Pre-service English Teachers’ Use Of Total Physical Response (TPR) in Young Learners’ Online and Offline English Lesson

Abstract

There has been numerous research on the implementation of the Total Physical Response (TPR); nevertheless, many of them only focus on one mode category, either online or offline learning. For that reason, the aim of conducting this research is to describe the implementation of TPR in online and offline English lessons, especially by pre-service teachers. This research uses a qualitative descriptive method, with two data collection techniques namely observations as the primary data and follow-up interviews as a secondary data collection technique. The observation instrument used was an observation checklist which was created based on the 13 principles of TPR by Larsen-Freeman and Anderson (2011). The participants involved were two pre-service teachers. The findings from this research indicate that the two teachers have not been able to apply the 13 principles of TPR optimally in their respective classes. Out of the 13 principles of TPR, each class showed different results on the principles that they mainly applied, barely applied, and not applied at all. Instead of influenced by the class mode, the application of principles was influenced by different factors, as well as the advantages and challenges faced by teachers. The findings implied that teachers’ knowledge and experience were two of the factors that contributed to the success of the implementation of TPR in the learning process, whether it was an online or offline class. Therefore, teachers need to expand their knowledge to be able to apply learning methods optimally and maximize more effective learning output.