STUDY OF THE TPR TEACHING METHOD IN YOUNG CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

All children are born with the ability for communication. Within the first few years of their life they go through many developmental stages until they master the language(s) they will use. “Language acquisition is part of the overall development of children physically, socially, and cognitively.” (Clark 181.) Many children are born in a family where two languages are used simultaneously and they will able to learn two or more languages at the same time. Most children encounter a second language after the age of three or four, and sooner or later they will start to acquire a second language. The aim of my thesis is to find an answer to the question: Is it good for a child to learn a second language as early as it is possible? Some might say children should acquire their mother tongue first, because they might get confused and mix up the two languages. It is also said that those children who learn two languages at the same time can suffer from neurological problems and they start to speak much later than the others. However most research concludes that there is no negative effect of bilingualism on the linguistic, cognitive or social development of children. By the age of four most children are already communicating well in their first language, and this is the age where they often meet new languages in a nursery school. When they reach this age, teachers should choose the best teaching method that help children to acquire the language. In my thesis I did an experiment using a teaching method, called Total Physical Response (TPR) between four and five year old Hungarian nursery school children. I tried to support those studies that claim this method to be the best way of teaching languages at a very early age.BSc/BAAnglisztik