Two girls just got upset because Kevin didn’t get into the story. They wanted him in it. Instead, Caitlin Jenner went over to the spider in the window and all the brocolli and cauliflower she had just eaten in a veggie restaurant on Rodeo Drive went spewing all over Vampspooder the Spider.
Now that may not seem like a big deal to us, but to these girls it was a disaster. Of course, I told them that their Kevin would appear in a later story and that somewhat placated them, but it revealed something really deep about this work that I wish to shine the light on here again. Mentioning it every day is not enough, even:
Students only want to know what happens. They could care less about the language.
When that happens, the language sneaks in under the radar, as it were, and goes straight to where it can actually be acquired in the real way, in sleep after the fact, in the deeper mind.
Therefore, we can only be successful in this work to the extent that we get our students focused on the message.
This is not some neat thing to say that is kind of consistent with the research. Rather, it is at the core of everything we do in our CI instruction.
That sentence above in italics needs to be said over and over. It must become a meditation in our CI classes. When we forget that idea and try to explain things about the language in bursts that last more than a few seconds, and if we kind of fall back into that half English/half TL thing, then we make it so that the kids aren’t focused on the message.
When we do that, we might as well just walk out of the room and go find some other line of work, because our students cannot learn when we merely speak about the language. We must speak the language, and not mix it with other languages. That’s it. It’s a wrap.
Students only want to know what happens. They could care less about the language.