Total Physical Response (TPR) and Join In

An important element in Join In is Asher's theory of Total Physical Response (TPR). According to this theory, learning is only stable and lasting when it involves the person as a whole on a visual, acoustic and physical level (the 'doing' areas). The belief that pupils have learned structures and vocabulary just because they have successfully completed exercises in a book is an illusion, or may be true only for that limited number of pupils who learn mainly through linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence.

One of the fundamental principles of cognitive psychology is that memory resides not only in the brain, but in the whole body. The pupil learns and retains information in their 'long-term memory' using the brain and the whole body. Current research supports this belief and stresses that class work must not be judged solely from the pages of an exercise book, but that pupils learn through songs, games and interviews as well.

The concept of regular testing has been revised to allow for continuous global assessment, which takes into account all proofs of learning and not only those specifically dedicated to assessment.

Join In's emphasis on the pupil as a person in the global sense can be seen in several ways: in exercises which stimulate all the different types of intelligence, in the way in which vocabulary and structures are constantly re-used, and above all in the characters and dramatisation.

The fact that the characters in the book grow with the pupils is obvious from the illustrations and in the way the characters think and talk. Pupils in their final year of Primary School, will not, therefore, find the characters that they met in earlier years of Primary School too childish for them to relate to. This is further proof of how much attention is paid to the person-pupil at the centre of the learning process.