Sunday, November 18, 2018

Semper Maximas Gratias Vobis

Last week my blog passed over 400,000 page views. Granted I will chalk up the majority of those page views to spambots, but after five years, I still cannot believe that there are folks out there who read this blog on a regular basis or even check it out. Two years ago, I wrote a post similar to this when I reached over 150,000 page views. I was blown away by that! I thought for sure by now people would tire out with what i had to say and move on. 

Honestly, I really do not think that I have much to say about CI. Nor am I putting on false humility when I write that. There are so many others out there who know CI theory much better than I do, can discuss it better than I can, and actually like getting into long academic pedagogical discussions about it - that is not me at all. Look at those blogs which are listed on the sidebar - THOSE folks are the ones who understand Comprehensible Input and can talk about it with a degree of confidence. THOSE are the ones whose blogs you should be consulting. THOSE are the ones whose presentations I attend to learn about CI. But yet, I will continue to blog. 

I do not blog with the intent that tons of folks will ever read what I have to say. I blog, because it gives me a place to put down and to share what I am learning about CI in the Latin classroom. I am always amazed when I meet people at conferences (especially non-Latin teachers) who say that they read my blog and use many of the ideas about which I have written, because in my mind, I still think only about five people are reading my blog. But yet, what I write here in this blog appears to resonate with CI-users and CI-seekers. I am not interested in writing about CI theory only per se (occasionally I will muse on some aspect of CI theory) but my interest rather is about how to apply it practically in the classroom (because quite honestly, I am a practical kind of guy. I do not think that anyone ever would call me an academic!).

I am excited about the CI movement in the Latin community. When I first began blogging back in 2013, there were only about 3-4 blogs out there dedicated to CI in the Latin classroom. Now five years later, there are SO MANY more out there. More importantly, the CI community at large is seeing Latin as a viable language for CI implementation. I love that there are Latin teachers presenting non-specific Latin presentations at CI conferences and that non-Latin teachers are learning from them!

So as we enter this Thanksgiving week, I just want to say maximas gratias vobis - thanks to you all very much. Thanks for thinking that I have something of value to say in this blog and for taking it to heart. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to my CI journey. I am so thankful for those of who are joining me as a result of this blog.

1 comment:

  1. Your blog iinspires me every day! Thank you sooo much. As a Latin teacher who took time off to be with her kids and is just "getting back into it", I cannot thank teachers like yourself enough. Frustrated with the lack of energy in my textbook I reached out to the internet and came upon you and others who have carried me. So...this time of year...thank YOU!

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