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By-Asher, James J.The Learning Strategy of the Total Physical Response: A Review.National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Association.Spons Agency-Office of Naval Research, Washington, D.C. Personnel .and Training Branch.

Pub Date Feb 66Contract-NR-154-257-12-8-64Note-6p.Journal Cit-The Modern Language Journal; v50 n2 p79-84 February 1966EDRS Price MF-$0.25 HC-$0.40Descriptors-Behavioral Science Research, Behavior Theories, Conditioned Response, Japanese, LanguageAbility, Language Instruction, *Language Research, Language Skills, *Learning Theories, *Pilot Projects,Psycholinguistics, Retention Studies, Russian, *Second Language Learning, Stimulus Behavior, TeachingTechniques, *Verbal Operant Conditioning

Described in this article are five pilot studies that explored the effects of thelearning strategy of the total physical response under a variety of conditions usingJapanese and Russian with adults and children. Some general conclusions suggestthat dramatic facilitation in learning listening skills for a second language is relatedto acting out during retention tests. (AF)

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rqc) The Learning Strategy of the Total Physicalc)UJ Response: .d Review*

JAMES J. ASHER, San Jose Stale College

pERHAPS one of the most complex tasks inhuman learning is the problem of how to

achieve fluency in a foreign language. To illus-trate the extraordinary stress and intricacy ofthis task, an instructor in one of the more eso-teric languages at the Defense Language Insti-tute in Monterey, California, remarked that

after 12 months of intensive languagetraining for 8 to 10 hours a day in small classesof six students, only one in twenty graduateswas what one may describe as 'fluene."

What will be reported next may suggest apartial solution to this ancient learning prob-lem. This paper will describe a learning ap-proach called the strategy of the total physicalresponse. The theory behind this learning strat-egy was described in an earlier paper.' Essen-tially, the notion developed in that theoreticalarticle was that solutions for intricate humanproblems require invention rather than dis-covery. After the invention of a solution possi-bility, a closed-system is generated which maybe explored successfully with discovery activi-ties such as experimental research.2

In pilot studies,3 it was demonstrated thatsubjects had unusually long-term retention forJapanese when they listened to the Japaneseand then were required to make a total physicalresponse. For example, the subjects heard tateand immediately along with the instructor,stood up; then aruke, and they walked forward.Other commands were lobe (jump), maware(turn), kagame (squat) and hashire (run). Thetraining began with brief one-word utterances,but within thirty minutes, the morphologicaland syntactical complexity was increased as thefollowing utterances illustrate:

Isu kara tatte, kokuban no anata no namae o kese.(Stand up and erase your name from the blackboard.)

Kare no namae o enpitzu de konokami ni kake.(Take the pencil and write his name on this paper.)

Sono hana o tsukue kara tori, kanojo ni watase.(Take that flower from the desk and give it to her.)

79

FIG. 1. The boys and the adult model jumpedwhen they heard the command, "Tobel"

The results of pilot studies were almost per-fect retention in listening to Japanese from twoweeks to a year when the subjects ranged fromschool children to adults. The procedure is illus-trated in figure 1 in which the adult model andthree boys jumped in response to the Japanesecommand "Tobe." This photograph is from thesound motion picture entitled, "Demonstrationof a New Strategy in Language Learning." The

* Most of the studies reported in this article were sup-ported by a research contract from the Personnel andTraining Branch of the Office of Naval Research (NONR-4817(00), NR-154-257/12-8-64). Reproduction in whole orin part is permitted for any purpose of the United StatesGovernment.

1 J J. Asher, "Toward a neo-field theory of behavior,"Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. IV, No. 2 (Fall,1964), pp. 85-94.

2 For an application of the theory to a problem havingto. do with man-computer communication in the field ofEngineering Psychology, see J. J. Asher and R. I. Post,"The new field theory: An application to postal automa-tion," Human Factor:, Vol. VI, No. 5 (October, 1964), pp.517-522.

* Cf. Asher, op. cit.

