13 CI LANGUAGE TEACHERS SOUND OFF: THE ONE THING I WISH I KNEW BEFORE STARTING TO TEACH WITH CI

One Simple Question to Language Instructors

I recently asked CI language instructors from across the country one simple question:

What’s the one thing you wish you’d known before starting to teach with CI?

From the practical to the sentimental and beyond, they shared wide-ranging insights that will help any aspiring instructor take the plunge into teaching with intentionally comprehensible input and comprehension-based tasks. This is exactly the sort of wisdom CI Immersion aims to share with the entire CI community. From tips and tricks on starting out to advice on changing the current system from the inside out, consider this a crash course in CI fundamentals taught by experts in the field.

1. HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM TO CHANGE

Bryce Hedstrom, Educational Consultant & Teacher Trainer / Coach, brycehedstrom.com

The one thing I wish I had known before starting to teach with C.I. is how long it would take to change the system. When I first started teaching with C.I., I assumed that because this approach made so much sense and got such good results, all world language teachers would quickly adopt it — within two years, tops. Well, that was 27 years ago and I'm still waiting...

The amazing thing to me has been how those outside of the traditional K-16 education system took to it. I taught conversational Spanish classes at the community college level for 22 years. Those classes were outside of the academic track and were always filled to capacity once the word got out that students left a one semester class functionally fluent. The classes were filled with retirees, young professionals, home schooled kids, and even Spanish majors from the nearby university who wanted to be able to speak the language.

During that time I also taught Spanish to employees at Fortune 500 companies like Hewlett-Packard, Conagra Foods, and United Forest Products, as well as to many regional companies — they all accepted C.I. methods instantly, realizing intuitively how well these ideas work. They wanted to be able to USE the language, not just learn ABOUT it. Some in those classes went so far as to say, "If you ever stop teaching us this way and start teaching with grammar, we're outa here." No hay problema, amigos.

CI worked for me at the K-12 level too. With C.I. methods, my public high school students signed up for more Spanish classes beyond the minimum graduation and college entrance requirements. They would not just take two years and then stop taking Spanish. The students in upper level courses began to look like the overall school population, rather than the white, high socio-economic, academically-oriented girls that traditionally enroll in upper level language courses. We began to see boys enrolling in AP Spanish, multiple ethnicities, non-academic kids, and kids from poorer families. They enrolled because they realized they could actually learn the language. They didn't have to be intellectual whiz kids to get it. We eventually had to offer two AP Spanish classes at our smallish 500 student high school. At that time students in a nearby town could not take AP Spanish because in a school of 1700, only 5 students had enrolled in AP Spanish. The difference was Comprehensible Input-based methods. Despite its effectiveness, the approach was not adopted there.

The K-12 system, and especially the university system, has been slow to respond to new and effective methods of teaching. I'm still amazed by that. But the inertia in academia now seems to be changing course, often driven by falling enrollment. Growth of C.I. methods has been sporadic and unpredictable, it has not been the steady increase in adoption that I anticipated when I began. But change is happening, and I am hopeful and working hard to help teachers understand how and why to teach with C.I.

2. OUTSIDERS DON’T APPRECIATE THE COMPLEXITY AND HARD WORK BEHIND THE SCENES

Crystal B., WA, Spanish

I wish I knew that I would have to be able to be ready to back up/prove to people that I know what I'm doing. I think sometimes, and not to pat myself on the back, but I do a good job making the content comprehensible and accessible to students so they perceive it as "easy", when in fact they are learning quite a bit.

On the surface it seems all fun and games, but proper CI is such a complex thing.

Doing CI is a lot of work for me, and I spend hours finding new things and strategies, studying, etc. But I enjoy that part, because it is soooo much better than having a specific curriculum/textbook. But it takes a lot of creativity, so sometimes I feel like I lose steam. And especially when no one, students or admin, really appreciated the complexity behind what I am doing, or what CI is capable of.

3. BUILDING A CI-BASED CURRICULUM IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU THINK

Bret N., PhD, CA, Spanish

For me it would have to be how to design a CI-based curriculum when you don't have the time to create a new curriculum. And that also requires figuring out how to teach language within a system (especially testing and grades) that isn't conducive to that (or learning in general). But I still haven't figured all that out!

I always remember that first lesson in the pedagogy class about the Atlas Complex. I think some CI approaches are misunderstood in that regard, but in my program, with the importance of tests and grades and AP tracks, combined with a curriculum made up exclusively of stories, I feel very much like Atlas, especially if I don't want my students to just try and memorize every story.

4. SCAFFOLDING IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS

Christina B., French & Spanish

I wish that I had known how to scaffold input so that my students would understand. I was so used to long lists of vocabulary and ALL the verb conjugations that narrowing the content for acquisition was difficult.

5. PRIORITIZE BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Eric Herman, PhD, Acquisition Classroom

I wish I had been more tactful in trying to interest colleagues in language acquisition science and "new" ways of teaching. Sharing unsolicited information with teachers you hardly know (what I did - big sigh) is not the way to go. Spreading innovation and changing teacher beliefs are their own fields of science (and I dedicated 2 Acquisition Classroom Memos to these topics). Anything we share that is perceived as "new" can be interpreted as criticism of what teachers presently believe and are doing. Effecting change involves working with "opinion leaders," among other things.

