The Application of Total Physical Response Method (TPR) in Preschool Children’s English Teaching

Abstract

This article through a four months’ TPR teaching experiment among six preschool children, namely, Pre-interview, Pre-test, TPR Teaching Experiment (such as “Display and Imitation”, “Instructions and Action”, “Situational Communication”), Post-test, and Post-interview, attempts to investigate the application and effectiveness of the TPR method in preschool children’s English teaching. The experimental results show that this approach can not only help children understand the new language quickly and gain long-term memory, but also allow children to learn English happily in a “zero stress” environment. However, abstract words and sentences are difficult to express in the TPR methods. At the same time, this “teaching through lively activities” method is easily leads to classroom discipline chaos. The TPR method also requires teachers to have high professional quality and comprehensive skills, including language expression ability, sports ability, performance skills, etc. Therefore, promoting this approach in preschool English teaching also faces technical and teaching staff difficulties. This study validates some conclusions of earlier studies which can provide experience and lessons to preschool English teachers in applying TPR as well as theoretical and practical contributions to future research.