TPR = Toilet Paper Roll?

At least, that's what Cameron claims TPR means! However, I have learned that one should not always believe one's husband. Especially regarding acronyms. What TPR means is "Total Physical Response" and is a method of language learning used overseas. This is one of the primary tools that we,as New Tribes missionaries, will be implementing. Basically, it focuses on simply learning how to respond to the foreign language by pointing to the items or doing the commands. You don't write anything down as the goal is listening and comprehension. Our language was Portuguese which is hard for me just to say but Suzy made it really fun and TPR is now one of my favorite classes!

Our first day, focused on items found in the classroom. We began with three items: a piece of paper, a pencil and a book. We would point to one of the objects and Suzy would say its name in Portuguese. Once we felt comfortable with the items that were already on the table, we would add an additional item. Then, we would ask Suzy to tell us to point to something. The purpose of this exercise is to be able to respond without having to do a "translation" in your head but to associate the Portuguese words with the items themselves. We ended the day with about ten items total.

All the days that followed consisted of different types of TPR and we always ended with at least ten new words or phrases. The different types of TPR consisted of commands associate with a pencil such as: picking up the pencil, writing with the pencil, erasing with the pencil, shaking the pencil, dropping the pencil, and so on. Literal Total Physical Response with actions like: picking up the chair, knocking on the door, turning of the light, ect. Then learning adjectives concerning the number, size and colors of pencils. Prepositional phrases regarding the pencil in relationship with the book such as under, above, in front of, and inside the book. Then moving on to TPR with photos asking about the different people and objects and actions of the pictures.

On the last day, it was our turn to speak! We picked which TPR procedure we wanted to do and, after a brief review with Suzy, we would ask her to do something in Portuguese. And did I mention we only had NINE days of TPR in Portuguese! However, even though we had such a short amount of time in that language we were astounded by how much we could comprehend! Granted, our pronunciation was somewhat lacking, but we were able to communicate what we were trying to. It was such a great class and experience and we look forward to implementing this method on the field!

United in Christ,

Caitlin and Cameron

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