss to follow his commands alone

13. Continuously, the teacher turns to the rest of the class and give the order “Stand

up”, and the class follow A series of commands is said “Sit down Stand up Jump Stop Sit down Stand up Turn around Turn around Jump Sit down”.

Although the students have never performed these actions before, they have the ability to carry out through the teacher’s commands

After being pleased with the first six commands, the teacher will insert the new ones

14 The teacher commands to Ss to “Point to the door” and uses his right hand and his

finger to point towards the door at the same time

15 Then, the teacher continues to perform the order “Point to the desk” and the

volunteers follow

16 Next, the teacher says “Point to the chair” and points to the chair behind the desk.

17 “Stand up” the teacher orders, the four Ss follow After that he says “Point to the

door” Then “Walk to the door” the teacher and the volunteers walk together He

continue to order “Touch the door” and do with the students.

18 The teacher says a variety of commands “Point to the desk Walk to the desk.

Touch the desk Point to the door Walk to the door Touch the door Point to the chair Walk to the chair Touch the chair” After that changing the orders of the

commands, the teacher continues to carry out the action with the students

The teacher and the volunteers practice the orders several times through the teacher’s command

19 The teacher gives commands one more time But this time, he will have no

movement The four Ss carry out his commands The teacher just repeats the orders and act them out when the Ss get confused

20 The teacher turns to the other students sitting and observing him and the

volunteers and gives a series of orders “Stand up Sit down Stand up Point to the

desk Point to the door Walk to the door Walk to the chair Touch the chair Walk Stop Jump Walk Turn around Sit down” Ss won’t have any trouble to carry out

these commands

21 Next, the teacher turns to the four Ss and orders “Stand up Jump to the desk”.

This is the first time the volunteers have heard this command, they may pause for a moment and then they manage to do

22 The teacher continues to give the volunteers a command they haven’t practiced

before “Touch the desk Sit on the desk”.

23 After that the teacher makes a phrase in format compound sentence “Point to the

door and walk to the door” and the Ss will perform the command.

24 The last step of the lesson is that the teacher will demonstrate the new orders on

the board and in each command he performs the action And the mission of the Ss is

to take note to their notebooks

25 A few weeks later, we enter the class and hear different voices One of the Ss is

commanding to the other Ss and the teacher “Raise your hands Show me your

hands Close your eyes Put your hands behind you open your eyes Shake hands with your neighbor Raise your left foot” They act out without saying anything.

THANH TRÂM (1 -7)

PHẠM NHƯ (8 – 13)

THE INFERENCE FROM THE EXPERIENCE

1. First of all, teacher gives at most three

simple commands to the volunteers One

by one gradually is said and then teacher

act each out

2. The importance of this stage is to ask

students to hear the commands and to

perform them with teacher, not to speak

anything

3. After introducing the three more new

commands, teacher combines the six

commands by saying them quickly while

acting them out with the volunteers

4. This time teacher still gives the

commands orally but stays still and only

students perform the commands

5. Teacher gives his commands to the others

who have not performed yet

6. The six new commands are, in turn,

introduced only after student have

mastered the six previous ones

7. After a combination of several commands

is given, the order of them will be

changed

8. When students make an error, the teacher

repeats the command while acting it out

9. Teacher gives the students commands that

they have not heard before

10. Teacher says ‘Jump to the desk’

Everyone laughs

Students can memorize the meaning of the commands by observing teacher’s actions and try to imitate the actions with teacher

Students are expected to understand the meanings related with their actions before they speak

By copying teacher’s action, students can get basic understanding of the target language

Students will not memorize language meaning by imitating but by listening to teacher’s commands which is called impartive

The others can learn the target language through observing actions and

by acting the commands out by themselves

The feeling of success and being less confused will motivate students to learn more

This way helps student avoid memorizing the command due to a fixed order

Correction should be carried out in an unobtrusive manner

They must develop the ability of understanding, novel combination of target language chunks Students need to understand more than the exact sentences used in training Novelty is a motivating Sometimes funny situation helps

11. Teacher writes the new command on the

black board

12. A few weeks later, a student who hasn’t

spoken before gives commands

13. A student says “shake hand with your

neighbor”

students comprehend the language more easily

In language teaching, spoken languages should be emphasized over written ones

That student has enough motivation to begin to speak, students will speak when they are ready

Students can make mistakes when they first begin speaking So, teacher should take time and work on the fine details of the languages The errors should be postponed until students have become more proficient

REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES.

