University of Languages and International Studies

Faculty of English Language Teaching Education
INTRODUCTION IN TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY

A REPORT ON

TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPOND (TPR)
METHOD
by
GROUP 1 – 17E5

1
2
3

Members
Nguyễn Kỳ Anh
Ngô Thị Phương
Lê Linh Chi

4

Lại Phương Thảo

5

Kiều Thùy Trang

Work Division
Method’s Description (ADP)

control over the choice of content and language items. However, the selection of
items should utilize the imperative form, which are expressive and situational, as
well as trigger the learners to enact. By repeating the commands and modelling
the actions, the teacher introduces the lexical and grammatical items, while the
learners follow as receivers and responders. As a supplementary role, materials
such as word charts, slides, pictures and realia can be used to illustrate the
vocabulary.
The selected items can progress from concrete to abstract. As learners
progress to a higher level, teachers and students’ roles are reversible. Teachers
can give a sequence of actions, add more complex lexical items to the command
and students may give commands to the others. TPR also aims at a stress-free


learning environment; therefore, learners are allowed to make errors with little
correction or correction in a non-threatening way from the teacher. Classes are
taught primarily in the target language in order for learners to practice listening
comprehension, especially the repetition of imperative drills. The activities focus
on learners performing the actions and later on giving commands.
Upon reflecting TPR on the 10 principles of instructed language learning by
Rod Ellis, we briefly consider the advantages and disadvantages of this method.
Initially, the emphasis in TPR is on meaning comprehension, specifically
semantic meaning. Particularly, learners show their comprehension of the lexical
items or grammatical structures by being able to respond nonverbally to the
teacher’s commands, and at a more advanced level, may give commands to
other students. However, the selected items are concrete and situational, which
predominantly are nouns and action verbs, with few variations of more abstract
or highly contextualized words and phrases (e.g. slowly vs carefully, look down,
…). Therefore, learners may encounter difficulty in identifying the abstract
vocabulary and its pragmatic meaning. Secondly, TPR provides learners with
extensive input of the target language. In other words, in a TPR-adopted

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3. Ellis, R. (2005). Principles of instructed language learning. System, 33 (2),
209-224.
4. Savic, Vera. (2014). TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR) ACTIVITIES IN
TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS. Retrieved from
/>RESPONSE_TPR_ACTIVITIES_IN_TEACHING_ENGLISH_TO_YOUNG_
LEARNERS
5. TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE. (n.d.). Retrieved from
/>onse.htm?fbclid=IwAR2SxSFbQ6kubt1Lcj7z5T-_cYQN5jWNLqXOyCngMldp-W4FCKSWQB_esM#TOTAL%20PHYSICAL
%20RESPONSE%20%E2%80%93%20TPR
6. Zainuddin et al. (2011). Fundamentals of Teaching English to Speakers of
Other Languages in K-12 classroom (3rd edi.). Kendal Hunt Publishing
Company