Grant’s essay and the ensuing conversations have just hit the spot for me. I am doing “Creating CI Classroom” workshops this spring and summer. March 8-9 I will be offering a 3 hour workshop at the Foreign Language Association of Georgia for World Language teachers–Creating a CI Classroom. April 8 I have been invited, thanks to you, Ben, to do an 8 hour CI introductory workshop with the World Language Education department at the University of GA. I will spend the day teaching them in Latin. In June 26-27 I will be giving a 6 hour Creating CI Classroom workshop for Latin teachers at the American Classical League meeting in Memphis, and July 15-18 in tandem with Jason Fritze who will be doing two days of intro TPRS, I will be doing 2 days following on creating CI classroom. This happens between two weeks of immersion camp for Latin teachers in Charles Town, WV.
Grant your article alone will be very helpful for beginning or end of day discussions about why CI and why this is not about attacking teachers who aren’t doing it. That’s huge. Even today I am having an ongoing conversation with a Latin teacher who is trying CI work, but is so torn for why she shouldn’t be asking students to memorize lexical paradigms, etc. It’s very tender going to offer that it really is a choice between helping all kinds of learners make progress (CI) and catering to the 4 percenters.
Regarding the attrition thing. 8 years ago when I took over this current program from a very traditional Latin teacher who was retiring, her attrition went from a typical 60 kids in Latin 1 to 1 kid (white, female, advanced academic) in Latin 4. No AP. Right now, my colleague and I (both teaching with CI) begin with about 120 Latin 1 students and have 30+ in Latin 4/AP. So, we have moved from nearly 0 to 25%. I want it higher. We have some freakish State requirements that are forcing seniors to choose between things like advanced language and advanced art/technology, so they are pushed to make tough choices. Still, I am convinced that CI has changed our landscape in many, many ways and that it will continue to. I can tell you that I do not know of a single Latin program that has transitioned to CI that is not stable and growing.
11 of us (most of whom are on this PLC) are joining ranks on a private blog that I started a couple of years ago to combine our basic vocabularies, identify our 200 or less and begin writing the novellas that we so desperately need. It’s a very exciting time. Thanks to Grant and all the discussion here. Really rich.
Robert