I remember how I had to fill out forms that detailed what I was going to teach in class that day. I should have just written that I was going to use the language to try to build community, so that I could address the standard of Communication.
But I couldn’t just teach Communication – the people I worked for expected me to teach French in the same way that my colleagues in the building taught math and science. But that is certainly not what the research says about how people learn languages!
They wanted me to teach in the same way that every French teacher in the district did. That was necessary “in case a student transferred schools”. There is something seriously flawed in that line of reasoning.
Having studied the work of Steven Krashen and the work of the other CI pioneers, I now know that one cannot plan out a language class anymore than one can plan out a conversation with another person.
If you are new to our group, please check out Krashen’s five hypotheses before going deeper in. Just google that term to get a basic familiarity with them if you haven’t already done that.
There is also Krashen’s book Foreign Language Education – the Easy Way that I highly recommend. And there is also The Power of Reading, but really a thorough understanding of Krashen can be had if you just read Foreign Language Education – the Easy Way and his five hypotheses about comprehensible input.