If it is true that language instruction in the U.S. is broken – across the board in general – then let’s not pretend (just because teachers are trying to make the research around comprehensible input work) that it’s working.
My guess is that most language teachers are still mostly teaching using a 50 year old model – yes, still – but are hitching it to what they know about CI. I maintain that that cannot possible be done, and yet most “CI” teachers are doing that.
Now, if the system we are in is broken, then must there not be as a result perhaps a certain amount of brokenness in us as well? Is anybody feeling broken? My question is, “How could we not feel broken if the system that purportedly supports us is broken?”
What is this “CI brokenness” in us, we who feel it? Why are we not happy even though we are doing CI?
It is most likely because we are still failing to reach our students using contextual language that they understand in an effortless and pleasurable way. The result when this happens is that kids act out, showing us disrespect.
If we are feeling broken even though we have made our classrooms into the best CI classrooms we can, then we must ask if we are fully aligning with the research in our work with our CI students, and if we are working from a good classroom management plan.
When we admit to being broken as individual teachers, we invite a certain transparency and honesty about what we’re experiencing personally in our classrooms. Such transparency invites healing. Again, this post is only for those who can identify with the brokenness I’m talking about here.