English for Beginners

Many language schools in the world practice useless methods on their students which consist on explaining the structure of the language, grammar rules, memorizing vocabulary and then after having taught all of this, schools force their students to speak. There are thousands of schools that use these methods, but the reality is that most of the students don't learn the new language; they never become fluent when speaking.

Across my articles I have told you to never do what schools do and I have highlighted listening as the most important thing when learning English, but this can really be a big challenge when someone doesn't know anything of English, you could even start listening to a mp3 recording in English for weeks and still you couldn't comprehend what you are listening to, actually this happened to someone in my family, I told my aunt to listen to a mp3 recording until she could understand 100% of what she was listening to, the problem was that she did not know anything of English and after two weeks she told me: “I can't understand anything, listening doesn't work on me”.

On today's articles I want to talk a little bit about beginners, people who know absolutely nothing of English.

The TPR Technique

The TPR technique (Total physical response) was developed by Doctor James Asher; it is a powerful technique which tries to simulate the same way little babies learn how to speak from their parents.

THE TPR TECHNIQUE

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IT IS BASED ON HOW YOUNG CHILDREN LEARN TO SPEAK

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LISTEN TO A COMMAND

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ANSWER WITH ACTION

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NEVER FORCE YOURSELF TO SPEAK

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RELAX, STRESSFUL LEARNING WILL NOT HELP YOU AT ALL

TPR consists on give commands in the new language, of course in this case is English, and then after the learner hears the command he or she must answer to the instruction with their bodies, without saying a word, just like little kids do when they don't know how to speak, for example, let's say that a mother is trying to make her son eat, but the boy is refusing to eat his food, what a regular mom does, at least in my country,  is saying: “Come on, eat the food” and the boy answers by opening his mouth and starts eating the food.

In the former example the boy didn't try to speak, he just heard the command and answered by action, over time it is obvious that the boy will comprehend what “eat the food” means and as the time goes by, he is going to speak, repeating what his mom says. This is what TPR pretends to do, to teach English by commands and respond by actions, in fact, Doctor James Asher developed this technique by observing how young children learn to speak.

The total physical response method doesn't teach grammar rules or the structure of the language, it teaches you how to speak English in a natural way, just like you learned your native language, notice that TPR focus on listening first and after listening reaction comes, but it never forces you to speak, so focus on listening, it is the key for learning any language.