论文总字数：31421字

摘 要

如何教孩子学英语已成为教师和专家多年来关注的一个热点问题。近年来，外语教学特别注重激发学生学习兴趣的重要性。全身反应法，作为外语教学的方法和途径之一，引起了中国教育研究者和外语教师的极大兴趣，并且已经广泛应用于小学英语课堂教学中。同时，全身反应法作为一种现代教学法在全世界引起了极大关注。本文旨在说明全身反应教学法对小学生英语学习兴趣的影响，并且阐述了全身反应法的理论基础以及对小学英语教学中的优缺点进行了分析。还讨论了一些具体的教学活动，典型的TPR教学案例，并总结全身反应法在应用中应注意的点，旨在为强化教育实践提供一条新途径。

关键词：全身反应法； 外语教学；小学课堂教学；学习兴趣

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. The Theoretical Basis and rationale of TPR 3

3.1 Second Language Acquisition Theory 4

3.2 Division of Left and Right Brain Theory 6

3.3 Psychology "Memory Trace" Theory 7

3.4 Theory of Humanistic Psychology 7

4. The Main Content of TPR 8

4.1 Three Principles Promoted by Asher 8

4.2 Main Features of TPR 8

4.3 English Teaching Modes of TPR Approach 9

5. Practical application of TPR in Elementary school classroom 9

5.1 Four Combinations of TPR and Classroom Teaching 9

5.2 A Typical Example for Applying TPR 11

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

Total Physical Responses (TPR)，is a second language teaching method，developed by Dr．James J．Asher in 1966，and became very popular in 1970s．The theoretical basis of it contains Developmental psychology，Theories of learning，Humanistic pedagogy and Language Teaching Procedure put forward by Harold and Dorothy Palmer in 1925 (Riehardsamp;Rodger,2000：87). TPR, as an effective and helpful method, has been widely practiced in primary school. It also can be developed to reduce children’ stress when they are studying foreign languages and arouse students’ interests of learning foreign languages, and develop their intelligence. Meanwhile, TPR is an efficient and appropriate way that is very helpful for teachers to organize classes, and using TPR can make classes more active and dynamic.

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching approach which is built around the coordination of speech and action; it aims to teach children foreign language through physical activities. Students can acquire a foreign language by acquisition of comprehensible input through reacting imperative drills and other activities in classes, which is just like babies learn their first language. (Asher, 1969)

“The method relies on the assumption that when learning a second or additional language that is internalized through a process of code breaking similar to first language development and that the process allows for a long period of listening and developing comprehension before production.”（Asher, 1969:13-17）

2. Literature Review

Total Physical Responses (TPR)，is a second language teaching method，developed by Dr．James J．Asher in 1966，and became very popular in 1970s．This approach is focused on the mode of interaction in language learning, and an advocate of the language and behavior linked to teach foreign languages through body movements. It is the essence: given directions by verbal orders, supplemented by body movement demonstration to help understand the meaning of instruction, and when the learners fully understand the significance of the statement, then to make the right response through body movements, which not only can reduce the opening pressure, but also can accumulate enough confidence. Asher convinced that the receiving and hearing of a lot of information and the reaction of body movements combined to make the impression of learning more profound and lasting.

TPR was introduced to our country, which aroused widespread interest among educational researchers and English teachers in China. Especially after entering twenty—first century, the foreign language education began to spread to the primary school. TPR has caused serious concern of primary and secondary school English teachers due to its own characteristics. After careful research on the theoretical basis, the teaching method in the teaching activity and the teaching steps, they start to apply TPR in the English classroom as a teaching method, combing the reality of the foreign language teaching with the characteristics of English teaching and learning in primary and middle school, which has achieved significant results. Many primary and secondary school teachers write their teaching conditions and reflections on paper for other English teachers to reference. Most of them think that the TPR method provides an effective way for teaching English to children, but at the same time, they also see the shortcomings and limitations of TPR. These scholars and teachers generally think that TPR will achieve better results if it is efficiently combined with other teaching methods.

