Over recent weeks on the iFLT FB page, some of the people who write in support of nontargeted CI are having their comments deleted. The latest deletion there was of a comment from PLC member Jeanette Borich , who has published articles on comprehensible input (see the Primers section above) and who last week wrote the following to the iFLT community only to have it quickly deleted:
“I’ve been using non-targeted input for some time, and now I, once again, have a group with whom to read about how it is going for them. I’m so lucky to “know”others who appreciate and observe the benefits for students of nontargeted CI.”
The deletion of comments in support of something that someone obviously opposes in the FB group is a serious breach of professional etiquette. Tina Hargaden has commented on this new phenomenon of iFLT FB deleting things they don’t like thusly:
“My thinking on the recent calls for ‘unity’ on the iFLT FB page is this. People are saying that we all are on the same team and we need to be united against the grammar and skills crowd. I couldn’t agree more. However – and I told Ben this – we need to have good stuff to attract and keep the newbies to grow the movement.
“This is because so many people get burned by classical TPRS because they can’t make it work. But this work – it is new to many people – is easier to learn and requires little in the way of materials and planning and is easier to engage the kids and monitor their comprehension.
“It’s a shame that there is so much resistance to it because it seems to hold so much promise in supporting the new folks. Some people recently commented that teachers should master classical TPRS before moving on. I see it as completely the opposite. They can cut their teeth on NT work – story listening and telling stories with kids’ images and other things like the Special Chair (Jody Noble) and all the interview strategies that followed her invention – and then, via those easier activities that don’t require them to try to teach through a thicket of targeted language chunks to set up stories, they can grow into traditional TPRS.
“When they are just starting, with NT work they can develop skills like slow and checking for comprehension and teaching to the eyes and using extra linguistic supports like gesturing and drawing and translating and such. Then after that they can move on to targeting if desired or required. But honestly, why do that?
“Thank you Jeannette for your strong voice in this. I’m heartbroken literally about the FB group and the quibbling over innovative ideas that could really forward our collective vision of freeing kids from textbooks and rote learning and paradigm manipulation.”
