We need to go over every second of what we do in a story with a fine toothed comb. Obviously that is impossible here in this blog space but I just want to say it.
I believe that a big answer to our ongoing struggles lies in our initiating a deep and exacting, even unrelenting collection of observed teaching actions about what we do in each moment of a story and in each moment of a class. We have been discussing how we do stories in a far too generalized way for far too many years. We need to be more scientific about it. Pro golfers and other athletes have machines that analyze their swings, etc. We can do the same thing for our teaching. Just thinking out loud here.
If Krashen did it then we can do it. What does that mean? Here is a guy who has told us that he is happiest when alone in a room crunching numbers, and who then concluded from all that number crunching that “the path of pleasure” is the only way to truly learn a language. We might want to take a look at what we are doing on a minute to minute basis in our classrooms to answer the question: “Do we encourage or discourage our students with instruction that is fun, brings them pleasure, or not?”
Do we focus more on making the input merely comprehensible or do we also make a conscious effort to make it fun as well? It’s a good question.