I know that in the law there are various levels of, for example, murder, premeditated being the worst. But do murderers avoid imprisonment when their crime was unintentional? No. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Similarly, in the last post here I tried to make the point that teachers who hurt children through ignorance is still on the evil spectrum. Ignorance of the research is no excuse.
So what do we do about the over 90% of language teachers who, ignorant of the research and of how people learn languages, pedal their same old textbook-based wares, foolishly not going deep with the research, even though for 20 years now many language teachers have known the deal about how people actually acquire languages?
Personally, each day that goes by without an earthquake happening in terms of people finally understanding the research and then acting on that knowledge, floors me. I don’t get it. We know what works (comprehensible input) and we know what doesn’t work (the textbook and targeting words from lists – what I call “Fake CI”) and yet the beat goes on and on and on and on.
Is it because most teachers don’t know about the research? That’s probably it.
But is lack of professional knowledge and lack of exploration of the research to be forgiven? Does the fact that children “only suffer mentally” and in terms of their self-esteem in language classes (vs. more visible crimes) let teachers off the hook?
When is this all going to change in favor of the students? 20 years ago we thought that the explosion of TPRS onto the WL scene would blow up the textbook. It hasn’t. Why? And is it an evil thing just because most people don’t see it as evil? What’s going on?
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyU0P6iqyw4 or even better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj8FlXGPcOQ