When we open our hearts to them and accept them as they sit there, looking for something real, they open their hearts to us. They change. We see them.
When our hearts are open to them, and their hearts are open to us, we both change. They see us. If this happens, more learning occurs. We call this kind of learning authentic acquisition.
The old way of teaching languages does not require the heart quality. It is a dusty old mind model. It’s Einstein: conscious thinking, memorization, logical analysis and boring. It’s not Krashen: sustained unconscious focus on the message (which is what real rigor is) and is interesting to our students because it involves no memorization whatsoever, just interesting messages.
When we use a narrative approach (CI), watching our students as they listen to us wanting to find out what is going to happen next, then the reciprocality of the human interaction drives acquisition, and we teach in uplifting space. It is not enough to have an open mind in our field – we must also have open hearts. Then our instruction can uplift them.
They then develop an appreciation for us and our teaching, and they show it during class. I think that that is very cool. Where is the proof in the pudding? When you play the Word Chunk Team Game. That’s when you can see them happily applying what they learned in class to the game. That’s when they have the most fun of the week.
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