Move Your Students with Kinesthetic Learning and TPR in ESL

Watch any one of my classes and you will see my students moving in their ESL activities. There might be Grade 1 students holding up their fingers to practice numbers one through ten, or miming that they’re firefighters, tigers or flying kites. You could see Grade 3 students practicing prepositions and adjectives with their hands and fingers. You might see Grade 5 students acting out a story or walking around to survey their classmates. In the last few years I’ve made kinesthetic learning, TPR, and movement key components of my ESL activities in all of my lessons because they’re a basic necessity of both life and learning. With these techniques my ESL classroom management has gotten easier, my students have learned faster and we’ve all had more fun.

What is Kinesthetic Learning, TPR, and Movement in ESL?

Kinesthetic learning is a ‘hands on’, ‘doing’ approach that uses body and hand motions for learning. Children learn through things like manipulating objects, dance, drama, mime, and craft activities.

A form of kinesthetic learning is Total Physical Response, or TPR. It’s a “language-body conversation” that mimics real world interactions between parents or educators and children. The adult speaks and the child responds with their body such as with “give me the red ball” or “close your eyes.”

Finally, movement is a more general term that includes additional actions like walking around the classroom to find partners, changing chairs or moving to sitting on the floor, and pointing to things.

Why use Kinesthetic Learning and TPR in ESL Activities and Lessons?

We all have to move – especially kids. Movement is essential for health and learning for everyone but this is often ignored in schools. The lack of movement in classes is one of the key causes of behavior problems and lowered learning outcomes. I’ve observed it in many preschool and primary lessons. There are several reasons for this.

Growing Bodies & Brains

First, children’s bodies are growing rapidly and their muscles are always developing. They feel a deep need to practice using both their large and small muscles. The younger they are the more frequently they need short spurts of movement.

Kinesthetic and TPR activities are great for getting everyone moving at the same time. When you see your students are distracted and shifting restlessly then you’re seeing that need in action.

Make the Abstract Concrete

Second, children use their bodies to create and understand meaning in their worlds. The younger they are the less they can understand abstract ideas. They learn through concrete, real things.

For example, learning numbers comes from playing with or counting real objects such as their fingers or toys. Also, waving their arms quickly and slowly is more meaningful than trying to make sense of flashcards for fast and slow. Finally, learning prepositions by playing with their hands or classroom objects is better for them then just looking at a few pictures.

Stronger Connections

Third, the more connections children make to concepts then the more likely they are to remember them in the long term. Miming words in TPR activities helps students create additional links in their brains beyond just seeing a flashcard, hearing a word, and writing it down. The more links they have then the more likely they are to remember something in the long term.

Keep Them Alert

Finally, moving big muscle groups (arms and legs) gets their blood to move faster through their bodies. This brings oxygen to their brains faster and helps with thinking, making memories, and learning in general. Whenever my students look sleepy or lethargic then I set up up an energetic TPR ESL activity to get their blood flowing again.

When to use Kinesthetic Learning and TPR in ESL Activities and Lessons

I consider several factors when using kinesthetic learning, TPR and movement in my lessons.

Age

To begin with, I think about my students’ age. The younger they are the more often they need to move. For a preschool class of students 3 to 5 years old this means using a short TPR activity every 5 to 10 minutes. In a class of Grade 5 students I only need one movement activity for every 30 to 40 minutes.

Very young learners also can’t handle kinesthetic activities for very long; they can get easily overstimulated or exhausted. They often just need a minute or two for a quick game or song.

Lesson Length

Next, I consider the length of the lesson. Like above, students need to move every once in a while to avoid getting restless. Longer lessons (more than an hour) need several opportunities for movement, especially in the latter half of the lesson.

That said, even a short 30 minute lesson benefits from one or two quick ESL activities with movement.

Time of Day

I also consider the time of day. Activities with lots of big muscle movements are great for waking students up or burning off excess energy. I plan these early in lessons that take place after nap-time in preschools or towards the end of the school day when students are restless and ready to go home. Students tend to need less energetic activities in the mid or late morning.

Fun!

Lastly, I look at my lesson plan and see if there are any points that need a little extra fun. If my lesson has students sitting still for too long then that’s a recipe for difficulty. I’ll look to adapt an activity or squeeze in a quick bit of fun movement to help students get through any dull or tiresome stretches.

How to use ESL Activities with TPR and Kinesthetic Learning

Miming

One of the best ways to use kinesthetic learning and TPR in ESL classes is to develop mime actions (they don’t actually have to be silent) for your vocabulary and target language.

Children find this both entertaining and meaningful. Students can act like firefighters, teachers, doctors or police officers. They can scratch like cats, pant like dogs, or hiss like snakes. They can demonstrate prepositions and numbers with their hands and fingers.

Sometimes you need a little creativity, but you can teach mime actions for most common preschool and primary nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

Talk With Your Body

Another technique for movement is to use pointing or standing up and sitting down. You can put words, flashcards, or answer cards (A, B, C, D…) around the room for students to point at. They can stand up for “yes” and sit down for “no” to answer your questions. This lets your students move around at their desks when running or walking around isn’t possible.

We should always remember that each student needs to be able to move. A lot of ESL activities suffer from low rates of participation; only one or a few students play at a time while the rest of the class watches. Waiting and watching do not count as movement and these often lead to more behavior problems.

Great ESL activities for kinesthetic learning.

Here are some great activities that you can use in your lessons. They’ve got movement, high rates of participation, and are awesome for classrooms with limited space. Just click the hyperlinked name for more information.

Drill Sergeant: Simpler than Simon Says; students listen to the teacher and mime the actions as fast as the teacher speaks.

Stand Up/Sit Down: Students listen to their teacher’s questions or True/False statements. They stand up or sit down for yes/no or true/false.

Flashcard Safari: Students point or mime photographing word cards, answer cards, or flashcards around the room while the teacher speaks.

Hands on Heads: Divide the class and vocabulary into two separate groups. Call out a word alone or in a sentence and students from that group put their hands on their heads.

Flashcard Groups: Divide the vocabulary into multiple groups and assign each group an action (clap your hands, jump, stand up, sit down, pump your fist, etc.). Call out the vocabulary individually or in sentences while students listen and do the matched actions.

Speed Speak & Listen Quick: Students play in small groups either commanding their classmates to do an action or eliciting a sentence from their classmates by miming or pointing.

Listen and Point: Students play in small groups with a shared activity paper. One student calls out a word and their classmates rush to point at the correct picture on the paper.

Clay Dictations: Students listen to their teacher’s descriptions and use modeling clay to make monsters, animals, people, or other things.

Running Dictation: Students run/walk to stations to read a message and then dictate it to their classmates in small groups. This is great if you have space for students to move safely about.

More Opportunities for Kinesthetic Learning and Movement in ESL Lessons

You can build movement into more than just your ESL Activities. Two of my favorite points are in routines and songs.

Routine Movement

Movement goes great with routines. Near the start of my VYL and low grade classes we play Drill Sergeant with action commands. I call out common commands (stand up, sit down, turn around, look at me, hands up, hands down, be quiet, listen, open your book, etc…) and the students do the actions as quickly as I call them out. This gets them moving and reminds them of useful language they’ll need for the lesson to go smoothly.

In addition, incorporating movement into your attention routines makes them more lively and better for getting your students’ attention. I love Happy Claps in part because the movement is fun and engaging for students.

Songs

I also make sure to include movement in all of my songs with VYLs and young primary students. The choreography is great for adding meaning for students, focusing them, and working off some excess energy.