Total Physical Response (TPR) - The Teacher Toolkit
Total Physical Response (TPR) - The Teacher Toolkit is a relationship mapping exercise that helps participants build useful connections and understand how people, roles, or ideas relate.
How to run it
- Select the vocabulary that you are going to teach. Gather any equipment, props or pictures you will need to illustrate the meaning of the words.
- Say the new vocabulary word for the students. As you do this, use gestures, facial expressions, props or body movement to illustrate the meaning of the word.
- Have student volunteers mimic the same gestures, facial expressions, use of props or body movement modeled as you say the word.
- Have all students mimic the same gestures, facial expressions, use of props or body movement modeled by the teacher and student volunteers. Ask them to say the word as they are making the movement. Vary this activity by then doing the action and while students say the word.
- Write the word or phrase where all students can see it so that students can make the connection between oral and written words.
- If you register with our site, you can create your personal notes for each tool. Register Now or Sign In!
Run this exercise live
The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.
What participants need now
Materials:
This is a participant-safe snapshot, not a response form. It sends nothing back to the facilitator.
Prompts to use +
Select the vocabulary that you are going to teach. Gather any equipment, props or pictures you will need to illustrate the meaning of the words.
Say the new vocabulary word for the students. As you do this, use gestures, facial expressions, props or body movement to illustrate the meaning of the word.
Have student volunteers mimic the same gestures, facial expressions, use of props or body movement modeled as you say the word.
Have all students mimic the same gestures, facial expressions, use of props or body movement modeled by the teacher and student volunteers. Ask them to say the word as they are making the movement. Vary this activity by then doing the action and while students say the word.
Write the word or phrase where all students can see it so that students can make the connection between oral and written words.
If you register with our site, you can create your personal notes for each tool. Register Now or Sign In!
Run this with your AI assistant +
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.
Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Total Physical Response (TPR) - The Teacher Toolkit. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: Select the vocabulary that you are going to teach. Gather any equipment, props or pictures you will need to illustrate the meaning of the words.; Say the new vocabulary word for the students. As you do this, use gestures, facial expressions, props or body movement to illustrate the meaning of the word.; Have student volunteers mimic the same gestures, facial expressions, use of props or body movement modeled as you say the word.; Have all students mimic the same gestures, facial expressions, use of props or body movement modeled by the teacher and student volunteers. Ask them to say the word as they are making the movement. Vary this activity by then doing the action and while students say the word.. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.
Origin unverified
- Where we observed it: The current corpus has one observed source organization: The Teacher Toolkit. (1 source observed, including The Teacher Toolkit.)
- What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
- No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
- Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.