I’m always thinking about CI – making connections to the natural world (check out
this post on CI and Horsemanship), sports, and more. And if I’m not thinking about it, then it noodles around in the back of my head until a connection is made. You might say there are…. six degrees of separation between me and CI!
According to Wikipedia:
“Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other. Often called as 6 Handshakes rule. As a result, a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.”
I’ve shared before that I had surgery on my foot right before Thanksgiving. It had me bummed for a while because it slowed me down. I mean, REALLY slowed me down. As in, almost a standstill.
But you know what? That hasn’t been such a bad thing after all. As I am constantly reminded by my excellent doctor, the foot is a very slow healer. And it makes sense, too, given how important it is to the overall functioning of our bodies. Without feet, movement is seriously hindered. They bear our weight. They are our very foundation. The last thing I want to do is try to rush the healing process by doing too much – or worse – slowing it down altogether by causing additional damage. I definitely don’t want to walk around on a bad foundation – or have to repair the darned thing again.
And what, you might ask, do six degrees of separation and my foot have to do with CI????
Good question!
And the answer is, well, just this….
YOU CAN’T RUSH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION!
Every brain is unique – as in, no two brains are exactly alike. That’s because even though I say the exact same words and perform the exact same actions to my class of 30 students, their individual brains will create different synapses and create different maps to get to that information. Each will process at their own speed (NEVER at the speed I try to dictate).
Not only that, but what one student finds compelling will completely bore another. We need to repeat and repeat and repeat in a variety of contexts not because repetition is the key to acquisition. Rather, we need to try to hit that ONE instance of compelling content that will make the language stick.
It’s also not a race. There is no magic point to get to at the end of each school year. You get where you get in the time that you have. Forcing a syllabus of grammar points and vocab words onto students won’t make a single bit of difference if your goal is acquisition. In fact, it actually slows things down because the proper synapses can’t be grown. There will be too many or too few and the map to try to get to the storage cabinet of vocab words is too complicated to be accessible in a real-time conversation.
So, just as my foot is going to heal at its own, sweet pace. So, too, will language acquisition occur for our students. Let’s be comfortable going at their pace so those synapses can grow into a beautiful, meaningful, accessible language map.
*For more on repetition of structures, read this.