Hu Tieqiu, a famous professor of the Affiliated High School of Peking University points out in an article, TPR—a modern foreign language teaching approach worthy of promotion, TPR has many advantages, but because of the environmental culture, language transfer, teacher’s language ability and personal charm, teaching materials and teaching aids, the number of classes and methods of assessment of many factors, TPR also has some problems in the implementation process. For example, the memories and interpretation of the words and phrases are not stressed enough; students’ cognitive level is not easy to determine; Study effect evaluation is hard to quantify and so on. Therefore, only with TPR, it is difficult to achieve ideal mark. However, the standardization of traditional teaching method can make up for the deficiency of TPR in these areas due to its own very strong compatibility and flexibility which make it applied well in language teaching together with other methods. Therefore, the organic combination of TPR and other traditional teaching methods, complement each other, can further deepen the reform of foreign language teaching in China and achieve the ideal learning effect finally. （Hu Tieqiu，2000：54-56）

Liang Sanyun, a professor of Yangzhou University, wrote two articles on TPR. In the latest one, he introduced and evaluated the TPR from different aspects, such as theoretical basis, curriculum design, characteristics, role of TPR and so on. The process of reviewing the traditional teaching method can make teaching stuffs get new knowledge and understanding of the traditional teaching methods. He hopes that English teachers can “gain new insights through reviewing old material” to draw from a certain reference to the practice of English teaching and some current teaching methods. He finally concluded that "any kind of innovation, if used for too long, it will affect the effect of its use. Therefore, we should organize different activities constantly. TPR, as one of foreign language teaching methods, also should cooperate with other effective teaching methods to accomplish the teaching task well and achieve the best teaching effect. (Liang Sanyun, 2005: 60-62)

Many teachers and scholars have come to the same conclusion in their articles. They all think that TPR is suitable for the very beginning levers, so it can be widely promoted in China. This paper mainly studies the application of TPR teaching method in young children English teaching, which has a certain theoretical value and important practical application value.

3. The Theoretical Basis and rationale of TPR

TPR, an effective language teaching method, was put forward by Asher who did a lot of observation and experiment of children in language teaching and combined it with the psychological development of children, left and right brain theory and the second language acquisition theory. TPR emphasizes on the combination of the coordination of body movement and language, which can help study language. It can be analyzed from four aspects: second language acquisition, the structural linguistics, brain lateralization theory and psychology.

3.1 Second Language Acquisition Theory

TPR is based on the children"s language acquisition mode. From the perspective of developmental psychology, it has the following two main theories of the second language acquisition.

3.1.1 Second Language Acquisition Order：The ability to understand oral language prior to speaking

Early in 1960s, Asher put forward that understanding is the basic skill before you can speak after observing numerous foreign language teaching programs. Early in 1929, Gesell and Thompson, two famous child psychologists, have observed that before the babies intend to speak, they have been able to understand the considerable complexity of content that people are talking about. “Once they internalize the complex laws of language operation, they will acquire fluent speaking. At that time, the physiological mechanism will not disappear any more, and they will take the initiative to say a lot of words.” (Yu Zhenyou，1999). Before children are able to speak, they need to go through a lot of aural learning. In the same way, in order to speak the foreign languages smoothly and fluently, the students must listen to a lot of second language materials and try their best to understand the contents clearly before they can speak second language. So in the TPR class, the teacher will not require students to repeat what they have said at once and never expect the students to speak soon. And even if the students attempt to speak, the teacher will try to delay the time they began to say; the reason for this action is because TPR believe that listening and understanding should come before speaking. If the students can not be enough to understand what they have heard of, it is impossible to produce output, even if there is a defect. However, when the students " understanding of concepts has been to a certain degree, “internalizing it in the cognitive structure, and forming a clear schema in the brain” (Liu Xin, 2007:26), they are ready to speak.

