What warms a language teacher’s heart

I used to teach languages in secondary school. Even before it became fashionable to do so, I used to explain to my students at the beginning of my lesson what we were going to do, what the object of the lesson was, what they would be able to do by the end of it, and how they might extend themselves even further. There would always be an open-ended task at the end, a sort of “differentiated by outcome” task, which all pupils could do at their own level and take some pride in. This task would have a purpose which went beyond language learning. It was all about giving them a purpose for learning and it would nearly always lead up to some connection with our exchange school.
All of this would of course be done in the “target language” – the language they were learning. I did this as well before it became fashionable. I’d had enough contact with French, German and Dutch school where English is spoken all the time in English lessons to know it can work, when the teacher is determined enough to be understood and the students are determined enough to understand. Motivation is the key.
One day I explained all about what we would be doing that lesson. I can’t remember the details now, but t was towards the end of the first term in Year 7 – i.e. 11-12 year olds, first year of learning French in this case and this was leading up to them being able to write about themselves so that they could be hooked up with a French penfriend.
One of my middle-of-the-road students suddenly let a huge sigh and said in a loud voice “Je déteste le professeur!” (I hate the teacher!) But I was delighted.
• She had been completely spontaneous.
• She had used French for her own purposes.
• She had thought outside the box. We had learnt about likes and dislikes in the context of hobbies. She had learnt the word for teacher in the context of learning about school. Students can often be very topic-bound and not apply vocabulary and structures they have learnt in one topic to situations in another.
I didn’t mind being hated, and I don’t think she really meant it anyway. Her joyful use of the language was heart-warming.
Are you a language teacher? Do you have any heart-warming moments to describe? What are your pet methodologies? What do you think of use of the target language?