80 JAMES J. ASHER

film, which is 15 minutes in length, shows thecomplexity of Japanese which three 12 year oldboys were able to assimilate in twenty minutesof training. Also shown in retention after a timeinterval of one year.

With the preliminary data from these pilotstudies as a guide, Kunihira for his master'sthesis decided to test the hypothesis of the totalphysical response under controlled conditions.4

STUDY I

Eighty-eight volunteer college students, whohad no prior contact with the Japanese lan-guage, were randomly divided into an experi-mental and three control groups. The groups ofsubjects (Ss) who finished the experiment wereshown to be homogeneous as measured by theModern Language Aptitude Test and the Ameri-can College Testing Program.

Procedure

An experimental and three control groupslearned a sample of Japanese which began withsimple commands as "tate" (stand) and"aruke" (walk), but within twenty minutes thecomplexity of the utterances was increased tothis for example: "Mado ni hashitte itte hon omotte tsukue ni oite isu ni suware" (Run to thewindow, pick up the book, put it down on thedesk, and sit down on the chair).

The experimental group (N=16) listened tothe Japanese commands played on a tape re-corder, and after each utterance, acted with theinstructor as their model. If the utterance was"To ni aruite ike" (Walk to the door), the Ssand model walked to the door. If the commandwas "Kami to hon to enpitsu o motte isu nisuware" (Pick up the paper, book and penciland sit down on the chair), the Ss and the modelpicked up a paper, book, and pencil, returned totheir chairs and sat down. Ss, who were run ingroups of four or five, were instructed to besilent, listen to the Japanese, and do exactlywhat the instructor does.

The first control group (N= 15) was treatedthe same as the experimental group except thatthese Ss sat and observed the model performduring training. The second control group(N= 18) listened to the English translation fromthe tape after each Japanese command, butthey did not observe the model perform. The

third control group (N=18) read the Englishtranslations in a booklet after they heard aJapanese utterance. They also did not observethe performance of a model.

Scoring of the Retention Tests

The retention tests were given immediatelyafter training, 24 hours later, and then followinga two week interval. These retention tests werescored in behavioral units as, for example, if an Sin the experimental group heard "Isu ni has-hitte itte hon o oke" (Run to the chair and putdown the book), he received one point for run-ning, another point if he ran to a chair, anotherpoint if he put an object on the chair, and apoint if the object was a book. Therefore, for theutterance "Isu ni hashitte itte hon o oke," thetotal possible score was four points. The samescoring procedure was used for Ss in the controlgroups except that these people wrote down theEnglish translation for the Japanese.

As to scoring categories, a single word was forexample "aruke" (walk); a short utterance was athought unit as "To ni aruite ike" (Walk to thedoor); a long utterance was more than onethought unit as "Tsukue ni aruite itte enpitsuto hon o oke" (Walk to the desk, and put downthe pencil and book); and a novel utterance was arecombination of utterances used in training sothat, in this sense, novel commands were heardfor the first time in the retention tests.

Results

The experimental group, who used the strat-egy of the total physical response, had si.gnifi-candy better retention than each control group.Generally, the t tests were highly significantbeyond the .005 level for (a) long or novel Japa-nese utterances, and (b) when the time intervalafter training increased to 24 hours or twoweeks. The control groups did not show signifi-cant differences in retention among themselvesas measured by F tests.

Encouraged by these findings, a study wasdesigned5 to test whether the power of a total

4 S. Kunihira and J. J. Asher, "The strategy of the totalphysical response: An application to learning Japanese,"Internationd Review of Applied Linguistks (in press).

15 J. J. Asher, "The strategy of the total physical re-sponse: An application to learning Russian," InternationalReview of Applied Linguistics (in press).

LEARNING STR.4TEGY OF THE TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE 81

physical response would hold when a differentlanguage was used such as Russian.

