Total Physical Response

Teachers who use TPR believe in the importance of having their students enjoy their experience in learning to communicate in a foreign language.TPR is develop in order to reduce the stress people fell when studying foreign languages and thereby encourage students to persists in their study beyond a beginning level of proficiency. The way to do this is to base foreign language learning upon the way children learn their native language.
The teacher is the director of all student behavior. The students are imitators of her nonverbal model. Usually after ten to twenty hours of instruction some students will be ready to speak. At that point there will be a role reversal with individual students directing the teacher and the other students.
The first phase of a lesson is one of modeling. The instructor issues commands to a few students, then performs the actions with them. In the second phase, these same students demonstrate that they can understand the commands by performing them alone. The observers also have an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding. The teacher next recombines elements of the commands to have student s develop flexibility in understanding unfamiliar utterances. These commands, which students perform, are often humorous. After learning to respond to some oral commands, the students learn to read and write them. When students are ready to speak, they become the ones who issue the commands. After students begin speaking, activities expand to include skits and games.
The interaction is characterized by the teacher speaking and the students responding nonverbally. Later on, the students become more verbal and the teacher responds nonverbally. Students perform the actions together. Students can learn by watching each other. At some point, observers must demonstrate their understanding of the commands in order to retain them.
One of the main reasons TPR was develop was to reduce the stress people feel when studying foreign languages. One of the primary ways this is accomplished is to allow learners to speak when they are ready. Forcing them to speak before then will only create anxiety. Also, when students do begin speak, perfection should not be expected. Another way to relieve anxiety is to make language learning as enjoyable as possible. The use of zany commands and humorous skits are two ways of showing that language learning can be fun. Finally, it is important that there not be too much modeling, but that students not be too rushed either. Feelings of success and how anxiety facilitate learning.
Just as with the acquisition of the native language, oral modality is primary. Culture is the lifestyle of people who speak the language natively.
Vocabulary and grammatical structures are emphasized over other language areas. These are embedded within imperatives. The imperatives are single words and multi-word chunks. One reason for the use of imperatives is their frequency of occurrence in the speech directed at young children learning their native language. Understanding the spoken word should precede its production. Often do not learn to read the commands they have already learned to perform until after ten hours of instruction.
TPR is usually introduced in the native language. After the introduction, rarely would the native language be used. Meaning is made clear through body movements.
Teachers will know immediately whether or not students understand by observing their students actions. Formal evaluations can be conducted simply by commanding individual students to perform a series of actions. As students become more advanced, their performance of skits they have created can become the basis for evaluation.
It is expected that students will make errors when they first begin speaking. Teacher should be tolerant of them and only correct major errors. Even these should be corrected unobtrusively. As students get more advanced, teacher can fine tune-correct more minor errors.