It occurred to me that if an administrator or, especially, parent of a child who believes, through the parent, that we should be conjugating verbs, then we could do this:
We teach using CI for about three weeks and then announce that the next week, about the fourth week or whenever, we will be doing a unit in the book. Then we find the most boring part of the book (there’s a weird thing to say – what part isn’t boring?), and for three days or so we teach like we did before. They fill in blanks. No whining from them.
At the end of that time, we vote – show of hands so all can see – on how we want to learn the language. They vote for CI, and the kid who could be a thorn in our side sees the vote and is forced to find another class or accept the way we do things.
It might work.