Total Physical Response, the Natural Approach

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Teaching Methods: Total Physical Response The Natural Approach TPR Introduction It is a group of language teaching methods developed by James Asher, a professor of psychology in the University of San Jose, in California. It is based in many other psychology subjects, like humanistic pedagogy, learning theory or developmental psychology. This method uses the language teaching procedures proposed by Harold and Dorothy Palmer in 1925. Asher believes that a successful teaching method would be to simulate the learning processes that children follow when they acquire their native language. The role of affective and emotional factors in language learning is very important, so it is necessary to reduce learner stress and create a positive mood which facilities the learning. Due to this it is necessary to produce movements in students in order to reduce nervousness. Human brain is prepared biologically to acquire any language including signal language, so, we have to stimulate physic notions at the same time we are teaching the language. Some years later, another professor, Blaine Ray, who taught Spanish, developed this method adding histories and created the so called Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) Approach: Theory of language and learning TPR reflects a grammar-based view of language. Asher states that “most o the grammatical structure of the target language and hundreds of vocabulary items can be learned from the skillful use of the imperative by the instructor”. He views the verb and particularly the verb in the imperative, as the central linguistic motif around which language use and learning are organized. TPR can also be linked to the “trace theory” of memory in psychology, which holds that the more often or the more intensively a memory connection is

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