Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Total Physical Response Method

 
Total Physical Response Method

Contents
(as I understand from the book)
Goals :
The students are :
  • Enjoy their experience in learning to communicate in a foreign language
Existing Classroom Practice
(as I observe and was told)
As I once observed :
The teacher explained the rules, so the students understood what and how the lesson would be given. The teacher started to give commands, the students had to listen carefully. Then the teacher performed it and followed by the students. After many times of commands had been repeated, the students could understand and response quickly without the teacher’s performing. The teacher gave commands that the students had never heard before by combining the commands in chunks and changing the order of the commands. Then the students started to give commands to their friend, if there is mistake the teacher would be very tolerant and only corrected major errors. The students perform well, the class was very fun.
Teaching-learning characteristics :
  • Grammatical structures and vocabulary are emphasized
  • Embedded within imperative, single words and multi-word chunks
  • The spoken language is emphasized than written language
  • Meaning is made clear through body movement
Teacher’s activities/roles :
  • Teacher is a instructor or director of students’ behavior
  • Giving some commands
  • Modeling the commands
Students’ activities :
  • Responding nonverbally
  • Performing the commands
  • Demonstrating their understanding
  • Giving commands
As I was told :
The teacher gives commands and performs it while the students pay attention carefully. After the teacher repeats and performs the commands several times, the teacher points some students to perform in front of the class that will be followed by all the students. Then some students are asked to give some commands performed by all students. Then the teacher gives an opportunity to the students to give and perform the command for their friends. They very have fun with that.
Comments (plusses and minuses to English language teaching today) :
This method will build both the left and the right of the brain. The students can understand the target language by their own experience of performing the commands. It is right that in learning language we have to listen carefully then we can speak well. But, because they learn more in listening and speaking so their ability in writing will not improve.