The Effects of Total Physical Response on English Words Learning For Moderately Mentally Challenged Students in Elementary School

• Main Authors: Ke-Cheng Tsai, 蔡克成
• Other Authors: Li-Ying Hsu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/25798897729368344883

碩士 === 雲林科技大學 === 應用外語系碩士班 === 98 === The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Total Physical Response (TPR) on English words learning for moderately mentally challenged students at the Zhong-Zheng elementary school in Changhua County. By putting the theory into practice, the researcher conducted an action research. The research covers the following aspects: (1) investigating students’ performance on listening comprehension and expressing after receiving TPR instruction and (2) difficulties that the researcher encountered and solutions that he figured out during the instruction, (3) students’s reactions and participation during the instruction. The participants in this research were three six-grade moderately mentally challenged students in the researcher’s school. The researcher designed five unites that included 25 English words. The whole experimental instruction lasted for five weeks, two classes per week, and 40 minutes per class. The data were collected through video-taped teacher journal, researcher’s reflections, students’ performances in instant and retention tests in listening comprehension and expressing. The results of the study are as follows: (1) TPR instruction has significant effects on moderately mentally challenged students’ instant English words listening comprehension. (2) The effects of TPR instruction on moderately mentally challenged students’ instant English words expressing ability are uncertain. (3) TPR instruction has significant effects on moderately mentally challenged students’ retention of English words listening comprehension. (4) The effects of TPR instruction on moderately mentally challenged students’ retention of English words expressing ability are uncertain. (5) TPR instruction can arouse students’ participation and interest in learning English. (6) The weak connection between a physical action and the pronunciation might be the reason for the students’ low achievements in instant and retention expressing tests.