Why I use CI Comprehensible input evens the playing field in a typical public school classroom. Students acquire Spanish much like they did their first language. In our department we our slowly coming around to the idea of comprehensible input. Four of the nine teachers are on board, and slowly, through the power of Free Voluntary Reading and the success of the students in CI classrooms, I hope that the other teachers will come on board. There is so much joy in a classroom taught free from the tethers of a textbook or a vocabulary list or a grammar sequence. And the natural communication, through speaking and writing, is a beautiful thing to behold. Why CI?