So many people just quit trying with CI. I think I know why. It’s kind of insane to try it in a building with students and classes and all that the way schools are set up with their testing and regulations and forced attendance and all that. It’s unmatched socks.
It’s like taking a wild animal (language) and making it sit in a room to learn. I am wondering if CI can even work in such settings as the ones we are subjected to.
Honestly I am surprised when people stick with it. I’m not trying to be maudlin on a Monday morning when we are all exhausted – I honestly question if CI based instruction can work in schools. Yes it works for us but we are a thin slice of the national corps of language teachers, the crazy ones who charge up hills looking for the enemy brandishing weapons.
Can it ever work for the majority, if most teachers simply can’t grasp the concept that language learning does not involve conscious analysis, which is what schools make everyone think? Maybe we should let the animal go back into the wild, but then we wouldn’t have jobs. Just thinking out loud here on a rainy Monday morning in Denver.