I came across this video the other day, its an interview with Dr. James Asher and how TPR works. It’s long, almost and hour so I doubt many would take the time to listen to all of it. A lot of it seemed interesting and I have seen some examples of TPR on youtube.
I was just curious as to what other lingqer’s though about this. Dr.Asher seemed to really know his stuff and it was interesting. I actually do think this would be more effective for classroom settings than the typical grammar focused one. I really don’t know much about this but I always like hearing different opinions.
On thing I love about the scientific method is peer review which I didn’t hear him speak much about. IMO no method ( a word he say’s is a “bad” word and the moment he hears people use it their using the left side of there brain) is the only way, but TPR IS a method. I don’t think that any one tool is the best in language learning and we should use as many tools we can that work for us.
I have read his work and seen his videos and understand TPR and its benefits. I have seen the video before. I know why you think he is narrow minded. You think he is narrow minded because you think he is dogmatic…however, he is not dogmatic because his assertions have been proven using research on many occasions. Linguists and the academic community will back this up. He has good reasons to be so confident that he is right.
Do you not like him because he was confident or because you didn’t do much research about how good TPR is?
You have not even tried TPR and you said yourself “I really don’t know much about this”. Maybe if you knew about TPR you would understand that it is possibly one of the best ways to learn a second language. You are right on one point though…none of the other methods are necessarily better than others (emphasis Excluding TPR here).
This is not saying that other methods are of no benefit but when you have his knowledge backed up by research you are sure that the best of the rest is not a patch on TPR. If you were “incredibly” open-minded as you put it and were curious about TPR you would not comment on why he was dogmatic before knowing why he was so sure of his facts. You would have researched TPR and fully understood the extent of the benefits of TPR and agreed with him!
FYI, TPR is not only for trying at beginner levels and your comment “if you ACTUALLY read my post…” (which I obviously had) appeared to be a frustrated reply to being questioned…this is why I don’t think you are very “incredibly open minded”. You made your comments ignoring that I had ACTUALLY read your comments (which is an attempt at being patronising) and also you were defensive despite not knowing a lot about TPR facts. Take care with your reply and base it on TPR facts…
TPR is beyond being a method. TPR is the way of truth and the light and Dr. James Asher is its prophet! If only there were more true believers like treiscuarenta and less filthy blasphemers like freespirit.
@freespirit
I´ll pray that you´ll open your mind so you can see the truth! Invite Dr. Asher i into your left brain AND your right brain or you´ll regret your ignorance when you´re faced with the monolingual afterlife, that awaits those wo DARE questioning TPR.
thanks for the reply but, I meant I didn’t understand the point of Colin’s comment as an addition to the dialogue (despite the humour)…