Jeanette has more experience than most of us. She shares her thoughts here on untargeted input. Jeanette has also authored an important, more general article in the collection of Primer articles on the hard link at the top of this page.
Hi Ben,
I just read most of the replies to Beth on Facebook. Wow.
I just thought I would add my support for what you and Tina and others are learning more and more about and advocating for: non-targeted input.
As you already know, I am very hesitant to post anything. This comes from a fair amount of criticism, a lack of support for, and a general lack of understanding of how amazing non-targeted input is for L2 students. For many years.
A couple of days ago, on the newly created CI Lift page, I posted information re: my non-targeted CI research. The research design was rigorous – Iowa State University is a tier-one research institution. I worked hours on it. Just a few years later my district trashed the elementary program that my research proved was helping young L2 learners via non targeted CI. Unfortunately, on CI Liftoff the only person who acknowledged so far what I have contributed has been Beniko.
I am not complaining. On the contrary I am congratulating you on initiating this amazing rebirth of a way of teaching that was “all the rage” at the elementary level prior to 1990 and a few years after. And then, TPRS came to be. The same grammar-focused teachers who did not support the elementary non-targeted CI would criticize and attack TPRS.
But you, and Beniko, and Tina, and others and me too (for now anyway) will do what we can to give our students some joy while we have fun teaching with non-targeted CI. And, by our example, we will help new teachers who are open-minded experience it as well.
Best,
Jeanette