Foreigner comes to the Aid of Rural Kids

17 August, 2006

By R. Haldorai

Coimbatore, Aug 16: An associate professor from Middle Tennessee State University, Shelley Thomas, has come out with a novel method to teach a second language.

Total Physical Response (TPR), an innovative method of teaching children developed by James J. Asher, encourages teaching with the use of physical objects, instead of textbooks. Importance is given for body movements which would not only improve memory power and communication skill, but also ensure stress-free learning. The method is in use for nearly 30 years now, Shelley Thomas said here on Monday.

According to her, TPR could be used for learning a second language through a quick and enjoyable process. Under this method, the teacher shows a single action or word or phrase such as jump, and then demonstrates the action.

Then students would be able to follow the command and it would also facilitate them to copy and repeat the teacher’s words and actions. The next step is to proceed to more complex language and from concrete to abstract vocabulary, she said.

Shelley Thomas, who has been teaching poor and tribal children from village schools in Poondy near here at Isha Foundation for the past several days, further said that in conventional method of teaching, children learn by rote tolerating much stress and burden and forget the memorised text after a week whereas in TPR method children would not lose their memory so quickly.

"Children studying in Tamil medium schools could easily understand my English language and repeat the actions when taught under TPR method. Hence, this method is applicable to teach any second language for children," Shelley said.

Having felt the need for use of the method, Isha Foundation has aimed to provide quality education with special emphasis on English (second language for most rural people in Tamil Nadu), science and computer literacy. Isha Vidhya project of the Foundation is also aimed at improving English language skills of rural children through the method so that they could get IT jobs which demand communication skills.