Abstract:
This study evaluates the effectiveness of the total physical response (TPR) method for teaching Igbo to L2 learners. Specifically, it examines the effectiveness of audiolingual and TPR methods for teaching Igbo lexis and structure to L2 learners of selected gender(s), varying age brackets and varying family backgrounds. The experimental design is adopted. One hundred (100) students are drawn into control and experimental groups of fifty (50) students each, taught Igbo lexis and structure and evaluated. Data analysis, by using ANOVA at a 0.05 significance level, reveals that the students’ gender and age variations did not influence their performances, given that their significance levels are above 0.05. However, the type of family of the students, including their fathers’ and mothers’ jobs, affected the performances of the students in the experimental group while only the fathers’ jobs affected the performances of the students in the control group, as these variables fall below the 0.05 significance levels. The students taught with TPR performed better with a mean score of 48.54 and at a standard deviation of 22.22, which implies that more than half of the students achieved the mean score while the students taught with the audiolingual method had 16.72 mean score and a standard deviation of 16.39, which means that only few students in the group achieved mean score of the group. The study, therefore, recommends the use of the TPR method for teaching and learning Igbo in L2 classrooms.
