CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter concerns with basic theories related to the study which consists of eight sections. First is about the Total Physical Response method,
second is about the teaching and learning English in the elementary school level, third is about the characteristics of elementary school students, fourth is the
definitions of instructions, fifth is the general concept of teaching media, sixth is the general concept of animations, seventh is the process of implementing
animations and TPR method in teaching classroom instructions for the fifth grade
students, and the last is about action research.
2.1 Total Physical Response TPR
The discussions about Total Physical Response method are divided into three parts. They are general concept, principles, and objectives of Total Physical
Response method.
2.1.1 General Concept of Total Physical Response
Sugandi 2007 defines that education method deals with the ways teachers transfer materials of a lesson in order to make students understand the
material well. The use of appropriate methods becomes important consideration to create good atmosphere during the teaching and learning process.
In the case of English language teaching, one of the recommended methods used is Total Physical Response TPR. TPR is a language teaching
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method developed by James Asher, a professor of psychology at San Jose University California. This method suggests introducing foreign language through
commands or imperative sentences and has students to respond them by using physical responses.
Asher as quoted by Richards and Rodgers 1986:87 sees successful of adult second language learning as a parallel process to child first language
acquisition. He claimed that speech directed to young children consist primarily of commands which children response physically before they begin to produce
verbal response. In teaching foreign language by applying this method, teachers can make some modifications of the media and classroom activities, such as
providing the students with games, songs, short story, and visualizations. From the explanation above, I can conclude that Total physical Response
is a language teaching method that coordinates words and actions. The activities in the classroom are mainly consisted two parts. They are teacher gives some list
of commands or instructions and the students respond them by physical responses. By seeing these responses, teacher can understand whether the students have
understood the meaning of introduced words or not. Since this method requires active participation from the students, I believe that this method can be
successfully applied in teaching elementary school students who basically love to move and play during the teaching and learning process. Furthermore, the
materials are introduced in the form of imperative sentences so that this method can be implemented in teaching classroom instructions.
2.1.2 Principles of Total Physical Response Method