#251
Have you ever felt like you’re not allowed to say this out loud? That Comprehensible Input works beautifully with novices… but something feels different at Intermediate High and Advanced? That maybe your students plateau, avoid complex structures, or fossilize errors and you quietly wonder if you’re doing something wrong? What if the issue isn’t you… and it isn’t your students… but the choice we’ve created between CI or explicit instruction?
Topics in this Episode:
- The tension around CI and explicit instruction: CI has become dominant; Some spaces treat explicit instruction as regression; Teachers feel pressure to claim “pure CI;" Meanwhile, many quietly supplement.
- Most SLA studies focus on novice/intermediate learners; there simply aren't many rigorous studies examining advanced learners.
- When you attend CI workshops or read CI literature, the vast majority of examples, materials, and strategies target novice learners. This isn't because CI can't work at higher levels. It's because we haven't developed robust models for what it looks like there.
- The 'bandwagon effect': CI has achieved near-ideological status in some circles. Teachers feel pressure to claim 'pure CI' success even when they're supplementing with explicit instruction.
- The research does NOT support abandoning CI at advanced levels. It DOES support integrating strategic explicit instruction, particularly for complex features that are infrequent or non-salient in input.
- Blog Post with Cited Research: Balancing CI and Explicit Instruction Across Proficiency Levels
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