Many of us start the year with CWB and OWI and Word Associations and the Word Chunk team game (https://benslavic.com/workshop-handouts.pdf). We need to remember to throw the right amount of TPR into that mix. It’s a deal breaker for the success of our year, along with the Classroom Rules and of course jGR. In a recent comment Sabrina gave us a nice brief tutorial on how to do that:
This is a list of verbs that I always TPR at the beginning of first year of French. These verbs are easily TPR-able . I do these 5/10 minutes at the beginning of French 1 for the 1st 2 months and it I get so much mileage later on.
Slowly you can add adverbs such as slowly/fast/nicely/meanly/romantically etc….
I also take care of the thematic units covered by most traditional textbooks such as classroom objects, body parts, colors, etc….
Most traditional teachers cover those thematic units and it takes them weeks or month whereas all you need is 5 to 10 minutes daily for a few months at the very beginning and the kids like it.
Be mindful that after a couple of months the kids get tired of it, so like with everything else, use in moderation and only for the first few months. You will know when it’s time to stop b/c the kids will let you know.
Examples of TPR commands in first few months of French 1:
- prend un crayon rouge rapidement et jette le crayon dans la poubelle: take a red pen quickly and throw it in the wastebasket.
- caresse l’ordinateur romantiquement: caress the computer romantically
- gratte la tête d’un garçon blond: scratch the head of a blond boy
- met ta main gauche sous la table: put your left hand under the table
- embrasse ton épaule droite: kiss your right shoulder
etc, etc… This way you can really take care of a lot of thematic stuff that would otherwise be so boring to teach.
I know that most of you here know this stuff and do it, but this is more for very new teachers on this blog who may find this helpful.
TPR verbs I always do are:
Il/elle va vers : goes to
Il/elle se lève/lève; (s)he/she stands up/raises
Il/elle s’assied : sits
Il/elle marche : walks
Il/elle saute : jumps
Il/elle regarde: sees
Il/elle se tourne/ tourne: turns
Il/elle touche: touches
Il/elle monte: goes up
Il/elle descend: goes down
Il/elle chante: sings
Il/elle parle: talks
Il/elle arrête: stops
Il/elle danse : danses
Il/elle dessine: draws
Il/elle écrit: writes
Il/elle mange: eats
Il/elle boit: drinks
Il/elle caresse: pets/ caresses
Il/elle gratte : scratches
Il/elle crie : yells
Il/elle frappe : hits
Il/elle montre: shows
Il/elle rit : laughs
Il/elle dort: sleeps
Il/elle prend : takes
Il/elle met: puts
Il/elle jette/lance : throws
Il/elle embrasse : kisses