TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING FOREIGN VOCABULARY TO YOUNGER SCHOOLCHILDREN

ОБЩАЯ ФИЗИЧЕСКАЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТЬ ПРИ ОБУЧЕНИИ ИНОСТРАННОЙ ЛЕКСИКЕ МЛАДШИХ ШКОЛЬНИКОВ

Постоева Валерия Евгеньевна

студент, Волгоградский государственный университет, РФ, г. Волгоград

Астафурова Татьяна Николаевна

научный руководитель, проф., Волгоградский государственный университет, РФ, г. Волгоград

Teaching English to young learners is a complex task for a teacher, as they should use a variety of methods and approaches, prepare lessons carefully to achieve intended results and strive to retain students' attention and interest. [2, p. 140-141]. Teaching foreign language vocabulary is of paramount importance in the early stages of foreign language learning. Traditionally, learning foreign words in primary school starts with learning the alphabet, reading rules, transcriptions, and students sit at their desks copying from the blackboard. James J. Asher in his book Learning Another Language through Actions (1977) suggested teaching young children in a natural way, that is the same way children learn their mother tongue. Understanding of language is primarily ensured through the senses and the physical world around the child. The child learns to passively perceive speech, in particular the teacher's speech, and then to understand the meanings of new words through gestures, facial expressions, associations with action. Finally, on the basis of a considerable amount of time devoted to listening to and imitating the teacher's words, the learner develops the ability to speak [1, p. 130]. 

The use of Total Physical Response (TPR) in English language teaching has the following advantages: (1) it is fun and many children enjoy participating in this type of learning, (2) can help learners remember English words and expressions on kinesthetic, visual and auditory levels, (3) can be used in large or small classes, (4) reduces stress and creates positive atmosphere, (5) is suitable for active learners in class [4, p. 87-91].

The aim of this article is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Total Physical Response method in the early stages of English language learning, particularly when dealing with foreign language vocabulary. Our study was based on a descriptive method as we used such techniques as observation and analysis of students' results in order to obtain data on the level of foreign language vocabulary acquisition by younger students through physically-oriented tasks.

A group of 15 pupils aged between 7 and 9 took part in the experimental teaching. The training took place in a private language school in the city of Volgograd. The training took 3 weeks, from 10 to 30 April 2023. The 30 vocabulary units studied were as follows: animals, body parts and colours.

In our experimental training, we used the following types of TPR exercises:

1. Commands and instructions. The most common TPR activities involve commands from the teacher to which students respond physically by demonstrating understanding. Some commands require the use of motor skills, while others involve interaction with objects in the classroom, such as desks, chairs, maps, blackboard, whiteboard markers, drawings, cards and so on [3, p. 64].
2. Here are some examples of actions based on the commands: "Come to me/stand up/sit down/give me a…/be quiet". The teacher names the commands and demonstrates the movements, the children watch and then repeat the gestures and the term.
3. TPR Storytelling. In this exercise we use pantomimes and physical activity to create a coherent story, each word in the story is accompanied by its own gesture. After the children have learned the lexical units that appear in the story by responding to them with gestures or pantomime, the teacher tells this mini-story and the students act it out [2, p. 144-145]. Here is an example of a story we made while learning the animals, body parts and verbs. (Hi, I am Teddy Bear, I am big and fat. This is my tummy, these are my ears and this is my head. I can swim, run, jump and ride a bike. Bye-Bye.)
4. Role-play games. Role play can be based on everyday familiar situations and can generate a lot of interest and motivation in children. There are a large number of games that can be played with younger students, e.g. supermarket, café, zoo, hospital and so on [2, p. 92-93].
5. Songs. Songs have a beneficial effect on the acquisition of foreign language vocabulary because students hear a steady pronunciation and then repeatedly repeat the same sounds and learn ready-made grammatical constructions in a natural way [2, p. 142]. It is vital to choose simple and easy chants connected to the target language. After the students are familiar with the melody, the teacher reinforces the singing with different gestures according to the lyrics of the song, thus activating the memorization of words on the visual and kinesthetic levels.

During the training, the students listened carefully to the teacher's instructions. When the students did not seem to be following the commands correctly, the teacher acted as a model in front of the class and repeated the commands several times, making sure that everyone was following the commands correctly. The children seemed relaxed, involved and interested in the games. They understood both the learning material and the teacher's instructions in class. However, quite a few students had discipline problems during the activities. In addition, we found that some students who showed less interest in the classroom were less active and shy during the TPR training, too.

From the above data we can conclude that the Total Physical Response method is effective and suitable for the use in primary schools in foreign language vocabulary acquisition as it allows the learning lexical units in a natural way and in a zero-stress atmosphere. The application of this method makes the learning process student-centered, due to the fact that teachers are no longer active participants as most tasks are completed by the students through live communication, physical interaction and active engagement during the lesson. The TPR method helps to establish a positive perspective in learning English from the very first lessons and to help improve vocabulary acquisition [5, p. 12]. Students were able to successfully learn vocabulary units in a natural way, which emphasizes the effectiveness of using the method in English lessons for young learners.