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Total physical response (TPR) is a language teaching method developed by James Asher, a professor emeritus of psychology at San José State University. It is based on the coordination of language and physical movement. In TPR, instructors give commands to students in the target language with body movements, and students respond with whole-body actions. The method is an example of the comprehension approach to language teaching. Listening and responding (with actions) serves two purposes: It is a means of quickly recognizing meaning in the language being learned, and a means of passively learning the structure of the language itself. Grammar is not taught explicitly but can be learned from the language input. TPR is a valuable way to learn vocabulary, especially idiomatic terms, e.g., phrasal verbs. Asher developed TPR as a result of his experiences observing young children learning their first language. He noticed that interactions between parents and children often took the form of speech from the parent followed by a physical response from the child. Asher made three hypotheses based on his observations: first, that language is learned primarily by listening; second, that language learning must engage the right hemisphere of the brain; and third, that learning language should not involve any stress. TPR is often used alongside other methods and techniques. It is popular with beginners and with young learners, although it can be used with students of all levels and all age groups. Background James Asher developed the total physical response (TPR) method as a result of his observation of the language development of young children. Asher saw that most of the interactions that young children experience with parents or other adults combine both verbal and physical aspects. The child responds physically to the speech of the parent, and the parent reinforces the child's responses through further speech. This creates a positive feedback loop between the parent's speech and the child's actions. Asher also observed that young children typically spend a long time listening to language before ever attempting to speak, and that they can understand and react to utterances that are much more complex than those they can produce themselves. From his experiences, Asher outlined three main hypotheses about learning second languages that are embodied in the TPR method. The first is that the brain is naturally predisposed to learn language through listening. Specifically, Asher says that learners best internalize language when they respond with physical movement to language input. Asher hypothesizes that speech develops naturally and spontaneously after learners internalize the target language through input, and that it should not be forced. In Asher's own words: A reasonable hypothesis is that the brain and the nervous system are biologically programmed to acquire language, either the first or the second in a particular sequence and in a particular mode. The sequence is listening before speaking and the mode is to synchronise language with the individual's body. The second of Asher's hypotheses is that effective language learning must engage the right hemisphere of the brain. Physical movement is controlled primarily by the right hemisphere, and Asher sees the coupling of movement with language comprehension as the key to language acquisition. He says that left-hemisphere learning should be avoided, and that the left hemisphere needs a great deal of experience of right-hemisphere-based input before natural speech can occur. Asher's third hypothesis is that language learning should not involve any stress, as stress and negative emotions inhibit the natural language-learning process. He regards the stressful nature of most language-teaching methods as one of their major weaknesses. Asher recommends that teachers focus on meaning and physical movement to avoid stress. The main text on TPR is James Asher's Learning Another Language through Actions, first published in 1977. Principles TPR is an example of the comprehension approach to language teaching. Methods in the comprehension approach emphasize the importance of listening to language development and do not require spoken output in the early stages of learning. In TPR, students are not forced to speak. Instead, teachers wait until students acquire enough language through listening that they start to speak spontaneously. At the beginning stages of instruction students can respond to the instructor in their native language. While the majority of class time is spent on listening comprehension, the ultimate goal of the method is to develop oral fluency. Asher sees developing listening comprehension skills as the most efficient way of developing spoken language skills. Lessons in TPR are organized around grammar, and in particular around the verb. Instructors issue commands based on the verbs and vocabulary to be learned in that lesson. However, the primary focus in lessons is on meaning, which distinguishes TPR from other grammar-based methods such as grammar-translation. Grammar is not explicitly taught, but is learned by induction. Students are expected to subconsciously acquire the grammatical structure of the language through exposure to spoken language input, in addition to decoding the messages in the input to find their meaning. This approach to listening is called codebreaking. TPR is both a teaching technique and a philosophy of language teaching. Teachers do not have to limit themselves to TPR techniques to teach according to the principles of the method. Because the students are only expected to listen and not to speak, the teacher has the sole responsibility for deciding what input students hear. Procedure The majority of class time in TPR lessons is spent doing drills in which the instructor gives commands using the imperative mood. Students respond to these commands with physical actions. Initially, students learn the meaning of the commands they hear by direct observation. After they learn the meaning of the words in these commands, the teacher issues commands that use novel combinations of the words the students have learned. Instructors limit the number of new vocabulary items given to students at any one time. This is to help students differentiate the new words from those previously learned, and to facilitate integration with their existing language knowledge. Asher suggests that students can learn between 12 and 36 words for every hour of instruction, depending on their language level and class size. While drills using the imperative are the mainstay of classes, teachers can use other activities as well. Some typical other activities are role plays and slide presentations. However, beginners are not made to learn conversational dialogs until 120 hours into their course. There is little error correction in TPR. Asher advises teachers to treat learners' mistakes the same way a parent would treat their children's. Err.... Discover the J Asher popular books. Find the top 100 most popular J Asher books.