The old way in foreign language instruction, the Orc way, the way of dominance by ugliness in foreign language instruction – and what they do with those textbooks and computer programs is pretty ugly with not even a shred of hope of being beautiful and uplifting to kids – is raising its head and is on the march. In the minds of many kids the Illuminati are in charge and there is no hope. They come into our classrooms with masks on and we give them no reason to remove them. I ask the question again – where is hope going to come from if not from those members of society who teach our nation’s kids? Parents can barely get to work these days, and they must have help.
Is the analogy so far fetched? Is there not great damage coming from Sauron (the textbook companies and those who dismiss anything new in our profession) and from Lord Saruman (dumb ass administrators whose job it is to assist in reform in education)? Haven’t kids not suffered enough by being taken prisoner – literally – and being in a way mentally tortured every day (that vast majority of them who can’t do the grammar) when they go into the Orc Schools? I make no apologies for pushing the analogy so far here. To me the battle is very real – some of the individual stories I read here lately and in private emails grieve me – and since this is my blog I get to share what I want.
Lord Gandalph (Krashen), the Elven King (VanPatten), Frodo (Blaine), Samwise (Susan Gross) have all convened at Rivendell and similar meetings (in the form of CI conferences each summer) continue. The little party of CI teachers are currently in the mines of Mordor, trying to find their way to Barad Dur with the Ring (the textbook). It must be destroyed if the lands of men, the elves, the dwarves and the hobbits are to be freed from the mental tyranny of stupid language teaching.
The larger battles (Helm’s Deep) are in the future. Many will fall. Much hope will be lost. How will this play out? Will Sauron and boring ass foreign language teaching carry the day? Or will the hobbits succeed in fighting against what now seem like insurmountable odds? Will CI teachers cause such a stir in our profession so as to allow Blaine to struggle with Gollum (Helena Curtain) on that slab of rock at the top of the mountain and win the battle for kids’ hope and self esteem and humanness in foreign language classrooms?
The answer to those questions is up to us hobbits. We are the ones who will define what foreign language teaching looks like in this new century.