STUDY II

This study was similar to the Japanese ex-periment except that the experimental group(N= 18) learned a sample of Russian6 using thestrategy of the total physical response while thecontrol group (N= 18) observed the modelperform in training and wrote English duringthe retention tests. The Ss were college under-graduates who volunteered to participate inresponse to the incentive of extra course credit.Although an attempt was made to assign Ssrandomly to each group, an Otis IntelligenceTest administered after the experiment wassignificantly better at the .05 level for the con-trol group. All Ss had no background or trainingin Russian.

The results were quite similar to the findingswith Japanese. The retention scores using t testswere significantly better for the experimentalgroup, especially as the complexity of Russianincreased fr om single or short utterances to longor novel Russian commands. Also, when thetime interval between training and retentionincreased to two weeks, the experimental groupwas significantly better beyond the .005 level onalmost every retention measure.

At least with adults from a college populationthe strategy of the total physical responseseemed to be vastly more effective as a learningformat than merely a sedentary kind of obser-vation during training. This generalizationappeared to hold for Japanese and Russian.

At this point the data suggested some provo-cative theoretical implications. For example,could the strategy of the total physical responseaccount for the puzzling fact that childrenliving in a foreign country achieve in a shorttime the fluency of native speakers while theparents of these children may' struggle unsuc-cessfully for years to be fluent? Some theoriessuggest that an explanation may be imprinting7or neurological differences!' However, still an-other possibility is that children tend to use thetechnique of a total physical response while theirparents do not. Much of children's play is lan-guage synchronized with physical locomotion ofthe entire body (i.e., "Come on, Tommy, let'sride our bikes1"). By contrast, most language

for adults may be quite independent of physicalaction. Adults tend to be rather stationary andinert when they transmit or receive language(i.e., "Hello, jOhn. Anything new today? Ababy girl, eh? Well, congratulations."). Withthe strategy of the total physical response,adults seemed to understand complex foreignutterances in an incredibly short amount oftraining.

In the research just reported, the task waslistening but not speaking the Japanese orRussian. The usual audio-lingual approach is tomake the task one of learning both listening andspeaking together. To force speaking from thebeginning of training may be somewhat analo-gous to the electroshock experiments with rats.These animal studies have suggested that if ratsare shocked immediately after they havelearned to navigate a maze, the effect seems tobe the "erasure of memory traces." It may bethat a technique of language learning in whichthe student is compelled to utter alien soundsfrom the start of training may act like shock.For example, when one tries to learn listeningfluency and speaking simultaneously, the forcednoise-making may function as a stressful stimu-lus which tends to erase, prematurely, memorytraces for understanding. The ideal, as hintedby our data, may be for the student to achievelistening fluency before he attempts to utter thealien sounds. However, this is only speculation.

Before the relationship of speaking to listen-ing can be determined, it would be helpful toknow more about listening, especially as thisintersects with the variable of physical action.The purpose of the next study was to furtherexpand the generality for the strategy of thetotal physical response.

STUDY III

Studies I and II indicated that the strategy ofthe total physical response seemed to facilitatethe learning of listening skill for complex foreign

I Professor Taras Lukach from the Foreign LanguageRepartment of San Jose State College recorded the Russianutterances on tape.

7 E. H. Hess, "Imprinting in animals," Scientific Amer-ican, Vol. 198, No. 3 (March, 1958), pp. 81-90.

$ W. Penfield and L. Roberts, Speech and Brain Mecha-nisms, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,1959.

82 JAMES J. ASHER

utterances. This generalization may hold foradults, but how about children? Study IIIreplicated Study II except that 6th grade chil-dren rather than college students were thesubjects.9

The experimental and control groups werecomposed of children (N= 32) matched on theCalifornia Test of Mental Maturity, the Cali-fornia Achievement Test, and teacher ranking onclassroom performance. None of the childrenwere bilingual and none had prior exposure tothe Russian language.

The children in the experimental group lis-tened to the Russian and acted along with anadult model; the control children listened to theRussian and observed the adult model perform.During the retention tests, children in the Egroup acted individually while those in the Cgroup wrote English translations.

