Abstract How to teach children English has been a concerned question for many years by teachers and experts. Recent years, the foreign language teaching especially emphasizes the importance of stimulating students’ learning interest. As one of foreign language teaching methods and approaches, Total Physical Response, which has aroused great interest of education researchers and foreign language teachers in China, has been widely applied in English teaching in primary school recently. And TPR also has been a modern teaching approach in the world. This thesis aims to illustrate the effect of Total Physical Response teaching approach on primary school students’ interest in English. It explains the theoretical basis of Total Physical Response and analyzes the advantages, disadvantages and function of Total Physical Response in primary English teaching. It also discusses the concrete training in stimulating and improving pupils English learning interest with some activities and the typical TPR teaching examples and summarizes the points needed to be noticed in application，and provides a new way to enhance the education practice．60785

Key words: Total Physical Response; the foreign language teaching; primary school English teaching; students’ learning interest

摘要如何教孩子学英语已成为教师和专家多年来关注的一个热点问题。近年来，外语教学特别注重激发学生学习兴趣的重要性。全身反应法，作为外语教学的方法和途径之一，引起了中国教育研究者和外语教师的极大兴趣，并且已经广泛应用于小学英语课堂教学中。同时，全身反应法作为一种现代教学法在全世界引起了极大关注。本文旨在说明全身反应教学法对小学生英语学习兴趣的影响，并且阐述了全身反应法的理论基础以及对小学英语教学中的优缺点进行了分析。还讨论了一些具体的教学活动，典型的TPR教学案例，并总结全身反应法在应用中应注意的点，旨在为强化教育实践提供一条新途径。

关键词：全身反应法； 外语教学；小学课堂教学；学习兴趣

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. The Theoretical Basis and rationale of TPR 3

3.1 Second Language Acquisition Theory 4

3.2 Division of Left and Right Brain Theory 6

3.3 Psychology "Memory Trace" Theory 7

3.4 Theory of Humanistic Psychology 7

4. The Main Content of TPR 8

4.1 Three Principles Promoted by Asher 8

4.2 Main Features of TPR 8

4.3 English Teaching Modes of TPR Approach 9

5. Practical application of TPR in Elementary school classroom 9

5.1 Four Combinations of TPR and Classroom Teaching 9

5.2 A Typical Example for Applying TPR 11

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

 1. Introduction 

Total Physical Responses (TPR)，is a second language teaching method，developed by Dr．James J．Asher in 1966，and became very popular in 1970s．The theoretical basis of it contains Developmental psychology，Theories of learning，Humanistic pedagogy and Language Teaching Procedure put forward by Harold and Dorothy Palmer in 1925 (Riehards&Rodger,2000：87). TPR, as an effective and helpful method, has been widely practiced in primary school. It also can be developed to reduce children’ stress when they are studying foreign languages and arouse students’ interests of learning foreign languages, and develop their intelligence. Meanwhile, TPR is an efficient and appropriate way that is very helpful for teachers to organize classes, and using TPR can make classes more active and dynamic.