How to Use Total Physical Response in ESL Instruction

B. Classroom activities

Teaching Language Skills and sub-skills in interactive methods

Learning Objectives:

· Teaching young learners to real-life situations

· Basic vocabulary and simple grammar input in the primary EFL classroom

· Using topics that relevant to young learners’ age

· Using language aids (easy rhymes, stories, scenic texts, short plays and songs) in the primary EFL classroom

· Total Physical Response (TPR)

Learning Outcomes:

· Teaching language sub-skills

· Students will be aware of teaching methods, materials and language aids (rhymes, stories, and songs) that relevant to young learners’ language abilities

· Students will be able to shape young learners’ basic language skills according to their language needs

· Students will be aware of Total Physical Response (TPR) in LT

Spark Analyzing

Watch the YouTube video titled ‘What you should know teaching very young learners’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKtDkjTG2CY and answer the following questions: · What activity is demonstrated? · What skill (or skills) or sub-skills are trained in the class? · How old are the learners? · How many stages does the lesson consist of? Please, point them out. · Has the goal been achieved? Watch the video for the second time. Title the lesson and make the draft plan it.

InputTask One Read the article, watch the YouTube video. Answer the questions given after the text.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkMQXFOqyQA

Total Physical Response (TPR)

How to Use Total Physical Response in ESL Instruction

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a teaching technique that enables students to acquire new English vocabulary by listening to and carrying out spoken commands. In TPR activities, students are not required to speak. The tutor models the commands and continually repeats and reviews them until the students can carry out the commands with no difficulty. Students are more likely to be and feel successful when the tutor provides constant support and modeling and eliminates the pressure on students to speak the new words.

Although TPR can be used with students at all levels, it is most useful with beginning students who understand little or no English. Since you will be modeling the action as you speak, it will be especially important to use gestures and facial expressions.

With beginning students, first teach commands that call for simple body movements and no props:

stand up, sit down, walk, and turn around. (See below)

Starting with such basic commands gives students a welcome feeling of accomplishment and helps them become comfortable with TPR right away.

Students can go on to more advanced TPR activities in which they interact with props and people in the learning environment.

Examples of commands to use at this stage are touch the, point to, pick up, putdown, and give me.

These are especially useful for teaching both the names of objects in pictures and of objects that are in the immediate environment, some of which may be out of reach.

You can also use TPR for the following purposes:

• to review and reinforce vocabulary you have already taught using non-TPR methods

• as a “catch-up” at the beginning of a lesson for the benefit of students who have missed previous lessons in which new material was introduced

• to provide students with an enjoyable, relaxing break during a lesson

Analyzing

Answer the following questions: 1. Give full definition to Total Physical Response (TPR)? 2. Why is this technique believed useful in teaching second foreign language? 3. What role did TPR play in the lesson? 4. What language skill is taught in the classroom?

Activity: Total physical response

Make a list of five verbs (e.g. go, jump, hide) and five nouns (classroom items). How could you practice these words using the Total physical approach?

InputTask Two Reading

Read the article by Marcos Peñate Cabrera titled ‘Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom’ at: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-FourSkills.html Fill the empty sections of the table with relevant answers according to the article information.

	LISTENING
Problems	Solutions
	Students cannot keep up with the listening track even it is enough slow for them to understand. Their attention gets stuck on every unknown word or phrase and they miss every next line of sentences.
		Presenting the listening activity within the context of the topic of a teaching unit and asking questions or using the illustrations.
	To provide a new opportunity to those who were not able to do the task (for ex. filling the spaces with missing words or phrases).
		List them all on the board and play the text again, so that the class can listen and choose the correct one.
	SPEAKING
	Some students make some grammar, sentence structure and pronunciation mistakes and when the teacher tries to correct them they are usually discouraged to get involved in group discussions.
	Students are having difficulties to memorize some phonetic issues, such as speech sounds, rhythms, intonation and they make slight pause between every word in the sentence.
	READING
		Ask students not to labour over every word while skimming the text for general meaning or scanning it to pick out specific information.
	There are some unknown key words or word expressions that are very important to help students understand the main sense of the context. The reading is frequently interrupted by explaining their meaning.
	Itinhibits most pupils and forces them to concentrate on what they are saying as opposed to what they are reading and the meaning is very often lost.
	WRITING
		Make sure that writing activities be based on a parallel text and guide the pupils using simple cues.
	Some students are very concerned about possible mistakes they might make in the result of which they feel depressed or not confident.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1364

<== previous page	\|	next page ==>
The foreign language: describing the indivisible	\|	Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom

doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.007 sec.)