I posted this in early May and had to push it back until now because the queue was too jammed. It’s starting to get a little unjammed now. I had just visited a classroom where the teacher laid a bunch of incomprehensible input on the kids as they walked in. It shocked them and me. And she expected them to respond!
What do you all think about requiring a level one class, once they enter the classroom, to speak in the target language? I think it’s totally stupid. The kids are thousands and thousands of hours away from being able to output speech. OK maybe a Bonjour. But not what I just saw this teacher doing.
The kids come into the room, get hit with “French only” and their eyes widen with apprehension. Shit. Why the apprehension? Because the teacher speaks to them using incomprehensible input. We can’t do that! It’s got to be either CI or the highway. And yet I hear both of these things being done routinely by too many teachers. When will we ever get it about speech output/sBI?