The idea that CI will save the day and reform foreign language education in the U.S. got a bit of a makeover from Robert Harrell in an article he wrote here in 2016. As Robert implies below, he is not dissing the effectiveness of CI but rather he is questioning its ability to function in a school setting. The point he makes that it’s not the CI but the system it’s in.
Robert wrote (as early as 2016):
…I am increasingly convinced that the school setting is simply so unnatural that everything we do will always be an uphill battle until the system is reformed. Yes, I am a proponent of educational reform.
I just think that the current reform movement is utterly wrong about both what the problem is and what possible solutions may be – those solutions are most certainly not standardized testing and poorly trained deliverers of instructional services.
In my more pessimistic moments, I wonder if even CI is sufficient to overcome the system; will we hear former CI students also claim that they had four years of language and still can’t say anything?
And to what extent have other methods been unsuccessful for similar reasons, e.g. students are not truly “present” in class.