The results were spectacular differences inretention favoring the children who applied thestrategy of the total physical response. The tswere significant beyond the .01 level no matterwhat the complexity of the Russian. For long ornovel Russian utterances, most of the ts weresignificant beyond the .0005 level of cortadence.

Next, it was decided to try the strategy ofthe total physical response with other gradelevels.

STUDY IV

For a master's thesis, Price"' collected datafrom samples of children in the 2nd, 4th, and8th grades." In each of these grade levels, six-teen pairs of children were matched on theCalifornia Test of Mental Maturity, the Cali-fornia Achievement Test, and teacher ranking onclassroom performance.

This was a replication of studies II and IIIusing Russian and with the experimental groupapplying the technique of the total physicalresponse while the controls observed the modelperform. During the retention tests, however,the children in both the experimental and con-trol groups individually listened to each Rus-sian utterance, then acted out their response.Always in previous studies, the controls wroteEnglish translations in the retention tests.

Unexpectedly, the results yielded no signifi-cant, differences between the experimentalversus the control group for the 2nd, 4th, or 8thgrad ers.n

TABLE 1

ACTING VERSUS WRITING DURING RETENTION TESTS GIVEN

TO 8TH GRADERS Two MONTHS AFTER TRAINING

Ya 7,0 Sa S. 1* P

Total 69.29 62.07 26.50 23.34 1.91 .05Single 11.21 11.86 2.91 1.56 -0.84 NSShort 18.43 17.93 6.86 8.13 0.30 NSLong 39.64 31.57 18.63 15.43 2.89 .01

Novel 19.36 15.71 10.10 8.13 2.51 .025

*One-tailed t tests for fourteen matched pairs

Apparently, whether Ss acted or observed themodel act during training was not relevant as avariable for children of these ages. At this point,the generalization seemed to be that spectacUlardifferences in retention were somehow a func-tion of whether subjects acted or wrote theirresponses during the retention tests. As a fur-ther check on the conclusion that acting facili-tated a greater retrieval of information thanwriting, a follow-tip study was conducted on the8th graders. Approximately two months afterthe 8th graders had completed their training inRussian, another tetention test was admnis-tered. Experimental and control children werematched on their overall performance in thetraining and half of the 8th graders in the ex-perimental and control groups acted during thetwo-month retention test while the other halfwrote English.

The results, in Table 1, showed that for com-plex Russian utterances, the children who actedout their responses in the retention test hadsignificantly better recall than the children whowrote English translations.

At least three explanations seemed possible.One we have called the translation hypothesis,

9 Data for this study were collected by Mrs. MaryHamilton at the Portal School in Cupertino, California.

19 B. Price, Developmental factors in the learning strategyof the total physical response. Unpublished master's thesis,San Josc. State College, 1966.

11 These data were drawn from the Blackford School inSan Jose, California. Appreciation is expressed to Mr.William M. Phelps for coordinating the scheduling of thestudents.

12 An intriguing secondary finding was that age was re-lated to the retention of the Russian. College adults as agroup had near maximum retention, the 8th and 4thgraders had significantly less retention than the adults,and the 2nd graders had significantly lower retentionscores in comparison with the older children.

LEARNING STRATEGY OF THE TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE 83

another the position-cue hypothesis, and a thirdthe concurrency hypothesis.

The translation hypothesis assumes thatwhen one writes the English during retention,the cognitive process of translation has a disrup-tive or impeding effect. Another explanation,the position-cue hypothesis, was that acting outa response gives cues as to what the followingresponse will probably be. For example, if acommand in Russian is to pick up a book, and Sdoes this, he knows that there is a high prob-ability that the next command will have some-thing to do with the book. When one writes"pick up the book," cues suggesting the nextresponse may not be as clear.

A third explanation was the concurrencyhypothesis. When one acts in the retention test,he may move before the voice on the tape hascompleted the utterance. One may act out partof the command and simultaneously be listeningto the next phrase. This would greatly simplifylengthy commands as "Walk to the window,pick up the book and pencil, then return to thetable." When one writes the English, it may bemore difficult, for some unknown reason, towrite and listen simultaneously. Therefore, onemay have to wait until the entire command hasbeen uttered in Russian before one writes.

