Of course I know CI works. It’s how people learn languages, in fact.
So here is yet another way to formulate my question:
“Is the little bit of CI that we can do in schools (relative to the amount of time needed for fluency) enough for us to claim that CI “works” in schools?”
Of course our claims are worthy and the happiness of our students strongly supports our position. But if we can’t measure their gains, except by smiles, then do we have a credible position in schools, where smiles hardly count?
If something is not visible, is it happening?
(The underlying thought here is that people learn languages naturally over really long periods of time but in school buildings that simple and natural, because unconscious, process is brought to its knees because what happens in schools is complicated, unnatural, and all relegated to the realm of the conscious mind – and all in very short time frames as well.)
So are we barking up the wrong tree in trying to make CI work in schools? Are our best efforts to direct our language instruction to the unconscious minds of our students realistic, even though we know that the only place where language acquisition can occur, where the submerged part of the iceberg can be built up, is in the unconscious mind?)
Schools aren’t about learning. They never were. They are places where people think themselves to death. The artist in this video has a point: