TPRing Abstractions

So TPR works for concrete vocabulary, but can it work for abstractions?  This article has some good suggestions of how it can.

Total Physical Response

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a second language learning method that was developed by James Asher, which corresponds to the natural manner in which we learn our first languages.

SIL's website outlines his approach very well.  Here are some of the highlights:

• Second language learning is parallel to first language learning and should reflect the same naturalistic processes
• Listening should develop before speaking
• Children respond physically to spoken language, and adult learners learn better if they do that too
• Once listening comprehension has been developed, speech devlops naturally and effortlessly out of it.
• Adults should use right-brain motor activities, while the left hemisphere watches and learns
• Delaying speech reduces stress.

Speech-Led vs. Comprehension-Led: Part 2

Comprehension-led approaches to language instruction are much harder to pull off in a classroom because they rely on direct interaction between the native-speaker and the teacher.  Therefore, the ideal ratio is one-to-one as in the language nurturing relationship between an infant and parent.

Infants learn language in a comprehension-led approach.  From infancy through to adulthood, a person can always understand more than he can say in his native language.  (Caroline Bowen posted a very helpful article on the stages of childhood language development called Ages and Stages).  Our receptive vocabularies should exceed our expressive vocabularies in order for proper and fluent language interaction to occur.

Why shouldn't it be similar when we learn languages as adults?  Why do we tend to treat adult language acquisition differently than native language acquisition?

Here is one possible answer that came to my mind:

We believe children are inherently better at learning languages than adults, so we don't expect the same results from adults.  Therefore, when adults don't speak a second language with ease we don't think to blame it on the approach.

Speech-Led vs. Comprehension-Led

In my informal observation and experience of foreign language learning in classrooms, it seems to me that speech-led approaches to language instruction are far more popular than comprehension-led.

Speech-led approaches - those approaches to language learning that involve dialogue memorization, vocabulary list memorization, repeating after a teacher, or approaches such as the LAMP method which takes a less formal and more interactive approach to language learning.  Many of these approaches have their roots in audio-lingualism which was birthed out of behaviorist psychology.

Tomorrow, I will post about comprehension-led approaches.