In the next study the intent was to test simul-taneously the translation hypothesis, position-cue hypothesis, and the concurrency hypothe-sis.

STUDY V

From 8th grade classes at the John F. Ken-nedy Junior High School in Cupertino, Cali-fornia, fifteen pairs of children were matched asin previous studies on IQ, achievement, andteachers' ratings. Approximately half of thepairs were boys and the other half girls."

In this study both the experimental andcontrol children learned a sample of Russian byobserving a model perform during training. Thedifference between the groups was that in theretention tests, the experimental children actedin response to the Russian commands and thecontrols spoke the English.

The results showed no significant differencesbetween the two groups in their retentionscores. This finding does not support either anexplanation based on the translation hypothe-sis, nor one based on the position-cue hypothe-

sis. Since significant differences seem to berelated to writing rather than speaking English,the general cognitive process involved in trans-lating may not be disruptive. Also, when Ssverbalized in English rather than acted out,position-cues suggesting the next response maynot have been as distinct as when Ss wrote. Thereason is that when one writes the English trans-lation, one has rather easy visual access to priorresponses written on the paper.

The remaining explanation, the concurrencyhypothesis, was tested by counting the numberof times during a retention test that a childbegan acting if he was in the E group or verbal-izing in English if he was in the C group beforethe voice on the tape had finished speaking theRussian utterance.

Almost all the concurrent responses weremade by the group that acted during retentionand almost no concurrent responses were ob-served for the group that verbalized in English.As expected, concurrent responses were asso-ciated with complex Russian utterances. Of allconcurrent responses, in Unit IV, there werenone for single words, 3% for short utterances,58% for long utterances, and 39% for novelut ter ances.

Since concurrent responses were almost ex-clusively found only in the experimental groupand the latter group did not differ significantlyin retention from the control group, the concur-rency hypothesis will probably not explain thedifferences between acting and writing in reten-tion.

An interesting side finding with the concur-rent responses was that the more concurrentresponses a child made, the better his retentionscore, especially for complex Russian. Thecorrelations in Unit IV between concurrentresponses and each retention score were asfollows:

Total score .7§Long utterances .1$Novel utterances .81Short utterances .45Single utterances .36

It was also curious that although concurrentresponses correlated highly with understandingof complex Russian, these responses had low to

" Data for this study were collected by Mrs. NatashaWist, Miss Sue Hartley and Mrs. Berdeen E. Coven.

84 JAMES J. ASHER

moderate correlations with generalmeasures as shown below:

California Test of Mental MaturityTotal Score .41

Verbal .40

California Achievement TestTotal Score .30Verbal .02

ability

THE PHENOMENON OF WRITING

The generalization which appears to be reli-able is that when Ss are asked to act out re-sponses to commands in retention tests ratherthan Write the English, performance is signifi-cantly better. Why this should be is not yetclear. It has been suggested that for children,writing is a more difficult task than acting orspeaking. This explanation seems plausibleexcept that one would not expect college stu-dents to havesiifficulty writing common Englishsentences as "Walk to the door." Yet, for col-

lege adults who acted, retention Was signifi-cantly greater in comparison with the adults

who wrote. Experiments are now in progress toexplore how acting, speaking, and writingdifferentially operate on retention.

CONCLUSION

The learning strategy of the total physicalresponse was studied under a variety of condi-tions using Japanese and Russian with adultsand children. The results suggest that dramaticfacilitation in learning listening skill for a sec-ond language is related to acting out duringretention tests. Although acting out duringtraining for children in certain age groups didnot seem to be relevant in these experiments,pilot studiesu strongly indicate that this con-clusion may be limited to short-term trainingwhich is typically characteristic of experiments.When the training is extended for many weeks,acting-out in training seems to have intensemotivational power which sustains studentinterest and effort.

14 Cf. Asher, op. cit.: "Toward a neo-field theory of be-havior."

THE MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL

V01. L, No. 2, February, 1966