VŨ THÙY

1. Objective of the teacher:

- Having Ss enjoy their experience in learning to communicate in L2.

(A TPR course aims to produce learners whose ability of communicate in target

language is weak or uninhibited, could be enhanced to be more understandable to

a native speaker.)

(by focusing on meaning interpreted through movement, rather than on language

forms, the learner is said to be liberated from not only self – conscious but also

stressful; moreover, they are able to reach the highest level of their learning –

ability.)

2. Teacher’s and Learners’ roles:

- Teacher plays an active and direct

role in TPR

(simply because teachers are typically

used to elicit both physical actions and

activity on the part of the learners).

- Learner has the primary roles of listener

an performer

- Learners are imitators of teacher’s nonverbal model

(simply because learners listen attentively and respond physically to teacher’s

commands.)

- Learners have little influence over the content of learning

(since the teacher has to base on the curriculum format for lessons.)

3. Major characteristicS of TPR:

(there are 6 common steps in teaching by using TPR The first step is modelling.)

(1) A few students are asked to follow teacher’s commands and actions

(and the teacher performs the actions with them In the second step,)

(2) These students perform the commands alone to prove that they understand the requirements

(next,)

(3) The commands will be recombined to have students develop flexibility in understanding unfamiliar utterances

The commands are often humorous

(after learning to respond to some oral commands, they are asked to read and

write them)

(4) Students learn how to read and write the given oral commands

(5) When students are ready to speak, they become the ones who issue the commands

(finally,)

(6) After beginning speaking, students expand the activities including skits and games

4. The nature of Student – teacher vs Student – student interaction:

Phas

e

1 interacts and speaks with both the

whole group of students and with individual students.

respond nonverbally

2 responds nonverbally become more verbal

understanding of the commands

perform actions together

Had better issue commands to one

another as well as to the teacher

5. Ways to deal with learners’ feelings?

(the main purpose of TPR is to relieve the anxiety of the learner But how does

teacher can deal with learners’ stress? There are about 4 suggestions The first one is: )

- Allow students to speak when they are ready.

(because forcing them to speak before then will create the anxiety Another way to reduce stress is)

- Make language learning as enjoyable as possible.

(since it make learners a bit of confusion Last but not least, Teacher)

- Should not expect the perfection.

MỸ QUYÊN

6 How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?

- With the acquisition of the native language, the oral modality is primary

- Culture is the lifestyle of people who speak the language natively

- The way to speak play an important for leaner speak naturally as a native speaker.

Besides, culture as well as lifestyle are essential if a person want to speak as native speaker

7 What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are emphasized?

Vocabulary and grammatical structures are emphasized over their language areas They are attached to imperatives with single words or multi- word chunks The reason why using imperative in lesson is to direct at young children learn native language more easier The spoken language is emphasized over written language Students do not learn to read the commands they have already learned to perform although they were instructed

8 What is the role of the students’ native language?

TPR is usually introduced in the student’s native language but After the introduction, the native language seldom would be used Meaning is just clear when using body language

9.How is evaluation accomplished?

Teacher will know exactly and immediately whether or not student understand by observing actions We evaluation by commanding \each student perform their actions When student become more advanced, a series action they create is the basis of evaluation

10 How does the teacher respond to student errors?

At the first time, Any students will make errors when speaking Teacher can

be ignore and only correct major errors When student get more advanced, teacher can “fine tune”

DƯƠNG NAM

REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES

A. USING COMMANDS TO DIRECT BEHAVIOR:

- A TPR lesson focuses on the use of commands which are turned into actions

by students

- These actions clarify the meaning of the commands

- One primary part of a successful TPR lesson is the careful preparation of a group of target commands planned previously by the teacher in order to captivate students Without any command preparation, teacher may take