Using TPR Method In Teaching English Adjective

More and more scholars pay their attention to the issue of teaching methods used inthe second language acquisition. However, most of the studies focus on teaching thelearners the second language with the help of their first language. Total Physical Response(TPR), connecting the language and the body actions together, is a teaching method whichis used to teach the learners the second language through body actions，pictures and objects.Although some scholars had collected the advantages of Total Physical Response, theeffectiveness of it in teaching English as the second language is rarely investigated anddiscussed. It is necessary to study the language teaching methods for children who stay inthe best peirod for language acquisition. The topic of this study is using Total PhysicalResponse in teaching English adjectives to13-year-old pupils. The objective of this study isto investigate whether the TPR method is effective in teaching English adjectives.The researcher used a quasi-experiment to design this study. The population was thepupils aged13in a middle school in He Nan Province.30pupils were selected as samplesand divided into two groups: one experimental group and one control group. The steps ofthis experiment were:(1) the expeirmental group was taught by the TPR method;(2) thecontrol group and the expeirmental group were given the same post-test. In order toinvestigate whether there is a necessity to adopt new English vocabulary teaching techniquefor these pupils, two questionnaires were deliberated; the first questionnaire was for alltestees and the second questionnaire was just for the experimental group.Th’e result of the study showed the pupils achievements in the expeirmental groupwere improved by the TPR method. The mean score of the experimental group was muchhigher than that of the control group. The p-value of this test was0.0002less than0.01which showed strong evidence that the results were not achieved coincidentally. The effectsize of this study was2.59more than0.8which indicated that the TPR method hassignificant effectiveness in teaching English adjectives. The questionnaires indicated thatTPR was the new English vocabulary teaching technique that the pupils need.