A STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SIMULTANEOUS ORAL PRODUCTION AND THE TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE STRATEGY ON THE SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT, ATTITUDES MOTIVATION, AND INTEREST OF LEVEL I SPANISH STUDENTS
A STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SIMULTANEOUS ORAL PRODUCTION AND THE TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE STRATEGY ON THE SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT, ATTITUDES MOTIVATION, AND INTEREST OF LEVEL I SPANISH STUDENTS
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Date
1986
Authors
Haley, Marjorie Hall
Advisor
DeLorenzo, William E.
Citation
DRUM DOI
Abstract
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a teaching strategy
in which students learn a foreign language by physically
acting out teacher-directed commands. The TPR instruction
strategy is based on asking the students to be silent,
to listen carefully to commands and then to physically
respond. The TPR strategy allows students to take
an "active" part rather than an "observational" part
in the learning process. It was the purpose of this
study to examine this issue from three perspectives:
1. whether first year foreign language students
achieve higher in the skill of speaking if they are
in action while learning selected Level I objectives; and
2. the impact of delayed oral response in a pure
TPR strategy as compared to inclusion of a speaking
component in a modified version of TPR.
3. whether there were differences in the speaking
achievement between middle school and senior high school
Level I foreign language students who were taught via
the pure TPR and modified TPR strategy.
The sample was comprised of 178 Level I Spanish
students from three secondary schools in a suburban
Baltimore school district. Two of the participating
schools were Middle schools - grades six through eight.
The third school was a Senior high school - grades
nine through twelve. Subjects were randomly assigned
to the experimental condition.
Subjects were pretested at the onset of the study.
The measurement was designed to predict potential success
or failure in learning a foreign language. Additionally,
subjects completed:
(1) the speaking section of a bilingual syntax measure
to assess their level of foreign language competency;
(2) an attitude and motivation battery designed to
measure attitude and motivation related to second language
learning; and (3) a teacher-prepared perception questionnaire
for assessing subject's perception and preference
of being taught via different teaching strategies.
The findings of this study revealed that the two
Pure TPR groups achieved the highest mean scores on
all evaluative measures. The ten hours of delayed
oral practice experienced by both Pure TPR groups provided
valuable comprehension training for these students.
The advantage of providing this listening period became
apparent in higher evaluative scores as evidenced at
both the senior high and middle school level. Furthermore,
the finding s of the present investigation suggest that
the use of "active" learning as opposed to "observational"
learning in the foreign language classroom can be part
of an effective strategy for language instruction.