Task 1: Written Reflection

Reflection
By Tang Siew Tien

Based on the first coursework, we are required to plan a 30-minute activity that
uses the method assigned in a language teaching context. Examples of methods are
audio-lingual method, direct method, suggestopedia, grammar translation method,
community language learning, total physical response, silent way and communicative
language teaching. My group members who are Emy Wong, Law Szee Huei, Michelle
Wong and Sim Ching Loong and I had chosen method Total Physical Response and
Communicative Language Learning.
From the activity conducted, I had found some strengths and weaknesses. One of
the strengths is, it can help to reduce the pressure and stress of students as TPR does
not require a spoken response from students. Students just can only speak when they
are ready to do so. From this, students will feel relax and they can learn better under the
comfortable environment without feeling the stress while learning. Students also just
need to reflect or response in the commands that teachers give to them and no need to
think much about it. It is just like the theory when baby acquire the L1. Also, if TPR is
implemented properly, students will understand what is happening during TPR practice,
resulting in increased confidence and a lowering of the affective filter.
Besides that, teacher can simply put the lesson to a pause and ask the students to
do the instruction given one by one. This will make them more focus and to make them
understand better of the instructions. This will also make the lesson a two way
communication lesson thus giving the students more chance to explore their mistakes
and actually learn from it. In addition, they will have discussion among themselves too.
The activity helps them to gain confidence and be able to interact with each other.
Other than that, the advantage of this activity is increasing of fluency in the target
language. From the activity that had been conducted, teacher will read the sentences
first and students will repeat after teacher. The learners can practice speaking the
targeted language more frequently. Besides, this enables the learners to be more

confident when interacting with other people and they also enjoy talking more. The
approach also leads to gain in the areas of grammatical, strategic competence and so
on through communication.
There are two conscious weaknesses based on our activity. Firstly, the deficiency
of this activity is it is quite boisterous to be executed in a large number of students. The
method is quite simple but it can be a can of worms which makes it hard to handle if too
many students are involved. It might be workable in a small group of learners but it
would appear to be problematic when applied to a class of many students, for example
more than thirty students. This will make the lesson unavailing and the result will be null
and void.
Another disadvantage is the activity focuses on fluency but not accuracy. Students
with low levels of proficiency in the target language may find it difficult to participate in
oral communicative activities because this approach focuses on fluency but not
accuracy. The weaker learners who struggle and cannot use the target language
continue to make mistakes and eventually give up.

Due to the weaknesses of activity, I would like to make some changes to the
activity in order to improve the effectiveness of students learning. First and foremost,
teachers should not let activity involve too many students in a time. It will cause the
lesson unavailing and students will lose interest. I must have to come up with various
alternatives to make the lesson fun and avoid making boring to the students. This will
result to attract the students attention and makes this method achievable in the long run.
The most important thing is I need to make them to interact with each other as they can
practice the song or the dance together among themselves. Students can interact with
the teacher and teacher can correct the errors that had been made by students.
All in all, I would still recommend these two methods to be applied to small
children though some may not agree, because it can be difficult but it is still worth a try. It
has its own downside and I am sure other teaching methods have their downside too.

Therefore, it would be an acceptable decision to having this method applied in primary

school.

References

Learning Another Language Through Actions by James J. Asher. Retrieved 12

August 2013.
Asher, James J (2012). Learning another Language through Actions. TPR World
Retrieved on August 15, 2013 from http://www.tpr-world.com/
Asher, J.J.(1967). The Total Physical Response Approach to second language
learning. In Modern Lnaguage Journal. Retrieved 18 August 2013, from
http://www.ebsco.com/.
Ramiro Garcia (2008) Instructor's Notebook: How to Apply TPR for Best
Results.TPR

Storytelling

Retrieved

on

August

18,

2013

from

http://www.tprstorytelling.com/
Lightbown, P. M. & Spada, N. (2006) How Languages are Learned (Third Edition)
Oxford University Press.