Majid Al-Humaidi

Total Physical Response

Introduction

Total Physical Response (TPR) was created by Dr. James J Asher. It is based upon the
way that children learn their mother tongue (Richards & Rogers, 1986). Parents have
'language-body conversations' with their children, the parent instructs and the child
physically responds to this. The parent says, "Look at dad" or "Give me the ball" and
the child does so. These conversations continue for many months before the child
actually starts to speak itself. Even though it can't speak during this time, the child is
taking in all of the language; the sounds and the patterns. Eventually when it has
decoded enough, the child reproduces the language quite spontaneously. TPR
attempts to mirror this effect in the language classroom.

Approach, design and procedure

In the classroom the teacher plays the role of a parent. He or she starts by saying a
word ('jump') or a phrase ('look at the board') and demonstrating an action. The
teacher then says the command and the students all do the action. After repeating a
few times it is possible to extend this by asking the students to repeat the word as they
do the action. When they feel confident with the word or phrase, the teacher can then
ask the students to direct each other or the whole class.

TPR can be used to teach and practice many things such as:

- Vocabulary connected with actions (smile, chop, headache, wriggle)

- Tenses past/present/future and continuous aspects (Every morning I clean my teeth,

I make my bed, I eat breakfast)

- Classroom language (Open your books)

- Imperatives/Instructions (Stand up, close you eyes)

- Story-telling
Points of criticism

1) Students who are not used to such things find it embarrassing. This is actually
noticed with adults more than it is with younger learners.

2) It is only really suitable for beginner levels. This method holds stronger in teaching
non-abstract vocabulary items and is unsuccessful in teaching abstracts which are
acquired at advanced levels.

3) It gives priority to receptive skills, mainly listening, at the expense of productive

skills.

4) No effort is expected from the learner.

5) It assumes that stress hinders the process of language acquisition denying the fact
that positive stress, as explained in the literature, is considered sometimes crucial in
learning processes.

6) It requires different kinds of teaching aids which are not usually provided by
teaching institutions, and also requires creative, imaginative, patient teachers.

7) Grammatical features and vocabulary items are selected not according to their
frequency of need or use in the target language situations, but according to the
situations in which they can be used in the classroom and the ease with which they
can be learned.

10) The method is time consuming. Learning a single vocabulary item, for example,
would require the demand or imperative of the teacher, the students' demonstration,
and teacher's feedback. It usually involves the whole class participating in learning
one single item. Yet, the results would be expected to be more fruitful and lasting than
it is with other methods.

TPR in the Saudi Context

It is hard to imagine, at least in the Saudi context, an adult student learning a second
language participating in certain demonstrations or acting that is considered central in
TPR. To most of them, it is embarrassing for there are 'cultural' constraints that make
a student hesitate in participating in such activities. The idea of physical
demonstration is not digested culturally, a fact that would itself lead to anxiety and
stress in the class environment whereas one of the main of advantages of this method,
as suggested by its inventor, is that it places no stress on students. Well, in the case of
Saudi adults, the situation is different.

Another important fact that might hinder the application of this method, as well as
other method, is that it requires small classes, extended hours of language teaching,
different and creative teaching aids and imaginative teachers. These are difficult to
find in Saudi teaching institutions, and, if found, they are rare and are not the norm. I
am not justifying such facts and saying that as long as they do not exist we shouldn't
do anything about them, but rather exposing the reality in order to find solutions and
promote techniques that serve the application of modern teaching styles.

Conclusion

As Richards and Rogers (1986) put it referring to the creator of this method: "Asher
himself.. has stressed that Total Physical Response should be used in association with
other methods and techniques." Hence, it is crucial that practitioners of TPR follow
this recommendation for it can be easily 'squeezed in' with other methods as a means
towards an end, not an end on its own.
 Reference

Richards, J. C. & Rogers, T. S. (1986). Approaches and methods in language

teaching: A description and analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.