The Effect of Affection on English Language Learning of Children with Intellectual Disability Based on Total Physical Response Method of Language Teaching

Teaching English as a foreign language to mentally retarded persons is much more complicated than normal EFL learners, and it requires specific techniques and methods. Giving affection by the teacher is assumed to be an effective way to overcome limitations caused by intellectual disability. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of teaching with affection on English learning of children with intellectual disability. The participants in this study are 18 males and females with mild retardation between 6 to 14 years old. Before the random division of the two groups and conducting the pre-test, the Goodenough Psychological Test was conducted to evaluate the mental age of the participants. Also the standard Test of Language Development (TOLD) was used for assessing their native language development. The results of these two tests showed that all of them were mildly disabled and their native language development was the same, then they were randomly divided in two groups. After the pretest and checking the homogeneity of the control and the experimental groups, there was a treatment. The treatment comprised in teaching a list of 13 English imperative forms. The words in the target sentences were chosen based on the TPR method of language teaching, however only the experimental group were exposed to affection. After analyzing the data it was proved that giving affection to mentally retarded learners of English language in the age of Childhood (up to 14 years) triples the outcome of the instruction. This indicates not only the feasibility of learning a foreign language to them, but also the importance of teacher's positive behavior during the instruction.