By: Huynh, Ngoc Tai, Lecturer in the Department of English

Traditionally, in an English classroom, a teacher usually begins the procedure of teaching vocabulary with popular commands such as:

‘Now class, look at the board!’
‘Listen and repeat after me!’

Then the teacher may read aloud some new words and students are required to repeat. Very often, the teacher asks for the meanings of the words or provides equivalent translation in the students’ native language. Next, the whole class have several minutes to copy down what is written on the board.

Sometimes, the teacher can call students to stand up and read out loud the new words. This is to assure that the learners have mastered both the pronunciation and meanings of these words. Such methodology of teaching vocabulary can be stressful to students when they cannot pronounce the word correctly. Furthermore, students may easily forget the pronunciation of the words in the following days after the class.

According to James J. Asher, the originator of the Total Physical Response, there is a better way that does not waste the precious time of the instructor and the students. Instead of asking students to listen and repeat, the teacher can ask the students to follow the Total Physical Response (TPR) method of teaching vocabulary as illustrated below.

Let’s say the new word is ‘go swimming’

• First, the teacher gives commands such as:
‘Now class! Look at me! Don’t say anything.’

• Then the teacher mimes the action of swimming and at the same time saying ‘I go swimming’.

• Students just observe what their teacher is doing and listen to what the teacher is saying. They are not required to say anything.

• Next, the teacher gives command: ‘I go swimming’ and invites the whole class to carry out the action of swimming without saying anything.

Such practice of teaching vocabulary can bring fun and practice visualizing the words. This helps learners to memorize vocabulary by images rather than sound. In addition, it is supported by cognitive research that our brain stores and recall information easier if the information is visualized (Hilgard, 1977, Gerngross, Puchta, & Thornbury, 2008).

Moreover, evidence from research reveals that attempts to force learners of an foreign language to speak out new words may cause stress. Our left brain can express itself by talking without understanding while the right brain can express itself by performs appropriate behavior and understands the commands (Asher, 2012).

Not only the teachers, but learners of foreign language can build up vocabulary by trying to create an action of a new word while they speak that word several times. There are, of course, many other useful ways of teaching and learning vocabulary but my personal experience tells me that TPR is one of a powerful tools of teaching vocabulary.

References:

Asher, J. J. (1966). The Learning Strategy of the Total Physical Response: A Review. The Modern Language Journal, 50(2), 79-84.

Asher, J. J. (2012). Learning Another Language Through Actions (Vol. 7th ): Sky Oaks Productions, Incorporated.

Gerngross, G., Puchta, H., & Thornbury, S. (2008). Teaching Grammar Creatively. ELT journal, 62(4), 424-427.

Hilgard, E. R. (1977). Divided consciousness: Multiple controls in human thought and action.