I will continuously fight against targeted CI instruction. It’s so sad that most CI teachers don’t even really know the difference. They think that targeting is what CI is. But it’s not. It’s an aberration and it’s costing them student engagement.
When I said in the last article here that the novels and any targeted type of CI instruction “get real boring real fast”, I am telling the truth for 80% of the students in the class, as well as for most teachers. Krashen says that his research reveals a “lessening of interest” when targets are used.
That is a huge understatement. He said it nicely but inaccurately. Most targeted classes are just plain boring and they put a kind of emotional heaviness into the class that we do not find in non-targeted CI instruction.
People who still target, possibly 98% of CI teachers currently, are trading student engagement for teaching from a list to keep up with some curriculum, and that is not in alignment with the standards and the research. Why do that?