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Because I'm a former language teacher and consultant in TPR (Total Physical Response) and language instruction in general, I'm asked with some regularity about appropriate foreign language instruction for students with a dyslexic learning or thinking style. I'm quick to recommend finding a school or program that includes - or even better - relies on TPR as its principal instructional strategy. I taught in a TPR program for a number of years, in a school where all students
(and I do mean all) were required to take a foreign language. In order to make what has traditionally been considered an elective class, a required one, you need to ensure that your instruction is
accessibleto all students. TPR is.
I didn't originally adopt TPR as a major component of my instructional bag of tricks with dyslexic students in mind. I adopted it with all students in mind. Americans are famous for not
learning other languages and for believing, not so much that they shouldn't have to,
but that they are not capable. For language teachers, this accepted presumption of incapacity is a huge hurdle, because it keeps many children and adults from even dipping a toe into the language
pool! TPR was and is a wonderful way to turn that presumption on its head and show the learner
that, not only can we learn, but under the right circumstances, it's fun!
How Language Develops
The research base for TPR dates back to the 1960s, and experiments performed with epileptic volunteers whose right and left brain hemispheres were surgically severed. (The idea was that epileptic seizures began on one side of the brain and migrated to the other, so if they could isolate the event to one side of the brain, the seizures might be less extreme.) After their surgery the volunteers underwent a large number of tests, that began to reveal the different functions of the right and left hemispheres. Among the researchers was a psychologist, Dr. James J. Asher, who began to investigate some interesting relationships between language and movement. His work led him to formulate the theory known today as Total Physical Response, or TPR. Here's the basic idea:
When we are infants our exposure to language is virtually inseparable
from physical activities. People talk to us while tickling us, feeding
us, changing our diapers... We are immersed in a language we don't
speak, in an environment that we explore with every part of our body.
Our parents and caregivers literally walk and talk us through
activities - for example, we learn lots of vocabulary while someone
stands behind us at the bathroom sink, soaping our hands until they're
slippery, holding them under warm water, rubbing or scrubbing, all the
while talking about what we're doing and what it feels like. In this
way, movement and feeling are intimately tied to the process of
internalizing the language.
The TPR Classroom
In the 40 or so years since Dr. Asher began experimenting with foreign
language students, TPR has been shown over and over again, to be an
effective and very natural way to approach language teaching and
learning. All students, adults and children, with or without the
dyslexic learning style, thrive in a language class that includes TPR.
Classes are active - you are not in your seat all period. The focus
for the first weeks is on listening and moving in response to what the
teacher says. There is heavy emphasis on listening comprehension,
because the larger your listening comprehension vocabulary is, the
larger your speaking vocabulary will become. The environment is one in
which things happen and are talked about. It is also an environment
which is purposely kept very free of stress, because we know that
language is not acquired under stressful circumstances. Lots of
language is learned in happy circumstances, especially while you're
having fun.
In most traditional foreign language classes, the underlying
organization of the course is a progression through the grammar and
syntax rules of the language, from simple to complex. In a TPR class,
grammar and syntax are not taught directly. Rather, the teacher
designs activities that expose the student to language in context,
especially in the context of some kind of movement. With enough
exposure, the grammar and syntax of any language will be internalized
by the students through synthesis, not analysis. |
Typically, the initial TPR lessons are commands involving the whole
body - stand up, sit down, turn around, walk, stop. Those actions are
demonstrated by the teacher, who then invites students to participate
with her as she continues to say the words. Fairly soon, the teacher
quietly stops demonstrating, and the students realize that they
somehow just know what to do in response to the words. There is no
translation. There is no such thing as cheating - you're encouraged to
look at what others are doing if you're not sure what to do. You're
also encouraged to trust your body, because sometimes it knows what to
do before your brain does!
As class proceeds, nouns, adverbs,
prepositions are added until before you know it, students are
performing commands like, 'Stand up, walk to the door, open it, stick
your tongue out, close the door, turn around, hop to Jessica's desk,
kiss your right knee four times, and lie down on Jessica's desk." In
fairly short order, students begin to create their own commands and
order one another around the room. There's a lot of laughter, and a
lot of learning taking place.
It's not always and forever commands. An
expert TPR teacher can teach the indicative, all tenses, idiomatic
expressions - everything covered in a traditional class, using these
techniques and others that dovetail nicely with them. It's just that
the instruction is designed to facilitate language acquisition, not
learning a language through analysis, memorization and application of
rules.
An Internalized Framework
There are two points I'd like to make about TPR before closing. The
first is that in a TPR classroom, the focus is not on analysis of
linguistic structures, but on internalizing those structures for
unconscious use. Traditional foreign language instruction starts with
the assumption that we can learn to understand, speak, read and write
by analyzing the grammar and syntax of the target language. But
consider your native language: you did not need to learn the grammar
and syntax of your native language in order to learn to
speak it. You learned those structures, unconsciously as
you learned to speak.
Likewise, we do not consciously use grammar or
syntax in understanding, speaking or reading - grammar and syntax are
both structures that we study after we have become fluent speakers of
our native language. We are more likely to make conscious use of this
information to write or in situations where we must speak in a formal
register, but day to day, for most of us, the grammar we have
internalized is just that, an internalized framework that we do not
access consciously in order to communicate.
When we use TPR
strategies to teach, our goal is truly to be able to understand,
speak, read and write the language, not "about" the language. So
analysis of language, learning terminology and all the many rules of a
language form little or no part of a TPR-based curriculum. To my mind,
that is as it should be. Those individuals who have a strong desire to
know the language of grammarians, the rules and exceptions, can always
find a class to satisfy that urge.
The Role of Creativity
The other point I'd like to make is that TPR instruction is highly
creative, for both the teacher and the students. And in this sense it
bears a relationship to parts of what we do in a Davis program. The
teacher must overcome her training in the structure of the language
and design activities that the learning brain perceives as real and
interesting. Within these real experiences, students are free to
generate all kinds of expressions using the language they're studying,
and to lead instruction in unique directions. Often students don't
realize how much they are learning while they are engaged in a TPR
activity. They think they're just having fun creating all kinds of new
utterances and situations in the active environment in the room.
I think this creativity, the synthetic rather than analytic experience,
the low stress, and generally accepting environment engineered by the
teacher, are a large part of the reason so many students, including
students with learning challenges, find TPR classes so effective and
enjoyable. There are few other places in most school curriculums where
the students themselves get to generate the speech and adapt the
activities in the classroom to support their own needs and goals.
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