Effortless English: Learn To Speak English Like a native

 
PUTTING THE PHYSICAL INTO STORYTELLING
Dr. James Asher, a psychologist at San José State University, was one of the
earliest researchers to identify the importance of physical movement in learning.
Asher developed the “total physical response” method (TPR) after discovering
that students learned language more effectively if they associated words and

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phrases with meaningful movement. He taught language without translation,
solely through the use of actions. For example, he would say to a class, “Sit
down,” and then he would demonstrate the action of sitting. Then he would say,
“Stand up,” and he would demonstrate standing. After repeating this series a few
times, students quickly understood the meaning of the phrases “Sit down” and
“Stand up.”
In the next phase of the lesson, Asher indicated to the class to join him. So when
he said “Stand up,” the whole class stood up together with him. And when he said
“Sit down,” the class demonstrated their understanding by sitting.
In the final phase, Asher gave the commands but did not demonstrate them.
Rather, he watched to be sure the class understood. This eliminated the need for
translation, as the students connected the phrases to the actions.
With time, students in Dr. Asher ’s class were able to learn and demonstrate very
complex commands such as, “Stand up, turn around five times, then walk
backwards to the door and close it.” Dr. Asher built core fluency entirely through
the use of commands and actions. Later, Dr. Asher and other researchers modified
TPR, adding gestures to represent more abstract terms like “think” or “hope.”
TPR was a predecessor of Blaine Ray’s TPRS (Total Physical Response
Storytelling). Ray realized that if the actions and gestures were combined to create
a story, students would learn even more quickly. TPRS is a method for getting
students to physically and verbally interact as part of storytelling. This technique
was the starting point for much of the Effortless English™ system.