Teaching exposure

This comes before interpretation, at the never ending stage of language acquisition. I am flabbergasted by a note I read in relation with the school where I am teaching a single weekly course in Tokyo. Thanks God, I don't teach French. I teach them to think and act about interpretation between Japanese and French. It goes beyond interpretation because most do not have an adequate level, not to interpret, but first, to listen and understand. They are rated as higher level students, but when it comes to listening, they usually score poor. I was punched in the plexus to read about an issue with class teaching speed concerning lower level students that according to a teacher's perception "learners are learning a language culturally and linguistically located far away, to which they are exposed 3 hours a week."

You know what? If such is the case, teachers are criminals not to teach learners strategic methods of getting further exposed to the language outside the classroom. In 2009, with all the technology and content around, they are kidding themselves and the students at that. Massive exposure, language shower, listen until you die, shadowing marathon, whatever will do. Show them what's around. Wet their appetite for out-of-the-class me-alone activities. What's the fear? That the aware students won't go back to school? At least in Japan, they will. Make then crave for more and they will come back to courses that actively take into account what they watched or listened to outside.