Best example of Total Physical Response (TPR) language teaching

[tommus]

Total Physical Response is arguably the very best language teaching technique. And the following 12 part Dutch tutorial on YouTube is a excellent example (the best I have ever seen). The instructor is excellent. The production is excellent.

Woord voor woord

The Wikipedia description of TPR is: "It is based on the coordination of language and physical movement. In TPR, instructors give commands to students in the target language with body movements, and students respond with whole-body actions."

I prefer to describe it as the instructor teaching a language by simultaneously showing objects, movements, actions, photos, etc. etc. to show and describe words and sentences in the target language. This 12 part YouTube tutorial is a great introduction to Dutch. Unfortunately, I don't know of any follow-on tutorials, or any similar tutorials in Dutch or in other languages. If there are, I think we should try to collect links to them here in LLorg and in our Wikia, because I think TPR and the related TPR (Storytelling) are especially effective language teaching techniques.

[Cainntear]

Hmmm... well, if TPR was so effective, it would be more mainstream, as we would have plenty of evidence of its superiority by now.

However, this course isn't TPR. Total Physical Response? No, the student in the video is responding verbally, not physically. TPR is very much a "silent period" philosophy, and students are expected to respond on demand, but only to start producing language when they feel ready, and even then, they are expected to produce language that elicits a physical response, not a verbal one. Your description is not a description of TPR, but a description of common monolingual teaching techniques.

The approach is based on the idea of comprehensible input so is not completely unrelated to TPR, but it's not 100% Krashenite because of the forced early production. Krashen talks about using mime, visuals etc to support spoken language and make it "comprehensible", and that's what the teacher is doing.

Buuuuut...

I think this video kind of hints at the biggest issue with pseudo-immersive learn-by-exposure teaching: it works well for languages that are easy to learn that way, which means languages similar to languages you already know, and languages with little inflectional complexity. Would I have understood the bit about "dosent" and "corsist" (however they're spelt) if I hadn't known the word "docente" in Spanish, and understood the historical equivalence of the ch-like Italian CE and the s-like French? I don't know. I may have worked out based on my experience of language classes that she was probably talking about her job. So what if I had never learned a single other language? How would I have understood that.

[tommus]

I agree that the approach in this tutorial is not strictly TPR but it is very similar to much of the TPR technique. One of the main reasons that Total Physical Response and TPR (Storytelling) not well known or used is all the confusion about what they really are, and what they mean. TPRS really stands for Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. These terms are way too complicated and awkward to have become well-known buzzwords.

I agree with your comments about the Dutch instructor using words that were not obvious, such as docent and cursist. (teacher and student). I noticed that at the time, even though I knew the words. However, overall, she did a remarkable job of being especially careful and very descriptive throughout the 12 sessions. Certainly the technique works best with related languages. I can't quite envision how it would work for me in Mandarin, for example.

However, I do think that this technique is very, very effective. There is a huge amount of information out there for teachers to use to understand the technique and approaches to use to develop content. However, developing effective and comprehensive content is a lot of work; probably the reason you don't see more of it. I'd love to see some links to more examples of this technique.

[jeff_lindqvist]

OK, being able to figure out the what "docent" and "cursist" mean helps a lot. Ik ben docent. Jij bent cursist. The words could have meant something else. Now they didn't.

This being said, I still like the video series for what it does very well - teach basic sentences in a related language.

By the way, this is the script (I believe):
https://www.lowan.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Woord-voor-Woord-transcripties-woord-woorden-zinnen.pdf
https://www.lowan.nl/wp-content/uploads ... zinnen.pdf

There is also more reading material available on the same website. (The "Lees meer" links sometimes have "Download leesmaterial")

[Cainntear]

I agree that the approach in this tutorial is not strictly TPR but it is very similar to much of the TPR technique. One of the main reasons that Total Physical Response and TPR (Storytelling) not well known or used is all the confusion about what they really are, and what they mean. TPRS really stands for Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. These terms are way too complicated and awkward to have become well-known buzzwords.

