Rethinking TPR From An Embodied Cognitive Perspective And Its Effectiveness In EFL Vocabulary Teaching

The function vocabulary plays in language learning is self-evident. Vocabulary competence, to some extent, directly represents one’s language ability, for vocabulary lays the foundation of language skills like listening, speaking, reading and writing. The extent of vocabulary directly influences accuracy and richness of language expression. Therefore, as an important part of language teaching, how to effectively teach vocabulary and help learners master acquire and use vocabulary catches the attention of scholars. They discuss the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching from teaching concepts, teaching methods and teaching strategies, which obtains a quite good achievement.Total Physical Response(TPR) provides a model for vocabulary teaching, that is, mastering a word’s meaning through action, thereby it is one of the popular teaching methods. TPR advocates a delighted and stress-free environment for learners. That is the reason why it is paid more attention to in primary school, for being active is a natural way in kids. But its dominating teaching content of imperative sentence in class confines TPR for greater advance.This thesis, by exploring the theoretical underpinnings of TPR, attempts to rethink TPR in an embodied cognitive perspective and revise it to ECTPR, addressing the combined function of embodiment, cognition and gesture and body movement. It then applies ECTPR to vocabulary teaching and puts forward some constructional suggestions in EFL teaching.This research adopts the methods of literature review, questionnaire and experiment to study whether ECTPR can be effectively applied to vocabulary teaching. The research questions are shown as following:1. Does combination of embodiment and cognition contribute more to young learners’ vocabulary learning outcomes and vocabulary competence than just mechanical body movement?2. Can combination of embodiment and cognition help young learners be more motivated in vocabulary learning than just mechanical body movement?In the teaching practice, both quantitative research and qualitative research have been designed. The research subjects were sixty students from two Grade Six Classes in Xiamen Wuyuanwan Experimental School, whose language competence was consistent. The two classes were divided into experimental class and controlled class. Firstly, the experimental class was instructed with ECTPR for vocabulary teaching. Secondly, test both the experimental class and controlled class with their lexical competence. Besides the tests, questionnaires were administered before and after the experiment for the effectiveness of ECTPR. The data were collected and processed by SPSS 16.0.The research shows that ECTPR can be effective and efficient in vocabulary teaching in that it contributes to young learners’ vocabulary learning outcomes and vocabulary competence and that it helps young learners be more motivated in vocabulary learning.