I feel that I have finally uncovered, via bloody hands and fingers, the nature of this work. I feel as if I’ve been off track for fifteen years now. It is because I worked in schools, so no blame. I see now that the real nature of this work with comprehensible input lies in being soft with the kids and not worrying so much about hammering or repeating structures. There is a profound difference between what TPRS/CI instruction has become and what it can be.
Somewhere along the way, we got stuck in our minds with this work. Slowly over the past twenty years, and against the original insights of Krashen and Ray, we have bent the original idea of comprehension based instruction and stories to fit into what we do in schools. The biggest mistake we made was to put an inordinate focus on the so–called TPRS skills of circling, target structures, teaching to the eyes, SLOW, staying in bounds, etc.). Yes, the skills are important, but they are not everything. We must go deeper.