Kevin asked about where some of see this thing going. In a comment, I compared the situation we are in to a being at the butt end of an elephant. I said that the situation we are in stinks. Here are a few additional thoughts on a Sunday morning:
The 96% of students who find themselves unhappy in their foreign language classrooms (most of which are, importantly, run by 4%ers) are not even remotely conscious that there is another way to do things, a way that would bring them success. Therefore, most will give up and dismiss their grammar driven/computer driven (computers can’t teach languages) class as just another boring class. Such students leave at ridiculous rates, so that schools shouldn’t even call their what they offer in languages as “programs”. Rather, they are more aptly termed “language drop out factories”.
In a few weeks here in Denver ACTFL will prove that again. With the exception of very few teachers (Carol Gaab, Bryce Hedstrom, etc.) who are devoted to spreading the message of comprehensible input even in a hostile environment, most presenters at ACTFL will be there to sell books or some kind of computer driven approach to language learning that really doesn’t work. Carol and Bryce will feel the heat and have learned not to use terms like Krashen, TPRS, Blaine Ray, etc. when they present.
The result is that the 96% of students who are not served by the former 4%er students – now teachers – who occupy roughly 99% of the language classrooms in the country are quite powerless to make any changes and, unlike the current vocal 99% in the streets drawing attention to the economic situation in the country, the idea that students could make a difference in this argument is ridiculous. They are similar to peasants in pre-revolutionary societies who don’t even know that change is possible.
This is true also of the teachers who have found a way to make the 96% enjoy their language classes and want to continue on via comprehensible input methods. Those teachers, many of us on this site, won’t be vocally occupying any schools in the country any time soon.
Most of us are just hiding in their classrooms, trying to figure out a way to do comprehensible input while being watched, in a tremendous irony, by the very teachers who are causing so much misery in children’s lives as they trample on dreams with verb conjugations, mostly unknowingly but, in the light of current research, that is no excuse. Very few have the support of their building administrators and colleagues. I count myself lucky.
It’s all about the tipping point concept. Whether the Occupy Wall Street movement eventually works depends on how many Americans, other than the vocal few now in the streets, buy in and add their voice and do something. There is some hope there right now.
But there is currently no action and therefore no real hope for any change in foreign language classrooms in the United States. Too many people are saying just take the high road and let our teaching do the talking. Now, let’s be clear – it isn’t talking very loudly.
The ignorance of most administrators on top of the ignorance of the vast majority of teachers and the 100% ignorance of students and parents on this point seals the deal. It is highly doubtful that the battles in the streets will be moving into classrooms any time soon. People aren’t making any noise. There is no ass being kicked. That is because kicking the ass of an elephant is hard to do and, even if successful, the elephant would hardly notice it.
The teachers who understand comprehensible input fail at much too high a rate to make the method work in their classrooms, and those who do get stifled by those around them who don’t. Private sites like this appear to protect free and open discussion, so that discussion like this one can be shared with people of like minds without professional backlash, but we are just too few and far between, literally, to be of any consequence until a tipping point is reached. A tipping point will be reached, just not for a long, long time.
It’s a grim situation, and why I responded to you before, Kevin, as you are new to all of this, that the CI movement doesn’t amount to much more than a sliver in the behind of an elephant, occasionally irritating the elephant enough to rub its behind against a tree, which just crushes the sliver even more.
This is going to take some time.