A colleague described the current state of CI, as well, in this way:
As far as I can tell, this is the business model of all the people capitalizing on the CI movement:
To access a blog or post on a blog they ask you to become a member by providing an email that goes into their database. From there they start bombarding you with everything from FB groups, YouTube daily videos, webinars, self-paced course, podcasts, meetings in Instagram, “free” stuff and of course their services to schools ( that’s where they make their most). All PLC communities have some kind of fee involved.
In short, they hustle – they have strong social media presences and are constantly posting everything everywhere to eventually sell their product. They attend conferences and provide in-person trainings through third parties as well. Their mission is to make money, Education and research-based second language acquisition training is lost in the bottom line of their products.
Three districts in my area have now purchased the TPRS curriculum and two others the M. Bex SOMOS curriculum
[Ed. note: Both the TPRS curriculums and the SOMOS curriculums, in my view, which is a research-based view, cover for their entire middle and high school programs, with training as well. Just as with the old textbook model, once a district spends $10,000 to $15,000 on a set of textbooks or – now – on these new kind of non-researched based “CI” materials and “CI” trainings, they want the school departments to be happy. But they cannot be happy because the materials they are using were purchased from people whose goal was to sell, not to improve the movement. This is a tragedy that benefits the sellers but not the children. When this new brand of CI “experts” has its only goal to make money, they tend to ignore what new teachers actually need – good information that aligns w the research. So that greed trickles down to the teachers whose time and money are drained buying and studying products that don’t really work – even though they look like they work – to make sales of up to five figures ($10,000 or more per training) that school districts buy for teachers who sadly, don’t even want to leave their treasured textbooks and so don’t benefit. The beat goes on and on. And the kids lose out. That’s what greed does, and we end up with decaying societies in free fall on all levels. Conclusions: Unbridled greed causes people to suffer. Bad people cause innocent people to suffer. I think that children are suffering enough right now.]
