Live in your classroom in full confidence that the next moment will manifest safely, creatively, just as the next note manifests in a piece of jazz, naturally. The next note is the next word or word group. Language is not predictable and controlled, but by its very nature free.
This is called teaching from faith and trust. Either we learn how to trust that the language we want to happen will be there, or we don’t. Either we turn our profession over to the natural dignity inherent in our profession using CI, or we forfeit our own dignity, because we convey to the students that we have an agenda that we need to convey, to sell to them, which turns them away.
I am proposing a vastly increased awareness of how our instruction FEELS when we are teaching. We must allow the dance, the music, the language, to create itself instead of being forced down the line of thinking, of “covering” certain material.
Acquiring a language is not a struggle. Natural teaching happens in a measured, relaxed, paced, balanced unfolding that allows us to not carry on our shoulders the success or failure of the class, but instead allows the next moment, the next beat of the song, the next words, to emerge naturally. It’s a good way to feel, to work, to live.