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World Language Classroom | Teaching Ideas, Activities and Strategies
The World Language Classroom Podcast is for world language teachers who want practical, engaging, and proficiency-focused ideas, activities and strategies they can use immediately in their classrooms.
I'm Joshua Cabral, world language teacher, workshop presenter, author, and instructional coach with three decades of classroom experience. Through this podcast, I share real-world teaching strategies that help language teachers create engaging, communicative classrooms where students build confidence and develop real proficiency in their target language.
Whether you teach Spanish, French, German, Latin, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, ASL, ESL/EFL, or any other language, you'll find classroom-tested ideas designed to make planning easier and student learning more effective.
If you're searching for a world language teaching podcast, a Spanish teacher podcast, a French teacher podcast, language acquisition strategies, ACTFL resources, proficiency-based instruction tips, communicative language teaching ideas, classroom activities for language teachers, or professional development for world language educators, you've found your community.
Join thousands of language teachers who tune in each week to discover practical ideas, fresh inspiration, and proven strategies that help students communicate with confidence and continue their journey toward language proficiency.
This show provides answers to questions like:
How do I teach for proficiency?
What are the best speaking activities for language class?
How can I improve student writing?
How do I teach grammar in context?
What are effective reading activities?
How do I use authentic resources?
How do I get students to speak more?
How do I make my language classroom more engaging?
World Language Classroom | Teaching Ideas, Activities and Strategies
Balancing CI and Explicit Instruction
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#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
A Few Ways We Can Work Together:
- Ready For Tomorrow Quick Win PD for Individual Teachers
- On-Site or Virtual Workshops for Language Departments
- Self-Paced Program for For Language Departments
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