Have you ever ordered breakfast in a southern-style restaurant?  No matter what you order, you get grits with it.  It comes with everything.

You order eggs and you also get this white stuff on your plate.  So you call the waitress over and say, “I didn’t order this!”

She says, “Honey, you don’t have to order grits, you just get grits with every meal.”

You tell her, “Well, I’m not paying extra for grits!”

But she tells you, “Honey, you don’t have to pay for grits.  It’s free with every order.”

You get grits no matter what you order.  Whatever you decide you want to eat, grits just come with it.

That is what acquisition is like.  What we serve up to our students is content, what they get right along with it is acquisition. We set out to teach stories, jokes, history, legends, geography, politics, music, dancing, customs–anything, really.  We focus on topics that will engage and benefit our students; information and ideas that will be of interest and also help them to understand the culture.  We establish meaning and we present it in the TL.  We stay in the TL at least 90% of the time.  We talk about it in the TL.  We explore it in the TL.  We have fun with it.

And while we are enjoying, exploring and talking, our students get acquisition.  They cannot help it.  When our students are engaged in content, when we stay in the TL and they understand, they acquire the language.

Acquisition is like grits. It comes free with every engaging lesson we serve up.

Grits just come to you.  And grits are good.