Teaching with Total Physical Response

used to think that teaching English is a piece of cake. We just tell them the formula, and give the examples. Problem has been solved. But then, I realized that my opinion was totally wrong. On the first day having lectures after vacation, I was directly faced with theories of language teaching. I didn’t expect that it would be so complicated only to teach english. Then, i started to read about the theories one by one. I found an interesting theory, that was Total Physical Response (TPR). The theory said that children must be relax and fun when they’re learning language. So how do we make them fun and relax? TPR says that teaching language must use physical movement to react to verbal input in order to reduce student inhibitions and lower their affective filter. By using this, children will react to language without thinking too much, facilitates long term retention, and reduces student anxiety and stress. Hmm.. i became very curious to see how this theory implemented.
Then I opened youtube and find the video about TPR until I got one. When I watched the video, I enjoyed very much. There was a 50 year-old man teaching ten children with TPR theory. I could see the children lose their stress in learning English. The teacher just said some commands, and they had to do the commands. Sometimes the command was humourous. Of course they lose it because the learning activities were very fun and didn’t need to think too much. I would be like them too if I were them .
One thing that I still don’t understand is how to deliver it if I can’t deliver some jokes. I myself still find it difficult to make children laugh (easier to make adults laugh ). So my next task is learn how to make children laugh if I want to apply this theory. It probably takes time, but I believe I will be able. As a professional teacher candidate I have to!

My First Learning Blog

Hello everybody! This is my first learning blog. This blog will contain my reflections about language teaching. My purpose is to know what I’ve learned so far in language teaching, because I’m a teacher candidate. I hope it also can be parts of your learning. So please have a look in my postings and thank you very much! 🙂