Here’s an update from Inger:
Dear Ben,
Before last school year, I read your materials, scoured your website and watched many of your videos. I taught five level 1 French classes in two middle schools. I ditched our textbooks and did my own thing. It was awesome!! My kids did just as well or better than my previous students who had to tough it out the old fashioned way. I built classroom community like nobody’s business! At the end of the year, I asked one class what they thought made their class so special. They said it was because through the Questionnaire and our stories, they really got to know each other and they gelled. We were like this cool little family inside the school.
Fast forward to the new year and a truly wonderful textbook series that I helped pick out (T’es Branche). Super excited. But even though the book wasn’t grammar heavy and IB/AP aligned (I’m in an IB school), my classes lack the luster of last year. Then my department chair went to a Startalk conference and came back with the news that our state (Virginia) is moving toward CI instruction and enforcing the 90% target language (or better) in teacher evaluations. My department then got super excited on CI and we are moving that way as a group (Spanish, French, Latin, Arabic and Chinese)! We’ve watched some videos for demonstration and I have given a demo to my fellow teachers on getting started. Let the good times role! We’re going to follow the textbook for vocabulary, grammar and cultural knowledge but move over to CI as a group. Woo hoo!!
Inger