Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching method developed by Dr. James Asher that uses physical movement and actions in response to verbal commands. In TPR, the instructor gives commands to students in the target language and students respond through actions with their whole body. It focuses on listening comprehension over speaking. Some key characteristics include using gestures and movement to reinforce vocabulary and grammar, inductively teaching grammar through examples, and initially not requiring verbal responses from students. The goal is to lower anxiety and help students achieve oral proficiency through embodied learning that engages the right brain.

1. Total Physical Response
Name: Raval Mital M.
Roll no: 19
Year: 2016 – 2018
M.A. Sem: 3
Paper name: English Language Teaching
Presentation Topic: Total Physical Response
• Submited to: Dr. Dilip Barad
Smt.S.B.Gardi
Department of English
M.K.Bhavnagar University

2. Background
•Total Physical Response (TPR) is method developed by
Dr. James J. Asher.
• TPR as a result of his experience observing young
children learning their first language.
•He notice that interactions between parents and
children often took the form of speech from the parents
followed by a physical response from the child.
•Total Physical Response is linked to the “trace theory” of
memory in psychology.

3. What is TPR?
•Total Physical Response is a language teaching method
built around the coordination of speech and action, it
attempt to teach language through physical activity.
•In TPR instructors give commands to students in the target
language and students respond with whole body action.
•It is popular with beginners and with young learners of
this method

4. Characteristic of TPR
 Focusing on meaning and comprehension.
 Great deal of listening and acting
 Verbal response is not necessary.
 Humor is easy to introduced.
 Teacher always uses the target language.
 Overcoming the fear of speaking.
 Grammar is taught inductively.
 Students should be more active and talkative.
 Learning language by body movements.
 Reading and writing is taught after grammar and vocabulary.

5. Procedure
Review:
• This was a fast moving warm up in which individual students were moved with
commands
•For example,
Rita, pick up the knife and spoon and put them in the cup.
New Commands:
•Basic verbs were introduced like,
Wash = wash your hand
wash your face etc….
•Then introduced some word which used in various sentences.
Quickly = walk quickly to the door and hit it.
Sit down quickly and write.

6. continue…
•Next, the instructor asked simple questions which the student could
answer with a gesture.
For example,
- Where is the toothbrush?
 Reading and writing:
•The teacher wrote on the chalkboard each new vocabulary item and
a sentence to illustrate the item.
•Then teacher spoke each item and acted out the sentence.
Student copied information in their notebook.

7. Theory of language
•Most of grammatical structure of the target language
and hundreds of vocabulary items can be learned from
the skill full use of the imperative by the instructor.
•In TPR verb is central linguistic motif around which
language use and learning are organized.
•Asher believes that learners can acquire a “detailed
cognitive map” as well as “the grammatical structure of
a language” without recourse to abstraction.

8. Theory of learning
Asher give three learning hypotheses
The Bio-
program
Reduction
of stress
Brain
Lateralizatio
n

10. Brain Lateralization
•Asher sees TPR as direction to right – brain
learning, where as most second language
teaching methods are directed to left brain
learning.
•Asher interprets these as demonstrating that
the brain is divided into hemispheres according
to function, with language activates centralized
in the right hemisphere.

12. Objectives
•The general objectives of Total physical
Response are to teach oral proficiency at a
beginning level.
•Aim is to teach basic speaking skill.
•It’s another aim is produce learners who are
capable of an uninhibited communication that is
understandable to a native speaker.

13. The syllabus design
•The syllabus is predictable from the exercise used in
the class.
•A sentence based syllabus with grammatical & lexical
criteria being primary in selecting teaching items.
•Grammatical features and vocabulary items are
selected as according to the situation.

15. Role of materials
•For absolute beginner lesions may not require
the use of material since the teacher’s voice,
actions and gestures may be sufficient.
•The teacher can uses basic classroom objects
such as books, pens etc… As the course develops,
the teacher will need to collect new materials.
These may include pictures, slides, word charts
etc…

16. Advantages and Disadvantages of TPR
Advantages Disadvantages
Good tool for building
vocabulary.
It does not require a great
deal of preparation.
Help the students
immediately understand the
target language.
Helps learners achieve fluency
faster in learning language.
Create positive thinking
Challenging for shy student.
Rude and inappropriate
language of the learner.
Students are not generally
given the opportunity to express
their own thoughts in a creative
way.
It is not a very creative method.
Certain target language may
not be suited to this method.

17. Work sited
https://www.slideshare.net/ignorantdavinci/total-
physical-response
https://www.slideshare.net/asmarany3/total-response
http://www2.vobs.at/ludescher/total_physical_respon
se.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_physical_response