Ben,
A student I had last year came to the middle school today to visit and I ALMOST got teary eyed at what he told me. He is currently in Spanish 2 at the high school and he said that I was an awesome teacher, they learned so much and they learned more last year than they have this year. He ALSO said that last year in my class it seemed like we didn’t do much but they learned A LOT (emphasis on a lot), this year they do A LOT, they do more work, harder work, but they don’t learn much. He said my teaching style was really good and works really well.
Language acquisition IS an unconscious process after all.
Chris