When we do things we enjoy, we don’t get tired, and neither do our students. That is FLOW. When we teach our languages slowly and clearly, it energizes everyone in the classroom. When we enjoy FLOW, our hearts sparkle and our students’ hearts begin to sparkle as well. (It takes a lot to get teenagers’ hearts to sparkle, because of the abuse they have endured at the hands of the imposter language teachers.)
Isn’t that too much to say there, Ben? Abuse? Uhhh, not in my view. No. The way teachers have taught languages over the past decades is abusive. I would invite you to put on your gloves and go a few rounds with me on that point. You would lose. Why?
It is because real language teaching, the real kind, can really only be done through love. And we have lost sight of it. Something that infinite and we have lost track of it!
What is the real work, then? The real work for each of us is to simply find a way to reach our students’ hearts and, unlike other school subjects, the language will automatically be learned, and our students will find that they also are lovable (insert social commentary on present day America here).
Without the love, and without its reflection in our classrooms as social sparkle, we will experience nothing but the same old wooden responses from our students, the same kinds of responses that we get from students who are forced to learn grammar year after year, and who are forced to speak and write too early, which is idiocy.