I defend the right of teachers to teach as they think best, except when it is at the expense of children. The confidence of children, their well-being, their mental health and their self-image as capable life-long language learners, all of these things depend on whether the teacher uses CI or not.
The fact is that for a long time we have only been teaching to the few, to those five or six students in each class who can memorize, who dominate, who fit well into the American model of built-in exclusionary teaching and who will perpetrate it when they are adults.
Those few, who aren’t aware – so no blame on them – that they don’t like the idea that their classmates have the same right to succeed as they, will not respond well to the CI train as it rumbles through their town. But the idea that CI includes ALL of the students in the classroom in the spirit of the noble word “equity”, must be accepted now, and only the teacher can bring that acceptance.
Is wanting to teach in a way that includes all of the kids in the classroom fanatical? I don’t think so. Rather, I think that teaching in a way that EXCLUDES most of the kids in the classroom is fanatical.