6. CI-BASED INSTRUCTION IS PERFORMANCE

Natalia O., AZ, Spanish

[The one thing I wish I knew is] that I would get to perform in front of my students and, therefore, I was going to need equipment to make teaching even more accessible. We use a lot of visual clues and having lots of extra material helps facilitate the teaching process.

7. DON’T TRY TO DO TOO MUCH

Dawn N., IL

To try one or two strategies at first and do not try everything all at once. This will make the process a lot smoother.

8. IT’S OKAY TO DEVIATE FROM THE SCRIPT, ESPECIALLY TO LET STUDENTS TAKE THE LEAD

Beth L., IA

I started with CI my first year of teaching waaay back in 2002, so I’ve been plugging away for many years! Thinking back, I remember wishing that I had heard about it in college. I was handed the curriculum a couple of weeks before I started and figured it out through reading about it. I was using Look, I Can Talk by Blaine Ray back then. I didn’t even have a conference first! I wish I had known that I could deviate from his stories... I did not feel super comfortable with his weird stories because they weren’t “our” class stories. The next year I went to a conference with Susan Gross and Carol Gaab and figured out ways to make the stories a class design, and that made all the difference! Now I know that no matter what input I give, if it is comprehensible and compelling, acquisition happens! I don’t have to follow a curriculum, and in fact now, I let my classes guide us on the acquisition journey.

9. OBSERVING OTHERS IS CRITICAL

Leslie B., MD

I wish I had watched someone in action before beginning CI. I eventually did watch some videos but it would have been helpful to watch in the beginning. I also wish I had more time to collaborate with people teaching with CI.

10. ACQUISITION TAKES A LONG TIME

Chris Stolz, Surrey, BC, TPRS Questions and Answers

I wish I’d known how long acquisition actually takes. When you see a C.I. demo, you get a LOT of language in your head (and so do kids in your class). But that language isn’t really acquired –– i.e. turns into something people can say, or recognize quickly — for quite awhile.

Like I wrote in one blog post, ‘a kid will ask you in March, after hearing it 9000 times, “Mr Smith, how do you say “there is” in Spanish?”’.

11. TRYING ONE NEW LITTLE THING AT A TIME IS JUST AS VALID AS CHANGING EVERYTHING IN ONE GO

Kei Tsukamaki (she/her) World Languages Team Leader, Japanese Teacher, Juanita High School, Lake Washington School District President, Washington Association of Teachers of Japanese

I wish I'd known how manageable it is. It can seem like a lot of you're trying to get started and are changing a lot of your teaching mindset and practices, but I wish I knew how much I could tailor my teaching to ME and MY students. I don't want anyone to feel overwhelmed or discouraged or daunted by seeing how much others do. Trying one new little thing at a time is just as valid as changing everything in one go.

Just like changing any other habit, building momentum is key. I've read that, for example, if you want to eat more vegetables, every leaf of lettuce is a win. Don't hold out for "all or nothing". If you want to exercise more, commit to one minute a day. If you do more, great. If not, at least you've done one minute.

Same for CI. If you can do Calendar Talk and Movie Talks and Special Person Interviews and Card Talks and Write and Discuss, great. If you can commit to one story per unit you teach, and do it with fun and passion and humor, that is GREAT. CI is supposed to be fun for your students, but it should be fun for teachers, too, right?

12. KNOW YOURSELF, BE YOURSELF

A.C. Quintero - Spanish, Author - Website, Facebook Group, Instagram

I wished I was keener on knowing my style and teaching preferences. When learning something it is easy to take on the personality and easily adopt strategies from presenters. However, now I feel more connected to what works for me, so when I learn something new in the world of CI, I have a filter and am better able to cherrypick.

13. GOOD CI TEACHING CAN BE EASY, COMPLETELY UNPREPARED, AND RELAXING.

Mike Peto, Founder of the CI Master Class: One year subscription to the CI Master Class Online – My generation of polyglots

If I could talk to my younger teacher self, I'd tell myself to slow down, don't demand perfection from myself, and enjoy the process with my students. I remember bringing a colleague to a Blaine Ray workshop many years ago and, after the three day training, she erased her entire hard drive to her school computer. "I'm not going back!", she told me. We worked so hard to create new materials, and I don't regret those beautiful years immersed nose-deep in creating a new world for our students, but now I realize that we don't have to demand that kind of crazy, all-encompassing passion of teachers new to CI. Good CI teaching can be easy, completely unprepared, and relaxing. I don't need to entertain my students, I just need to learn a few activities so I can have honest and comprehensible conversations with them.

Bonus: MY ONE THING

Andrew J. Snider - Spanish, Author, Read to Speak Spanish

The one thing I wish I knew before starting to teach with an emphasis on comprehension-based activities, and especially CI storytelling, is that it would follow the Hero’s Journey.

Much like Frodo who must bear the ring of power, it is a task that will forever mark my life. In contrast with the ring-bearer, however, the burden of storytelling does not weigh me down. Instead, embracing my destiny as a CI Storyteller has freed me to be authentic with students and interact with them in meaningful ways in L2.