3.1.2 Methods of second language acquisition: the instructions ------movement response

TPR imitates children"s first language acquisition process. Before babies can say “Mom” and “Dad”, even before babbling to say the first note, language has left a mark with body movements during that long time. At that time, Infants may only through body movements such as watching, laughing, fingers and touch to decipher the language code. In Asher’s opinion, similarly, the second language can be acquired through this way (Asher, 2009): in a large number of communications between the adult and infant, adults can guide the baby mildly with the following instructions to produce the changes of movement, such as “Look at Dad! Look at your Grandma! Point at your aunt! Stick out your tongue.” Asher pointed out that these communications do not need infants to produce verbal response. In the initial, they just can respond through body movements. Till the special stage of language development, they can use a word of discourse, such as "yes" or "no" response. Such process of language acquisition, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget called it "Building the facts "" (Asher, 2009). In his sight, just telling or explaining the facts to the baby is not enough, and translation also does not work at all.

Children must go through first-hand experience to build the facts. For kids with physical disabilities such as paralysis, observed that if the language could lead to other changes in human behavior apparently, it is enough to help them understand and internalize linguistic meaning. Therefore, the “students’ understanding of spoken language achieved through physical responses, TPR is the key to develop the students’ ability to understand” (Asher, 2009). In total physical response teaching strategy, the teachers always give out the orders in target language and do it by themselves, and then let students follow, but does not allow students to repeat their sentences. The students can achieve the understanding of language concepts in the process of doing body movements. For example, in TPR class, when the teacher is teaching “stand up”, “sit down”, “walk”, “turn” these movements, not students follow his teacher to read the words or phrases directly, but let students take an appropriate action through the body first to complete the understanding of them. But Asher said: trying to imitate this method to acquire second language in which children have acquired their mother tongue, comparing with the infants who acquire mother tongue, both children and adults can achieve a quicker understanding of the second language through imperative, the reason for this is that the infants’ response is limited to a few acts: look, touch, grasp, point, smile and eat. Instead the students in second language acquisition have a lot of complex behaviors which can be around by target language instructions. Therefore, children will spend thousands of hours understanding the foreign language. For the students who learn a second language, it can be compressed into hundreds of hours in language training.

3.2 Division of Left and Right Brain Theory

Roger Sperry, United States Biologist, the winner of 1981 “the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Prize” conducted in split-brain experiments in the 1950 of the 20th century that the left hemisphere is the language, which can express themselves while the right brain is not the language, which is silent but it can perform appropriate actions to express their understanding of the language after hearing the target language instructions. On this basis, Asher made a bold assumption that baby completes the understanding of language on the right side of brain. When people who take care of the babies give the verbal instructions to cause changes in infants’ behavior, or while babies observe the changes in the behavior of others, they will complete the understanding of language at last. In this process, the baby’s left brain can’t produce speech. However, after observing the behavioral changes caused by language in his hundreds of hours, the left side of the brain gradually has a weak attempt to speak. Slowly, left brain will increasingly realize the attempt and it has the ability to cause event to occur through talking, so that speaking creates. He also pointed out that when the children grew up and learning a second language or even third foreign language, this division of left and right brain are still functioning. So Asher believes that second language acquisition through the right side of the brain is the optimal starting point for arriving in unfamiliar languages. By entering the right hemisphere, when instruction causes behavioral change, students will use the right brain quickly to decode the language code. When students’ how to run on the target language and understand its meaning has gradually extended, the students are ready to say. In contrast, the language learning from the left brain is slow, the students are fully internalized the overall rules of the target language, which is before the students were not prepared to say, had already started to practice speaking. Just staying on the surface features of language output practice will make the learning process slow and tedious, stifling the students’ attention and memory and increasing the pressures on them.

3.3 Psychology "Memory Trace" Theory

The “memory trace” theory in psychology thinks “memory contact of track frequency and the strength are bigger, memory contact is stronger, and the memories also are easier to be brought back” (Zhao Tao, 1997), the complex instructions in TPR are based on more simple language instructions. With the degree to the understanding of sentences deeper and deeper and understood sentences more and more, the trace frequency and intensity for the sentences or instructions having learned before will increase gradually. The contact between the simple sentences and complex sentences will become stronger and stronger, previously learned is easily recalled. Secondly, the “memory trace” theory also pointed out that the combination of the written exercises (for example, rote learning) and physical activity helps to improve the possibility of memory being evoked (Zhang Qin, 2006). TPR takes listening and acts as the main form of teaching organization, which involves a lot of body movements. In this way the expression of instruction understanding is a very strong memory link, can improve the retention rate.

