A truth that all teachers know is that students see through everything. If they sense that we are trying too hard for their approval, then their approval will always remain just out of reach.
If, on the other hand, the class is working together to create a story based on their characters, we find that students approve of our classes in a very unforced and natural way.
It’s a good kind of approval based not in how well we are teaching them because we are working so hard to make an interesting class, but rather simply because we are giving THEM the space to create, letting them feel as if they are happily running the class, when what is really happening is that we are sneaking in input, input and more input while they are totally focused on meaning.
This is the essence of CI – they are not aware of the massive gains they are experiencing bc it’s all happening at the level of the unconscious mind. They create, we provide input, it all happens w zero focus on the language. Fricking brilliant.
Just using the students’ creations as a base, and the levels of questioning (Invisibles) as your guide, then just letting the conversation unfold naturally, instead of forcing things, is the only way to really make a language class interesting.
Students are really funny, if we would just give the room, the mental space, to show it. A well-timed funny and insightful student comment at the right time is truly a moment of beauty in a storytelling class. But those moments don’t come from us!
In a counterintuitive twist, the more we give up trying to control things in a story, the more humor there is, and with lots of humor come lots of language gains. We need to give up control and just ask the next logical question.
Hafiz says it best: Trust what lifts the corners of the mouth to be true. Trust those faint smiles on the faces of your students that frequently occur during stories. The smiles of the students are there to guide you. They point the way! Tests can’t point the way to anywhere. They just depress.
Guidance will not come from our own worried minds about whether the story will be a good one that day or not. Let the kids take the lead. Trust them. Our students are a lot funnier and more imaginative than we think. We just need the right approach.