Beginner Learners’ Perceptions of Gesture-Based Total Physical Response in Mandarin Tone Learning

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-809-2_7How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Beginner Learners; Hand Gestures; Total Physical Response; Tone

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine beginner learners’ perceptions of gesture-based Total Physical Response (TPR) activities for learning Mandarin tones and to describe learners’ tone production based on selected acoustic recordings. The method used was a descriptive mixed-methods design. Data collection methods include documentation, observation, and questionnaires. The documentation consists of recordings of numbers 1-10 to represent tones 1-4. These recordings are then analyzed using the Praat application. Observations during the one-semester learning process include noting hand gestures, both when playing games and when practicing tone pronunciation. Furthermore, data were collected by distributing questionnaires via Google Forms. The measurement scale uses a 1-5 Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree to agree strongly. The sample used was a saturated sample of 55 students. The findings indicate that learners perceived gesture-based TPR activities as helpful for learning and remembering Mandarin tones. The TPR method, in the form of whispering movements, tone relay, and even learning with hand gestures, was very helpful for learners’ memory and made them very happy to participate in the learning process. For future researchers, it is hoped that they will find additional TPR methods to help non-tonal learners learn tonal languages.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Elvira Septevany
AU  - Lu Xing
AU  - Arini Junaeny
AU  - Muhammad Riezal Adam
AU  - Liu Dandan
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/24
TI  - Beginner Learners’ Perceptions of Gesture-Based Total Physical Response in Mandarin Tone Learning
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Green Tourism Applied Science - Social Applied Science 2026 (ICoSTAS-SAS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 57
EP  - 67
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-809-2_7
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-809-2_7
ID  - Septevany2026
ER  -