From Brother Eric:
Gotta post a TPR breakthrough! I tried how Asher teaches TPR –https://youtu.be/KmfnrYerYbY – the teacher demoing with 2 students, the rest of the class observing.
Wow, did this make classroom management easier, especially with the younger kids! The rest of the class was told to be silent and just observe. The rest of the class acquires the language just from observation, although, I do think there should be an active participation at some point for everyone (e.g. Simon Says). I would do short, 1 minute demos with 2 students, then ask for 2 more volunteers, and ask for 2 different volunteers, etc. Every 4th grader wants to be a volunteer. I gradually added more language.
I also think it helped to introduce the language the first time with a logical sequence (stand, walk, stop, turn around, walk, stop, turn around, sit), then start mixing it up, going out of order, and recombining language into utterances they have never heard before (novel commands). I have the words in L2 and L1 on the board, but I don’t think the younger kids are even looking. I am not needing the translation so far because of the obvious actions.
This is a HIT! When I used to do this with younger grades I would spend a lot more time with all the kids gesturing together and kids more easily lost control and went off-script ? I am thinking that I’ll have a 10-15 minute TPR component in all my classes and we’ll build on this language all year. The activity feels different from the TPRS, MT, etc.