EFL teaching in recent years has focused on keeping students active and engaged in class. Group and pair activities, such as role-playing exercises and problem-solving tasks, are among the popular ways to ensure students practice their English skills. These activities typically involve students moving around the classroom several times in any given class session to ensure they practice their skills with as many different people as possible. Some teachers worry that such movement wastes valuable class time and may distract students from their learning. In a 2000 journal article, Christopher Kelen, however, asserts that exactly the opposite is true. When students are required to move actively as part of their learning, he argues, they associate movement with language learning and come to see language learning as a process requiring agency and engagement, rather than passive absorption of information.
In his 2000 article, Christopher Kelen also notes that teacher motion in the classroom can be either helpful or potentially intimidating to students. In EFL classes carried out with seats arranged in a traditional grid pattern, the teacher must walk through rows of students to monitor the progress of pair or group activities. The feeling of being suddenly scrutinized when the teacher stops moving can make students self-conscious, which can cause them to stop talking. As an alternative, Kelen suggests arranging seats in two concentric circles (with the students in the inner circle facing those on the outside), and positioning the teacher in the middle of the inner circle. This allows the teacher to monitor the activity of individual students just by turning in his or her seat. By moving less, the teacher facilitates student use of English and has a less obtrusive way to monitor student progress.
In some EFL teaching theories, motion is not just an instructional aid, but an essential component of learning. Total Physical Response (TPR), for instance, is a teaching method based on the theory that language can be learned and remembered only if associated with physical movement. In a TPR classroom, adult learners of English are conditioned to respond physically to spoken English before being required to speak it: this is analogous to the way that babies respond physically to spoken language before they are physically capable of speaking. TPR classroom activities include having students physically respond to verbal cues (by acting out English commands, for instance).
EFL teachers who do not adhere to TPR methodology also incorporate physical motion into classroom activities. In EFL methodologies such as the Natural Approach, teachers promote student comprehension of spoken English by speaking to students in English and using gestures and pantomime as visual aids when introducing new vocabulary or grammatical structures. Another common EFL teaching technique is to have students manipulate physical objects (such as puzzles or models in need of assembly) according to instructions written in English.