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24 •
Development of children’s interest in the natural environment and community activities by means of field trips that entail preliminary
discussion of plan, training in observation, eventual discussion of the total experience.
• Observation and handling of specimens and articles brought into the
classroom in connection with science or social studies. •
Encouragement of children’s interest and increased curiosity about words. Based on the many factors above, the teachers of elementary school have
to consider many activities and provide learning experiences when delivering the materials in various ways to improve young learners’ interest and curiosity in
vocabulary learning.
C. The Total Physical Response
1. Background of Total Physical Response
James Asher, a professor of psychology at San Jose State University, California, develop a method in language teaching. It is called Total Physical
Response. It drawn on several traditions, including developmental psychology, learning theory, and humanistic paedagogy, as well as on language teaching
procedures proposed by Harold and Dorothy Palmer in 1925. James Asher, the developer of the Total Physical Response, actually made an experimental with
Total Physical Response in the 1960s but it was almost a decade before the method was discussed in professional circles.
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25 Asher in Richard and Roger 2001: 73 claim that speech directed to
young children consist primarily of commands, which children respond to physically before they begin to produce verbal responses. Asher believes that
children, in learning their first language, appear to do a lot of listening before they speak. There listening is accompanied by physical response reaching, grabbing,
moving, looking, and so on. The idea of focusing on listening comprehension during early foreign
language instruction comes from observing how children acquire their mother tongue. Babies spend many months before they ever say a word. The children
have the time to try to make sense out of the sounds they hear. No one tells the babies that they must speak. The children choose to speak when they are ready.
2. The Definition of Total Physical Response
According to Richard and Rogers 2001:73, 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. Similarly, Vale and Feunteun 1998: 39 state that TPR is based on a short sequence of
instructions or descriptions which are acted out, involving lots of physical response.
Brown 1994 states that TPR combines a number of other insights in its rationale. Principles of child language acquisition are important. Asher 1997
noted that children, in learning their first language appear to do a lot of listening
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26 before they speak, and that their listening is accompanied by physical response
p.64. Based on the definition above, the writer concludes that TPR is a language
learning method based on the coordination of speech and action. It consist of a short sequence of instruction which is acted out. It means that the teacher gives
some commands and the students respond to the teacher’s instruction through psychomotor activity while they are listening.
3. Approach: Theory of Language and Learning
