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.)

http://www2.vobs.at/ludescher/Ludescher/LAcquisition/total_physical_response.htm