Total Physical Response

I realized that most of the people reading this (all, what, five of them) have no idea what the title of this blog means. Total Physical Response is a method of language instruction that uses the physical body. An example of a TPR practice would be, say, in a pre-kindergarten class where the teacher tells a group of children, "Let's raise our hands in the air," modeling the action herself, and the children would respond by raising their hands. It engages several different learning styles. They hear commands, see their teacher and classmates responding to the commands, and use their bodies (kinesthetic learning) to respond as well. It allows children with all levels of language skill to participate. There's a lot more to it, but that's a basic example. I liked the name because it sounds pretty dramatic for such a simple concept.