3.4 Theory of Humanistic Psychology

TPR draws on humanistic psychology on the role of affective factors in learning and thinks that good communication between teachers and students can ease students’ burden and create a pleasant atmosphere for teach (Liu Fan, 2011). Asher’s TPR approach emphasizes understanding prior to opening, and students cannot be enforced to speak until they are ready for output. Even if the students start to output, towards the errors we should take a tolerant attitude. The class takes a listen---act organization with a degree of playfulness, which can reduce students’ burden and stress. When the students’ anxiety is reduced, the students will be free to express themselves through movements to overcome the shyness of speaking English. The students with a good and pleasant mood to learn language can improve the efficiency of learning.

In a word, to explore the theoretical basis of TPR teaching method in depth and to understand the meaning of TPR better are the foundation of the application of TPR in language teaching.

4. The Main Content of TPR

4.1 Three Principles Promoted by Asher

1. At the initial stage of a foreign language teaching, teachers should pay more attention to “understanding” training rather than students “building target language structures”.
2. Teachers should follow the "here and now" principle.
3. Teachers should provide input in the form-- "let the students perform the command", and orders must be sent by imperative sentences. Asher said the first principle emphasizes listening before speaking, that means understanding precedes the expression, which is the same as "understanding method" advocated by foreign language teaching.

4.2 Main Features of TPR

TPR pays more attention to listening comprehension. Cultivate students’ ability to listen first and then require students to give oral expression. Students improve the language understanding through the body response and this response should be controlled by the teachers’ systematic instructions. Students make appropriate action according to the teacher’s instructions, so as to perceive and understand language. Allow students to speak in advance when they are ready. However, teachers cannot compel students to speak and this can reduce students’ stress. Teaching should emphasize the meaning of teaching rather than forms. Experienced teachers know that every student is a unique individual. In terms of the ways and means of access to knowledge and learning, each of them has different strengths and weaknesses. For example, in terms of receiving external information, some students use the auditory channel at first, so learning effect is good and easy to understand. Some other students have the better visual channel than auditory channel, so he will never forget it once he sees. However, in other terms of expression, there is a variety of differences. Therefore, the TPR emphasizes the role of various senses in learning, including sight, hearing, touching and so on, which is very reasonable. TPR is perfect for teaching children English, because it can easily mobilize the enthusiasm of children. Appropriate reading training will enable students’ interest in learning English and their levels go hand in hand.

4.3 English Teaching Modes of TPR Approach

The most basal English teaching modes of TPR approach are in the following areas:

1. TPR game approach.

2. TPR painting method.

3. TPR performance approach.

4. TPR overall approach.

5. TPR direct teaching method.

5. Practical application of TPR in Elementary school classroom

5.1 Four Combinations of TPR and Classroom Teaching

Application of TPR in primary schools English teaching is that according to pupils " psychological characteristics such as active, lack of persistence, teachers mobilize the pupil"s multiple senses by running, jumping, playing games to learn English instead of sitting on stools and stayed in class. Active classroom atmosphere can make pupils " learning initiative and attention span. Especially the poor students, they have no clear learning objectives and they are weak-willed, not good at self-control and attention is very easily to be distracted, often only interested in learning. So how to attract students’ autonomous learning become the problems of bilingual education teachers. TPR approach can stimulate students " interest in learning and learning is no longer boring. TPR method of English teaching in primary schools can take many ways to combine TPR teaching methods and classroom teaching. For example:

5.1.1 The combination of TPR and vocabulary teaching.

TPR method is ideal for younger pupils by action and instruction to start vocabulary teaching, because younger pupils " abstract thinking abilities is bad and they are not good at learning language by analyzing and comparing to master language rules and the methods to memory vocabularies. However, they are lively and active, and to intuitive visual stimuli, they have a better ability to accept. At the same time, they are also willing to imitate and to join.

