[cjj]

Pernickety – how did your inspection go ?
I second abonnefant’s recommendation of TPR. It’s great and it doesn’t cost a thing to get started. In TPR (Total Physical Response), the children give a physical response rather than an oral response to what the teacher says thereby demonstrating that they understand what has been said. Traditionally, TPR teachers begin with the following words:
stand up - sit down – walk – stop – turn around – jump

To start, say “stand up” and you stand up and motion for the class or a small group – I like to begin with 2 boys & 2 girls – to stand up;
Say “walk” and you walk and check that the group is walking;
Next is “sit down” and you sit down and everyone will sit down.

After practising stand up, sit down and walk several times, say “stand up” again but this time don’t stand up. This allows you to instantly see which kids have really internalized the words. I spend the entire class introducing new vocabulary and checking for understanding. This is so important! A child who doesn’t understand will feel lost and tune out mentally and just give up.

After stand up - sit down – walk – stop – turn around – jump, expand with “walk to the window/door/board”. When the kids are responding with confidence, say “jump to the window”. Your quickest kids will respond immediately by jumping to the window although they have never heard this before and have never seen you do it. This is the beauty of TPR!

Next introduce words that can be combined with the words the kids have already internalized.
For example, touch or point to can be combined with the nouns to give “touch/point to the window/door/board”. Sit down can be combined with chair, desk, floor to get “Sit on a chair/desk” then add my/your to get “sit on my chair” then add nose for “touch my/your nose” or “touch the chair with your nose”. I hope you get the idea. You’ll be amazed by what the kids are able to understand.

When I plan my lessons, my goal is to surround my students with contextualised, comprehensible language. Due to the nature of TPR each lesson is repetitive yet varied and interesting. I’d never think “today I’m going to teach colours” then go in and teach 10 colours. Instead, I’d introduce 2 or 3 colours and combine them with previously acquired language i.e. “Touch the blue fish” or “sit on the blue chair” or “give me a blue pen”.