Diane Larsen-Freeman

114 Total Physical Response
students develop flexibility in unders tanding unfami liar utterances.
These comma nds, wh ich students perfor m, are o ften humorous.
After learning to respond to some oral commands, the stu dents
learn to read and wr ite them. When stu dents are read y to spea k, they
become the ones who issue the commands. After students begin speaking,
activities expand to include skits an d games.
4 What is the nature of student-teacher interaction? What is the nature
of student-student interaction?
Th e teacher interacts with the whole gro up of students a nd with individual
students. Initially the interaction is characterized by the
teacher speaking and the students responding non verbally. Later on,
the students become more verbal and the teac her respo nds nnnverbally,
Stude nts perform th e actions together. Stu dents can learn by wa tching
each ot her. At some point, however, Asher believes observers must
demonstrate their understanding of the co mma nds in order to reta in
them.
As students begin to spea k, they issue commands to one another as
well as to the teacher.
5 How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
O ne of the main reasons TPR wa s developed was to reduce the stress
people feel when studying foreign languages. O ne of the prim ary
ways thi s is acco mplished is to allow learners to spea k when the y are
read y. Forcing them to spea k before then will only create anxiety.
Also, when srudents do begin to speak, perfection shoul d not be
expected.
Another way to relieve anxiety is to mak e language learning as
enjoyable as possible. The usc of zany commands and humorous skits
arc two ways of showing that language learning can be fun.
Finally, it is important that there not be too much model ing, but
tha t students not be too rus hed either. Feelings of success and low
an xiety facilitate learning.
6 How is language viewed ? How is culture viewed ?
Just as with the acquisit ion of the nat ive language, the or al modality is
primary. Culture is the lifestyle o f people who speak the language
nati vely.
Total Physical Response 115
7 What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are
emphasized?
Vocabu lary and gram mat ical structures arc emphasized ove r other
language areas. T hese arc embedded within imperatives. T he impe ratives
arc single words and multi-word chunks. One reason for the use
of imperatives is their freque ncy of occ urrence in the speech directed
at young children learn ing their nati ve lan guage.
Understanding the spoken word shoul d precede its production.
Th e spoken lan guage is emphasized over written lan guage. Students
often do not learn to read the commands they have already learned to
perform unt il after ten ho urs of instruction.
8 What is the role of the students' native language?
TPR is usually introduced in the student's nat ive language. After the
introduct ion, rarely would rhe native language he used. Mean ing is
made clear through body mov emen ts.
9 How is evaluation accomplished?
Teachers will know immediately whet her or not stude nts und erstand
by observing their stud ents' actions. Formal evaluations can he conducted
simply by commanding individual st udents to perform a series
of actions. As stu dents become more ad van ced, their performance of
skits they have created can become the basis for evaluation.
10 How does the teacher respond to student errors?
lr is expected tha t students will make errors when they first begin
speaking. Teachers should be to lerant of them and on ly cor rect major
errors. Even these should he corrected unobtr usively. As stud ents get
more adva nced, teachers can ' fi ne tunc 'c-corrccr more minor errors.
REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES
Th e major technique, as we saw in the lesson we observed, is the usc of
commands to direct behavior. Asher acknowledges that , although this
technique is pow erful, a var iety of activities is preferred for maintaining
student interest. A detailed description of using commands is provided
below. If you find some of the principles of Total Physical Response to he
of interest, you ma y wish to dev ise your own techniq ues to su pple ment
this one.