How to get structure and still retain what one might call an “intuitive” curriculum? So let’s say we have a choice of our basic types of non-targeted strategies, for example Small Talk (Calendar/Weather), Card Talk, Word Chunk Team Game, etc. – the kind of things we do with beginners. The old thinking is that we devise a lesson plan to follow – X amount of time for the different activities, all following a nice thought-out plan, etc. But what Tina and I recommend is to not have a schedule and simply teach using one strategy for as long as the mojo is there. The idea is that it is not best if the instruction is tied to the old idea of what a curriculum is – pieces of the language delivered in packages at the right time. There is no right time, if the research is to be believed. The brain gets what it gets in no predictable sequence. So it is best, in our view, if the instruction is tied to the true curriculum – the language as a whole and not broken into little pieces. We just keep the CI flowing in ways that many of us are finding to work pretty well these days. So no planning. No resultant stress of trying to “teach something” and so all we have to do is just enjoy the flow of the conversation, which allows us to enjoy the kids. When they know that they are more important than the curriculum, then a tight, well-planned out instructional plan that is connected to a chapter in a book, a high frequency list, a thematic unit word list, all those things become less important than making genuine human contact with child. Then they learn.
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
