Working with great teachers has kept me afloat in spite of taking some direct hits to the hull of my CI boat over the years, when I was made to feel crazy and weak by all sorts of odd battles that I ended up fighting against my will.
Some remember the battle we had about five years ago with the ACTFL Foreign Language Educators group, with an online of community of 18,000 – their boring group vs. our little band of merry pranksters here. That battle was a big one and we won.
During that particular battle we got into direct online confrontation with Paul Sandrock, a big honcho in ACTFL. At that time he revealed himself to be so politically correct that he didn’t stand for anything. Sorry but few who were on the battlefield that month would argue my point, snarky or not.
It’s likely that few remember those days. They were so packed with energy and change! We were like a young Ali, with SK-initialed gloves on ready to bust anyone who dared try to tell us we were wrong. (It’s because we weren’t wrong.)
I was beyond shocked to find out that Paul is the keynote speaker at iFLT this year. Apparently there has been a shortening of the distance there, and what looks like on Carol Gaab’s part to be perhaps a conscious mending of the CI fabric, and I can only think that that is a good thing. We just don’t need two camps (traditional vs. CI) in our profession – we need unity.
However, if this rapprochement symbolized by Paul’s appearance in St. Petersburg, Florida this summer is to bring anything good to the profession, then I hope Paul brings a message that he will try to direct the energy of his mammoth group in ACTFL more toward CI. At the time of our battle with his group five years ago, he was defending the textbook, not CI. Does ACTFL still want to defend the textbook? If anyone goes to iFLT, I would love a report on what Paul’s message to the group is.
If iFLT is now going to just blend into the ACTFL/traditional textbook-driven majority of WL teachers in our profession, and their rich book industry, then that should be of great concern to all of us.
But maybe Paul will do the opposite and say something to the effect that he understands Krashen better than he did five years ago, and maybe he will even recommend sweeping changes to his rank and file’s position on Krashen. That would be a good thing. But I’m not holding my breath.