This is from Jim on planning our CI lessons:
I do a lot of my backward planning from songs. Of course, this isn’t always the most efficient form of planning (yet), because songs contain an array of high frequency structures and words that we may not be able to get nicely packaged in the form of an LICT story, or a awesome Matava script, or whatever. And sometimes it just isn’t realistic or desirable to do a student script.
What if PQA and stories and chants and songs were just mixed into one big ‘ole blunder of CI, called CI, in whatever interesting, or better yet, compelling form it may come. We could practice and test each other by giving each other 2-3 structures, and go right then and there. You have to use those assigned structures in CI that will be interesting enough for the student to listen to you, and be able to change things up enough to not lose their attention. On The Fly lesson “planning”.
The less we plan – the less we are what Ben calls the “flailingly prepared teacher” – perhaps the better we will become at the art of CI.