TPR is very clear and very straightforward. It's "point at the teacher" "open the window" "close the door" "put your right hand on your left shoulder". TPR has been observed to produce fairly impolite learners, because they're most comfortable with imperatives.

Any confusion starts with teachers changing their lessons and continuing to label them as TPR. For example: TPRS was TPR teachers adding in storytelling to their classes and claiming it was still TPR. Eventually they realised that they weren't doing TPR any more and went back and changed what the TPR bit stood for.

At the end of the day, the problem is the desire to apply labels and categories to everything. It's much easier to be "an X teacher" than to think about all the different techniques that are available and when they are useful. But after a while you will start to modify your techniques, but you'll continue to be teaching the same X. TPR is whatever James Asher said it was.

[tommus]

It is becoming obvious that I should not have put TPR in the title of this thread. That part is derailing discussion on how effective the technique is that this Dutch instructor is using. Maybe there is a good name for this technique.

So what are the opinions and possibly evidence of the effectiveness of this very descriptive teaching technique?

Is it likely to be effective only at beginner levels? It seems to me that it would work at any level, to introduce new vocabulary, or even to emphasise and explain grammar.

It seems that it could be used online and in apps, Skype chats, etc., by using photos and images when it isn't practical to use real objects, movements, etc.

[Elexi]

I like the approach in Woord voor Woord - however, I question whether it is any more effective for beginners than a more traditional phrase method.

For example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXhn-BpetDE - or - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgiDZvYZyMQ - are about the same length of a WvW lesson and cover a good deal of the same ground. The benefit of having language specific explanation (which, of course, generally means English) is that notions of formal and informal forms can be explained much more quickly than the WvW method.

But I am not poo-pooing WvW - If my Dutch wasn't beyond it I probably would have worked through it.

[tommus]

Well, I think that Woord voor Woord is at a whole higher level of sophistication and effectiveness compared to those other YouTube Dutch language learning videos. The ones in the link were basically talking heads with no other indication of the meanings other than the English translations of single words or phrases. One huge advantage of Woord voor Woord is that it does not rely on English or any other language. It is stand-alone. You become immersed in the language you are learning.

I find these talking heads get very boring very quickly. I watched the entire Woord voor Woord back-to-back without getting bored (about an hour and a half). Part of that was admiring the technique and part of it was admiring how much effort the instructor was putting into the effort. Everything was very clear and crisp, especially the audio. Almost everything (except a bit like docent and cursist) was or became obvious, even in the more complex lessons near the end.

For languages that are similar, (for me, European languages) I think I could make a lot of progress if there existed a Woord voor Woord type course for each of them. I found Woord voor Woord was addictive even though I already knew most of the Dutch. I think it would be especially addictive in a new language because you would immediately get the feeling that you were learning quickly and easily, and you were not at all depending on seeing translations in English or your native language. Again, I think the technique is addictive, which is hugely important, and quite a contrast to boring, which I find far too many courses to be.

[jeff_lindqvist]

For languages that are similar, (for me, European languages) I think I could make a lot of progress if there existed a Woord voor Woord type course for each of them. I found Woord voor Woord was addictive even though I already knew most of the Dutch. I think it would be especially addictive in a new language because you would immediately get the feeling that you were learning quickly and easily, and you were not at all depending on seeing translations in English or your native language. Again, I think the technique is addictive, which is hugely important, and quite a contrast to boring, which I find far too many courses to be.

Agreed! It would be great if this was done for other languages. I'll have a closer look at the whole series one day.

By the way, from the PDF I linked to above:
"Woord voor Woord is een programma mondelinge vaardigheden NT2 voor analfabete beginners."

Maybe it's mainly a method for getting a certain group of learners up to a certain level very quickly?

[tarvos]

No, it's used for people who are illiterate.