Teaching Chinese Through the Method of Total Physical Response

(TPR) Activities

June Zhang

I have been teaching Chinese to students whose native languages are not Chinese for years at different levels from kindgarteners to graduate students. Currently, I am teaching Chinese at M.L. King School, Cambridge, MA. I am very impressed with my students’ enthusiasm, ability to learn and respect for learning. I have found that the students love to learn Chinese through the method of Total Physical Response (TPR) activities. “Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical (motor) activity (Richards, J.C. & T.S. Rodgers, 2001, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, 2^nd edition, Cambridge University Press, p. 87)”.

The aim of this paper is to present how I use the method of TPR to approach Chinese language teaching by offering specific and concrete classroom experiences with gestures, expression and movements. I have been using the TPR method to teach different topics, such as, shapes, weather, numbers, seasons, time, daily routines, animals, sports and poems in my classes. I think teaching Chinese through TPR is an important and effective teaching method. Dr. Mary Cazabon, director, Bilingual & English Acquisition, Cambridge Public School, MA, addresses: “TPR is grounded in the theory that the human brain has a biological program for acquiring natural language. By engaging in repeated movements, chanting and gestures, language becomes internalized.” I enjoy teaching Chinese to my students and have fun with them. From students’ expressive, lifelike, and vivid actions, beautiful and cheerful voices, I certainly feel their happy mood and high enthusiasm for learning Chinese. More importantly, students really learned and could use Chinese in their daily inside and outside schoolwork.