I deeply feel that we in teaching are in the midst of a profound shift in education from the mind (the science of teaching) to the heart (the art of teaching). We are learning, and quickly now, to rely more on the web of connection that exists among all of us in the classroom than on anything […]
Look at Grant Boulanger’s powerful example of untargeted, unscripted student interaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JszVvKn3jVo&feature=youtu.be Now ask yourself what would be lost in this beautiful human interaction had Grant’s intention been to say “needed to brush her teeth” over seventy-five times in the class. Indeed, it is obvious that Grant’s intention here is to get to know the
In this new untargeted work, we must keep front and center in our consciousness that we still must absolutely shelter vocabulary and unshelter grammar. This TPRS mantra has been true for decades, though it is often ignored by practitioners, coaches and trainers, and it is still true in this vision of untargeting our input.
When we target structures in order to teach them, we break down language into pieces as opposed to teaching language as an organic, unified and naturally emerging whole. The pieces become more important than the whole, and the result is a deterioration in interest. When the story necessarily become secondary to those targeted structures, it then comes as
This past year, in working with the untargeted storytelling approach with the Invisibles, in giving up the idea that I needed to start my stories with the classic TPRS list of three target structures, I found more happiness and ease in storytelling than I had ever experienced. And now I can’t not share. It is
