Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 5; September 03

T P R - Total Physical Response

Ellen Beijer, the Netherlands

TPR takes a very important place in my teaching English to beginners.
Acquiring a new language in this way is done step-by-step by seeing, participating and imitating. The left and right parts of the brains are both used.

The left brain responds to input such as:

	analyzing	explaining
	critiquing	judging
	declaring	talking
	discussing	telling

The right brain flashes on when you use:

	acting	singing
	drawing	storytelling
	gesturing	touching
	games	pointing

The procedure is as follows:
The class is often seated in a semi circle, so that there is a rather large space for action.
The teacher sits in front of the class facing the students. Two students sit on both sides of the teacher.

1. The teacher gives a command and together with the 2 students he/she performs an action. In this way 5 to 6 commands are worked on.
2. The teacher does the same again, but now with the whole group performing the coomands
3. Later the group performs alone, reacting to the teacher's words only.

The first commands are:

stand up – walk – stop – turn around – sit down - point to….. - touch…….

The commands are first used in combination with things from the classroom. Later other words are introduced such as parts of the body, colours, animals etc. etc.

I always use TPR in my beginners classes and the students (adults) like it tremendously.

Ellen Beijer, The Netherlands
September 2003