Why comprehension is important

TPR research opened up the concept that for children and adults acquiring another language in school, success can be assured if comprehension is developed before speaking. One important reason: Everywhere on earth in all languages throughout history, there is no instance of infants acquiring speaking before comprehension. Comprehension always comes first with speaking following perhaps a year later.

A second reason is that talking and comprehension are located in different parts of the brain. Talking comes from Broca’s area located in the frontal lobe of the left brain. If there is damage in Broca’s area, one may understand what people are saying but the person is unable to speak. Understanding or comprehension takes place in Wernicke’s area located in the temporal lobe. If there is damage to Wernicke’s area, one can speak but has difficulty understanding what others are saying. This has significance for language instruction, which I will explain next.

Beware of “brain overload”

When the instructor in traditional classes asks students to “Listen and repeat after me!” this may be brain overload because both the frontal lobe and the temporal lobe in the brain light up at the same time resulting in slow-motion learning with short-term retention. (Noted educator, Leslie Hart, calls “brain overload” a type of brain antagonistic instruction.)

Well then, if comprehension is important, how about using translation to help students comprehend?

Unfortunately, translation does not help most students because there is no long-term understanding. When students translate, there is short-term comprehension which is erased the moment the student leaves the classroom, if not sooner. The problem with translation is that the instructor has made an assertion, which the critical left-brain of the student perceives as a “lie.”

For example, to claim that this is a “desk” and this is a “chair” and this is a “window” is absurd in the student’s brain. The student, along with all other students in the classroom, have thousands of life experiences that validate this as “tsukue” and this as “isu” and this as “mado.” Students simply do not believe the assertions by the instructor.

What is the alternative to translation?

TPR is a powerful alternative to translation because we create experiences in the classroom that are “believable.” If we ask students to be silent, listen to a direction and do exactly what the instructor does, we have created a “fact” which cannot be dismissed by the critical side of the student’s brain.

Here is an example of how the student’s brain is processing information at lightning speed: If “stand” does not mean to rise up from my chair, why did my body actually go from sitting to standing when I heard the instructor say, “Stand”? If “walk” does not mean to move forward, why did my body walk forward when the instructor said, “Walk”? These strange utterances must be valid.

TPR creates facts, which make for long-term comprehension. At lightning velocity, the student’s brain processes information like this: “I actually stood up when the instructor uttered the alien direction: ‘Stand.’ It is a fact. It is true. It actually happened; therefore, I can store this in long-term memory.” The result is TPR can achieve long-term retention in a few trials, often in one- trial.

How to present a believable sample of the target language

Now I must refer you to these books: My first book: Learning Another Language Through Actions (in the 6th edition) and Ramiro Garcia’s Instructor’s Notebook: How to apply TPR for best results (in the 4th edition). I recommend that you follow the advice of Jim Martinez who successfully taught English in a private school in Argentina: “Read each book six times and each time you will discover something you did not know before about TPR.”

Once students actually understand, then what?

Once they understand, you can then use this skill to move over into Broca’s area of the left brain with traditional exercises in speaking, reading, and writing. Then return to the right brain with more TPR to understand another sample. Then use that understanding to switch to speaking, reading, and writing.

The first order of business

The first objective in any excellent language program is enabling students to be comfortable and confident with the sounds, the grammatical patterns, and semantics of the new language. That can be accomplished with students of all ages including adults using concrete nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, and adverbs.

Do not underestimate the power of the concrete in acquiring another language. Every one of us did it with our native language. One can acquire true fluency at a concrete level.

How about abstractions

Abstractions will come later, not necessarily by direct instruction but in the context of discourse. Traditional textbooks, in my opinion, are notorious for trying unsuccessfully to force understanding of abstractions before students are ready.

Notice that when children acquire their first language, they become fluent native speakers at a concrete level of discourse; then gradually acquire abstractions in context or by asking direct questions such as: “Mother, what does ‘government’ mean?” Mother then explains using simple language that the child understands.

To break language apart into artificial categories such as phonology, vocabulary, grammar and semantics is of keen interest to teachers, but of no concern to students — because in the process of achieving fluency with TPR, they internalize everything simultaneously with no analysis, in the same way that children acquire their first language. Analysis into artificial categories is fine to “polish” the target language for advanced students who are already fluent, but not for beginners or even intermediate students.

I do recommend, however, that five or ten minutes at the end of a session be open to curious students who prefer to ask questions about pronunciation or grammar.