In Stephen Krashen's
theory of Comprehensible Input, a "silent period" of active listening
and of auditory language processing is needed in order for language acquisition
to occur, e.g. think of how much input which babies take in before they begin
to verbalize/speak. Therefore, it is not recommended for teachers to jump
immediately into having level 1 students produce language right away at the
beginning of the school year. As much as you may want to go around the room
having students ask/tell each their names in the target language during the
first week, rather consider doing Total Physical Response (TPR) with your level
1 classes instead.
TPR is essentially
associating a vocabulary word with a physical action. It can be hand gestures,
American Sign Language (ASL) signs or the actual physical action itself. The
idea is that through enough repetitions muscle memory will aid in the
acquisition process.
There are many different
variations of TPR which can be used in the world language classroom, of which
the most basic form is commands, where you as the teacher command a
student/students to do something in the target language, and their task is
simply to perform it. I will do TPR for the first 5 days of Latin 1 - I know
that Bob Patrick does it for the first 10 days - and I will do it for about 20-25
minutes of class.
What kinds of words to
teach? That is up to you, but for obvious reasons, the verbs need to be action
words. You can pick classroom management words such as "sit down,"
"stand up," "shout," "be quiet," etc or words
which have much action associated with them, e.g. "go,"
"open," "close," "pick up," "put down,"
"throw," etc. I usually pick 4-5 new words each day on which to focus, while
continuing to recycle past words in order to get in repetitions.
The name of the game is
to get in as many repetitions as possible in as many different ways! Students
must hear the words in a meaningful context over and over again in order to
acquire them. The number thrown around is 70 repetitions in a meaningful
context in order for students to acquire vocabulary.
1) For the first 1-2
days, stick with only verbs as commands.Determine which words you will teach
that day using TPR, and write the commands on the board in both the target
language and in English in order to establish meaning. I usually write both the
singular and plural form, because throughout the class, I will end up
commanding both individuals and the class as a whole to do something.
2) When introducing a
new command, I will usually "command myself' first by pointing to the word
on the board in order to establish meaning and then I will demonstrate the
action. I will then call upon multiple individual students to perform the
action
3) Even though this is a
silent period for students, the very completion of the command demonstrates comprehension
and is a form of non-verbal output, i.e. it was necessary for students to
understand you in order to complete the task.
4) Once students begin
to understand the commands (maybe after a day or so), start introducing objects
or places in the room for students now to use and with which to interact.
Remember to write the nouns on the board both in the target language and in
English in order to establish meaning and to point to the words and pause when
you use them.
5) Feel free to
introduce adverbs too, such as "slowly" and "quickly" to
spice things up.
6) As students begin to
acquire the language, you can also start making longer sentences, such as
"Carlita, stand up and go to the table. Pick up the book slowly and bring
it to me. Now go to the table, pick up a cookie and throw it to Barbara."
7) A variation is in the
beginning to divide the class into groups, to give them a name (a number,
animal, color, etc) and to command the different groups - this requires the
class to listen, "Beatnicks, stand up! Hula Hoopers, stand up! Beatnicks,
sit down! Hula Hoopers, turn around! Hula Hoopers, stop! Beatnicks, stand up!
Beatnicks, walk to the Hula Hooper and sit on them!"
8) As acquisition
furthers during TPR, you can start to narrate the action of a student, e.g.
"Susan, walk to the door slowly. O class, Susan is walking to the door
slowly (you write "is walking" on the board in the target language
and in English in order to establish meaning and then point/pause). Susan,
touch the door. O class, Susan is touching the door (you do the same for
"is touching") In this manner, you have gone from the singular
imperative to the 3rd singular present form, but don't get into a full-on
grammar discussion about it just yet. If you do this enough, students will start
to predict the pattern and actually say it with you.
Your first instinct may
be to jump into the grammar of it all but wait for a student to say something.
Usually, I will have a student ask, "Why did 'ambula' go to
'ambulat'?" and my first response is, "Even though the form of the
word changed, did you understand what I said? I used 'ambulat' because I am
narrating the action of Susan, not commanding her," and I will leave it at
that - this is an example of pop-up grammar. The same goes for if your nouns
change forms too based on their function.
9) As noted CI/TPRS
publisher and presenter Carol Gaab is fond of saying, "The brain craves
NOVELTY," so change up the commands/objects by having students do wacky
and funny tasks with different combinations of known words, e.g. "Julio,
pick up the cookie and eat it slowly. Now turn around slowly and eat the cookie
loudly and slowly. Marsha, walk to the board, pick up a pen and write 'I love
Justin Bieber' on the board slowly." This is what will keep the class
engaged!
After 5 days or so,
students should have 25-30 words, which you specifically targeted for them, in
addition to maybe another 10-15 words which were incidental words.
10) After the 20-25
minutes of TPR, I will review the new words which were TPR'd. This is a good
time to introduce any derivatives which come from the words.
11) I sometimes give
students 5 minutes at the end of class to command me around the room. Because
the words are written on the board with their English meaning, I am not asking
them to output on their own (although many will have acquired those words
purely due to the massive amount of input).
I was absolutely scared
the first time I ever did TPR a few years ago, because I was 100% sure that it
was going to bomb. Instead, I had one of my best experiences with CI, because I
was completely floored by how engaged the students were and by how much these
Latin 1 students understood what I was saying (due to establishing meaning),
even though I was speaking in Latin.
