Metathesis: journal of english language literature and teaching

METATHESIS: JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LITERATURE AND TEACHING
 Vol. 3, No. 1, April 2019 PP 26 - 34 
 DOI: 10.31002/metathesis. V3i1.1223
p-ISSN: 2580-2712 
e-ISSN: 2580-2720 
28 
Acces article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license 
(
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
)
repeat the words as what they are doing. In the lessons, teachers can change the 
position of the class into a circle. Students in the class perform the actions and 
listen to the commands given by the teacher. It is a language teaching method 
focus on physical (motor) activity through commands and responds of body. 
Physical activities are meant to reduce stress people or the learners feel when 
studying foreign language. Stress (an affective filter) intervenes between the act of 
learning and what is to be learned; the lower the stress the greater the learning. An 
important condition for successful language learning is stress free (Putri, 2016). 
Having fun makes language learners interested in learning and it is going to be 
more effective. 
Young learners need to move, they have got huge amount of energy. They tend 
to have short attention spans. As (Ghasemi & Hashemi, 2011) noticed, young 
learner is the best time for language acquisition. Ease of learning a foreign 
language diminishes with age. Children especially in young learner are linked to 
their surroundings and are more interested in the physical activities. As very 
young children are under 7 years old, who do not know how to read and write, it 
is very important to prepare them with activities that are applied without using a 
pencil and paper. TPR activities are mostly provided orally or pictures can be 
used. The child can point to the pictures when a certain word is uttered by the 
teacher. When a story is read by the teacher, the child can mime the actions (Er, 
2013).
The advantages of using Total Physical Response in English teaching and 
learning activities: (1) is fun, so many children enjoy participating this type of 
teaching and learning process, (2) can help the students remember English words 
and expressions, (3) can be applied in large and small class, (4) is not only 
appropriate for young learners but also adult learners, (5) is suitable for active 
students in class (Rokhayati, 2017).
The most usual TPR activities involve teacher’s commands to which students 
respond physically, demonstrating comprehension. The followings are some 
example TPR activities based on commands: (1) Depending on the theme of the 
lesson, the teacher could prepare commands that will strengthen vocabularies 
learning using hand movement to manipulate any set of pictures or flashcards: 
Point to / Touch / Pick up (your mouth / your cheek / an orange/ a strawberry).(2) 
For lessons outside the classroom, more action can be introduced with commands 
like: Run forward. Jump. Take three steps to the left then two steps to the right. 
Jump up and down. Throw the ball. Raise your hands.  
The main focus of TPR is physical activities. The researcher conducted her 
research, entitled “Using Total Physical Response (TPR) Method on young 
learner English Language Teaching at Panti Asuhan Yauma Jakarta”. The aim of 
this study was to investigate what so called Total Physical Response (TPR) 
method in teaching English vocabulary. This research describes how the 
environment of English language teaching activities in the level of young learner 
and its possible application in a young learner classroom. 

---