This is a repost from 2007:
If new teachers, in their efforts to satisfy some kind of benchmark on some pacing guide, forget the kid, they will never effectively teach the benchmark anyway. The kid will only do enough to pass the class, and they won’t acquire much, leaving the foreign language profession with business as usual. Unless kids are brought emotionally into the class, with all their magic and light, teaching becomes just another mechanical exercise in left brain boredom.