Beginning at the Beginning: What You Need to Know if You Teach
Absolute Beginners Almost without exception, when I tell people
that I teach English as a Second Language, they ask, “Oh, what
languages do you speak?” Though I would like to answer with
polylingual authority, the truth is I am only fluent in English.
“Well, don’t you need to speak their language before you can
teach them English?” is the most common retort. The answer, as
most ESL teachers have discovered, is NO. You do NOT have to
speak a second language to teach English to those who know none
whatsoever. Teaching English to absolute beginners, though, is
not a simple task. Where does the teacher start when he or she
has no common ground with the students waiting for instruction?
What You Need to Know about TPR (Total Physical Response) Dr.
James A. Asher developed an answer to that question with his
second language learning method called Total Physical Response.
He based this method on the idea that a person learning any
language, particularly