This is just my opinion:
When we go for massed repetitions we just can’t get to the human side in our classrooms, not really. We can’t seem to get a decent level of community going. But without a very high level of community – something I try to design like an architect designs a building in my own teaching practice – I personally cannot be happy in this work. It is just too boring. Targets work, but I find that when I try to teach using targets – and this is just my own personal opinion – my focus seems always on teaching the language and not the kids. That’s not why I became a teacher. When I focus on the language, my students know it. They know they aren’t the focus of the class. They see through my subtle ruses to construct a story about them. They see that I am really merely using the story as a delivery system for a curriculum. That is not what they want. They want community. They want to be the center of attention. Their gains are too limited when I teach the curriculum using stories, when I put the cart of words before the horse. It makes it very awkward for the horse. Not to mention that when I use stories to teach the curriculum there often seems to be in my classroom a strange flapping noise of two oversized feet hitting the floor whenever I walk around, and the rustling of clothes that are far too big for me, as I nervously try to make it funny, but not succeeding. Instead, I get weird guarded looks from my students as they try to figure out what the big red ball and long orange hair are doing on my nose and head.