When we don’t target, we are much more aware of the kinds of cool sentences described in the last post because when we don’t target we align with the flow of language and not shackled language. Thus, everyone who works with NTCI eventually creates their own process.
Non-targeting (Invisibles, OWI, etc.) frees our work. Like if a (well-trained, i.e. clever and humor-filled) kid in your class says, “Don’t drop it!” in answer to your question in some story, “What did he say next?” and you sensed when the kid said it a certain kind of invisible resonance with the sound of those words “Don’t drop it!” a certain rhythm in it that might make a good chant, then the story, the words in it, the setting, everything can now be ignored for the beauty and fun of just saying that one sentence in ways that penetrate the mind and resonate throughout the classroom. You are then setting up the Din*.
When you let the story develop around these “insight moments” then the story grows wings of its own, and you don’t have to work so hard because you follow the story (kids are involved) and the story doesn’t follow you (kids not involved). While milking that one sentence, you are inwardly planning to now let the story follow in THAT direction, wherever it goes. You ask yourself “Where is this going?” and you realize you don’t need to decide that anymore, but just watch it develop naturally by itself. You learn to follow the energy of the story so as not to deplete your own energy.
*Krashen’s term to describe the soup that exists in the unconscious mind of the student where the language is all arranged in what to the conscious mind is not understandable but is easy for the deeper mind and happens as if by magic below the surface – look it up for a less clumsy description and know that if you purport to be a language, you must grasp this fundamental aspect of language acquisition that it is an unconscious process. With the Din, the more CI, the thicker and tastier and more aromatic is the soup, and the more rapid is the language acquisition process.