5.1.2 The combination of TPR with the game teaching.

The nature of the pupils is active and they like playing games. Therefore, teachers should design corresponding TPR games in the process of language teaching. And in order to mobilize the enthusiasm of participation and learning of pupils, the introduction of a suitable sense of competition is necessary. For example, teachers can divide the students into two groups to play such as sun, moon and other teams and number for each group.

5.1.3 The combination of TPR with paint teaching.

Teachers in presenting new knowledge and content often need to draw on a Board or a card to help students establish visual impressions for new knowledge. The pupils especially like to participate in teaching activities by painting on their own. Teachers should properly design some painting activities to arouse the enthusiasm of pupils for participating in class activities and help them to memorize the teaching content better. For example, in designing review activities, teachers can take the form of group contest drawing. The teachers describe in English and students draw pictures on the blackboard according to the description and along the way teachers judge good or bad with the speed and accuracy as the standard. The group painting faster and better is the winner and award a prize.

5.1.4 The combination of TPR with situation teaching.

The pupils have a strong ability to imitate, and have a strong desire to perform. English teaching in primary schools need to design activity scenes of daily life which pupils are familiar with to help pupils to do communicative training. Teachers can combine TPR theory with situational concept, and combine physical react with everyday situations. For example, when teachers design the scene of daily shopping activities, we can allow pupils to play the role of salesman and customer. Use of their body movements in the real scene can assist to recall the memory of patterns used.

5.2 A Typical Example for Applying TPR

The following is the real scene of the first lesson in a primary school in Sweden. The teacher said to the students first in Swedish: “Today we are going to study English with the methods that we use in studying Swedish. Please listen to me carefully and then do as I tell you. I will speak English, and you act following me. Now I need four students to cooperate with me. ” The students have put up their hands one after another. Teachers ask the four students come forward and allow them to sit down at both sides and then let the others watch and listen. Teachers: “Stand up!”(Teachers stood up and motioned for the students to stand up.) Teachers: “Sit down!” (Teachers sat down and motioned for the students to sit down.) (Repeat the same instructions and movements for several times.) Teachers: “Turn around!” (Teachers turned around and motioned for the students to turn around.) Teachers: “Turn around!” (Teachers turned around and motioned for the students to turn around.) Teachers (Change the command and do the action constantly.): “Sit down!” “Stand up!” “Turn around!”… (The four students do the action following the teacher until they can respond quickly and accurately.)… Next the teacher began to release new orders: “Walk!”, “Stop!”, “Jump!”, “Walk to the door!” “Touch the desk!” “Point to the door!” … (Students do the action with the teacher.) This cycle repeated for several times, and the teacher sat down to issue the orders to students and let that four students do the body response. Then teachers point to another student and then point to others … Near the end of the class, these orders were written on the blackboard one by one for students to copy.

…

Above, these are only a small fragment in which teachers use TPR to organize teaching. Larsen-Freeman (1986:110-113) reported more detailed in her report. She said at the end of the report, only the teacher spoke in the whole class. All the students made a variety of body response according to the teacher’s instruction. Thus, after several weeks’ listening training, some students have been able to speak English. From above, we can see that TPR is a lovely, light—hearted and fun teaching method. By using this method, the students can understand and speak simple communicative language (that is imperative sentences) and a large number of words (mainly verbs, nouns and some prepositions).

6. Conclusion

Bringing TPR into the classroom has been a great success．It is recognized that TPR is most useful for beginners．TPR can catch students’ attention and offer them a real language learning environment．And on one hand，it can relieve children"s anxiety，builds up a relaxing atmosphere and encourages children to persist in English learning，which can make children have great fun in English class and increase their enthusiasm for using English communicatively．On the other hand，when the children who need to be active in the class，take part in the TPR activities，they may get more chances to practice and get more feeling of success which can facilitate their English learning．However, each coin has two sides．In fact, lots of preparation need to be done by teachers in TPR approach．For example, they need to provide different commands according to students’ level, the teaching content，and the objectives．What needs to be noticed most is the command．It should be as explicit as possible with better operability. In brief, TPR is an excellent method in English teaching in primary school, but it still needs further development．

Works Cited

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