It is the focus on gains that inhibits are own ability to be enthusiastic each day. Unless we can expect new things, untargeted things, spontaneous and serendipitous things to happen, how can we get excited about our jobs?
We always seem to be “targeting” certain words connected to the textbook, the novel du jour, the thematic list, the high frequency list, etc. so that we can “make sure” that our kids learn them. Guess what? They don’t.
Think about the skills we who do non-targeted no longer worry about in our work – targeting and circling. Although those skills seem to be the big focus in CI instruction these days and have been for the past fifteen years (and I am glad that they still work for some – not blaming anyone here), they just don’t work for me and Tina and anymore. We want a higher, more fun, easier way to teach, and we have one now.
Targeting makes me think of guns, and circling makes me think of cats and laser pointers. They are weird and off-putting (again, just IMHO) ways of “attacking” the “problem” that our kids don’t know certain words, aren’t going to learn them. How sad. Can’t we really just enjoy our students and language gains happen if that is all we do? I personally think so. I know so.
When we don’t have to TEACH anything, just the curriculum itself – the LANGAUGE – then our enthusiasm never wanes and we like our jobs and look forward to doing them each day. Too strong a statement in support of non-targeted instruction? No, actually. No. Not at all.
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
