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How to incorporate Total Physical Response into the English programme
Masayuki Sano is an associate professor of English in the Faculty of Education, Yamagata University, Japan. He holds an MA in Drama from the University of Washington. He is author of Producing Plays in English, Drama Techniques in Teaching English, and also co-author of Searching for Lively English Classroom and A New Approach to English Teaching, all published by Taishukan, Tokyo.
Recent writings on second-language or foreign-language teaching have highlighted the importance of comprehension which leads to successful construction of linguistic competence. One practical way to do this is Total Physical Response (TPR), an idea first proposed by J. J. Asher. He has proved through various experiments that his method is very effective, particularly for beginners. However, TPR has not yet gained much popularity among foreign-language teachers, who are generally worried about the shortage of lesson hours, finishing the textbook, and the results of written tests. The following is a report of an experimental project designed to incorporate TPR into an English course in a Japanese junior high school.