This past weekend was Georgia's Junior Classical League convention. As tiring as the weekend is (I usually subsist on 6 hours of sleep the entire weekend), I look forward to attending due to the professional camaraderie, and it gives me a chance to see and to interact with other Latin teachers in the state. This weekend, I had a number of Latin teachers say to me, "I really enjoy your blog. Even though I do not agree with Comprehensible Input at all, I use a lot of your activities. My students really enjoy them!" My response (with a smile) was always, "Although you may disagree with Comprehensible Input, the reason why these activities work for your students is because of Comprehensible Input."
Having been a grammar-translation teacher (and a good one at that!), I can understand the reluctance which many have to CI. However, if I can get grammar-translation teachers to implement CI unknowingly and through a back-door method such as the list of CI activities on this blog, then maybe these teachers will be more open to a discussion on CI since they have seen it in action in their classroom (without knowing it).
A few years ago, i wrote a post called "The Power of Sharing Ideas" which touches on this subject - it is good to see that this post still holds up!
Maybe they respond that way, because some people really don't like labels or being pigeonholed into a teaching strategy. I love how for me teaching is like a huge buffet where I can taste and try and gorge on whatever works best on that day with those students with this task/text. Thank you for your continued work with teaching Latin. :)
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