I might not be a teacher, but as someone who has spent six months devouring anything and everything about CI in the past, I like to think that I know this and that.
(I have never thought I could hate the word immersion even more, but comprehensive immersion sounds so much worse, even though technically it is correct. INTJ problems, haha.)
Speaking is not prohibited. Forcing a student to speak by suddenly calling on them, thus putting an immense amount of pressure and anxiety on them, is or at least should be. You see, this raises something called the Affective Filter. When we are under stress or/and have anxiety the input won’t reach the language acquisition device, meaning it doesn’t matter how comprehensible the input is it won’t be acquired.
Now, you have a super advantage compared to someone like me. You have a native speaker! Talking with your wife is excellent opportunity for even more input. You could even discuss the topic of a liked video with her making it even more effective. Essentially you have direct access to Japan, haha. (I am so jealous! 
)
Talking is not prohibited at all. In a good program students are free to engage with the teacher when they feel like. Emphasis on the when they feel like. The point is, that simply talking won’t do anything. Talking and getting input through the conversation is brilliant, though. Some may object that, for example, student and student conversations are bad, because they can potentially acquire incorrect things, but through enough CI these things are corrected and the benefit of even more input outweighs these kind of concerns. After all we are not native speakers and we are bound to make mistakes. I am Hungarian and don’t get me started how bad my native language is. Agh, I like to say that English is more of a native language to me.
Ah yes, no dictionaries is a pretty hard rule I cannot drop. But, I shall be a bit less stubborn and advise you what Kato Lomb did in her book How I learn languages (1970). First try to figure it out. Look at the context, play with some ideas. When you still can’t get it, translate it. I rarely use a dictionary, out of laziness mostly, but I usually check a word to see if I guessed it right and I am always so proud of myself when I do. 
The reason why no dictionaries makes sense is, because if the word you don’t understand is a 1K-2K one, so a frequent one, it will pop up again. Eventually it will be explained somewhere, but for this to happen you need a lot of input. I rarely rewatch a video. This is actually accounted to the Story Listening method. Basically the very first CIJ videos with Yuki sensei talking while drawing on a whiteboard. Story Listening is connected to Beniko Mason who is Japanese as well. Dr Krashen and with Beniko Mason looked at what was the best thing to do after a Story Listening session. It turned out that telling another story, so more input, was the past way and lead to the most acquired words. My days can be really busy at times and my attention is incredibly poor, so I am happy when I finish my daily goal of 2 hours. I have no energy to go dictionary hunting, even though I have one on my phone.
Ah yes, one thing that might be good down the road, or now given I don’t know your level haha, is a single language dictionary which explains the words in Japanese. Now that is good. I had to bully my friend into using one for English because he expected to acquire words from English literature which were waaaaaay above his level. After weeks of me picking on him and also he getting bored of constantly translating he started translating less and only when he couldn’t understand the story. Guess who came to me saying I was right, hehe.
Again, I am a lazy sack of rice, so I cannot be bother as of now.
To this I once again can only suggest what Kato Lomb did in her book. Namely only note down what you have understood and not what you didn’t. Since you have a native speaker readily available you could do little situations which can be used in real life. Noting those down can serve as practice for kanji as well. The audio-lingual method featured something like this, well, the World War 2 original version. Where the previously drilled in situations were practiced with a native speaker one on one. Naturally, the drills were kept, but the native speaker part got eliminated in the audio-lingual method.
Journaling also seems popular, again, I am too lazy and my eyes don’t really work after 9 pm, haha.
Hmm, I mean you can ask questions, but that is more linguistics, than input. Again, if you do it in Japanese, that is good. If it is in English, that won’t really help.
Not long ago I got curious why “shika”, only, is followed by a negative form. Well, I got no answer to that, but everyone made sure to let me know that it is always followed by the negative. Yes I know, thanks for telling me the obvious…. Grammar is just, ugh. A language is alive and changing, grammar rules can define the general ways, but a lot of things have to do with culture. Just take keigo for example, the formal language in Japanese. Just, because you have said it in keigo it doesn’t mean it is correct. Certain words work only in certain situations. Grammar cannot account for them.
My man, I have an excel spreadsheet with my daily input hours, haha.
Once again, if it is in Japanese, than it will help your acquisition given it is comprehensible. If not, it serves as linguistical interest and maybe motivation. The main idea should be acquisition first, fun second. As long as you get plenty of input it doesn’t really matter what you will do afterwards. Just make sure not to pause 19 times in a 6 minute video, haha.
Also, you having learnt that many individual words isn’t bad at all, at most useless. I can imagine a lot of them won’t pop up naturally in your head when the need arises, but that’s how everyone starts. First words, then phrases, then half sentences/simple sentences and at last more and more complex thoughts. (Phases of speech emergence)
At last I will leave you with some real material which might help satisfy your thirst for more or give some hope.
The sacred text of language acquisition the 1983 The Natural Approach. The sole thing you need to understand CI.
The greatness and absolute legend that is Kato Lomb the first simultaneous interpreter in Europe. She is Hungarian too, but Hungary has completely forgotten about her even though she technically promoted CI before even it was a thing.
Hope this helps.
. I am also blowing off some steam ‘kvetching’ here but still would like to hear from the instructors (or students) if possible how one can reconcile this seeming incongruity of Adults trying to learn a language the way Children naturally do.
(my total lifetime hours is only 74 hours though lol so I’m definitely not an expert on CI)
)
