Before I learned what is to me the secret of comprehensible input, its FLOW, I was always nervous when teaching. I was trying to get things done a certain way. I was very much focused on if my students were paying attention to me. I was in charge, and very much attached to results. I was blind then.
Now, I just let the gentle FLOW of language happen between me and the kids. I don’t try to control what they learn so much anymore. Just letting language happen, without feeling any great need to be in charge, but rather just letting the process of language take over, is almost a kind of sacred thing. It sure has changed my idea of what a teacher is.
We work too hard. I am no longer attached to results but to the process of CI. Not surprisingly, my students are responding to this week’s district testing with great confidence and poise. The means have justified the end. My vision of what teaching languages is has been corrected.