Scene #1 - A linguistics professor at university precedes a lecture by posing the question:
Name one benefit of Dr. James J. Asher’s Total Physical Response (TPR) method?

Scene #2 - A middle school teacher decides to try something new with her Spanish class. A flash of brilliance hits her! She takes the class to the Home Eco. class, and she has them bake a cake by giving instructions in Spanish! The baked cake, well, it missed the mark on taste, but the lesson was a hit with the class.

Scene #3 - A self-study Spanish student finds Simon Says in Spanish on YouTube. He hits the play button, and starts following instructions in Spanish. He puts his finger on his nose, his hand on his head, and you get the idea.

At the university they’re talking about the Total Physical Response method, and at the middle school classroom and the home of the self-study student, students are applying it. But chances are the teacher and self-study student don’t know name of the method they are applying. And at the university, chances are most of the students in the university linguistics class won’t see it applied.

It’s almost as if they’re separated by semantics. The teacher and students know what they’re doing is helping them learn, but are not familiar with the method’s history. And the linguists know the benefits and drawbacks, but in theory alone.

Bridging the Gap?<

On this blog we’ll discuss three main topics: learn learning by the student, language teaching by the teacher and applied linguistics. The goal is to help students and teachers understand the methodology behind our teaching style, and provide information for linguists on the results of the implementation of different techniques.

This is a work in progress, so we’re looking forward to your feedback and ideas.