8. INTRODUCTION
With clearly identifiable sets of theoretical principles and classroom procedures
associated with language-, learner- and learning-centered categories
of method, the language-teaching profession appears to have exhausted
the kind of psychological, linguistic, and pedagogic underpinnings it has
depended on for constructing alternative methods. In all probability, the
invention of a truly novel method that is fundamentally different from the
ones discussed in Part Two is very slim, at least in the foreseeable future.
Within the confines of the concept of method, what perhaps remain for further
manipulation and management are different permutations and combinations
of the familiar principles and procedures. This does not mean
that the profession has a reached a dead end; rather, it means that the profession
has completed yet another phase in its long, cyclical history of methods,
and has just set sail in uncharted waters. The new millennium has
brought new challenges as well as new opportunities for the profession to
venture beyond methods.
In recent times, the profession has witnessed a steady stream of critical
thoughts on the nature and scope of method. Scholars such as Allwright
(1991), Pennycook (1989), Prabhu (1990), and Stern (1983, 1985, 1992)
have not only cautioned language-teaching practitioners against the uncritical
acceptance of untested methods but they have also counseled them
against the very concept of method itself. The uneasiness about the concept
of method expressed by them is hardly new. We find well-articulated arguments
about the limitations of method even in the 1960s, as in Kelly (1969),
Chapter 8
Postmethod Condition
161
and Mackey (1965), just to mention two. However, this time around, the
professional response has been significantly different. Having witnessed
how methods go through endless cycles of life, death, and rebirth, the language
teaching profession seems to have reached a state of heightened
awareness—an awareness that as long as it is caught up in the web of
method, it will continue to get entangled in an unending search for an unavailable
solution, an awareness that such a search drives it to continually
recycle and repackage the same old ideas, and an awareness that nothing
short of breaking the cycle can salvage the situation. This renewed awareness
coupled with a resolve to respond has created what I have called the
postmethod condition (Kumaravadivelu, 1994b). What is meant by postmethod
condition? How is it different from the earlier state of affairs? I address
these and other related questions in terms of the limits of method, and the
logic of postmethod.
8.1. THE LIMITS OF METHOD
The concept of method has severe limitations that have long been overlooked
by many. They relate mainly to its ambiguous usage and application,
to the exaggerated claims made by its proponents, and, consequently, to
the gradual erosion of its utilitarian value. Let me briefly consider each under
the headings: the meaning of method, the myth of method, and the
death of method.
8.1.1. The Meaning of Method
“The question of method,” declares the Routledge Encyclopedia of Language
Teaching and Learning (2000), “is one of the central issues of instruction” (p.
616). Citing the original Greek word, methodos, which “includes the idea of a
series of steps leading towards a conceived goal” (p. 617), the Encyclopedia
defines method simply as “a planned way of doing something” (p. 617).
Turning to the specific context of language teaching, it states, rather awkwardly:
“A method implies an orderly way of going about something, a certain
degree of advance planning and of control, then; also, a process rather
than a product” (p. 617). As the quote indicates, the meaning of method, as
used in second/foreign language teaching, is shrouded in a veil of vagueness,
despite its central importance.
Recall our discussion in chapter 4 where a distinction between method
and methodology was made. Method is a construct; methodology is a conduct.
Method is an expert’s notion derived from an understanding of the theories
of language, of language learning, and of language teaching. It is also
reflected in syllabus design, textbook production, and, above all, in recommended
classroom procedures. Methodology, on the other hand, is what
162 CHAPTER 8
the teacher does in the classroom in order to maximize learning opportunities
for the learner. Recall also that the distinction was made based on
Mackey’s (1965) perceptive observation that method analysis is different
from teaching analysis: “method analysis determines how teaching is done
by the book; teaching analysis shows how much is done by the teacher” (p.
139). There is, thus, a crucial distinction between method and methodology,
a distinction that is seldom understood or maintained. Method, to continue
with the thoughts expressed by Mackey, “has become a matter of
opinion rather than of fact. It is not surprising that feelings run high in
these matters, and that the very word ‘method’ means so little and so
much” (p. 139).
Even the authors of popular textbooks on methods are not sure of the
number of methods that are out there. A book published in the mid 1960s,
for instance, has listed 15 “most common” types of methods “still in use in
one form or another in various parts of the world” (Mackey, 1965 p. 151).
Two books published in the mid-1980s (Larsen-Freeman, 1986; and Richards
& Rodgers, 1986) provided, between them, a list of 11 methods. The
same two books, in their revised, second editions published in 2000 and
2001 respectively, contain between them nearly twenty methods, such as (in
alphabetical order): Audiolingual Method, Communicative Language
Teaching, Community Language Learning, Competency-Based Language
Teaching, Direct Method, Grammar-Translation Method, Natural Approach,
Oral and Situational Language Teaching, Lexical Approach, Silent
Way, Suggestopedia (or, Desuggestopedia), Task-Based Language Teaching,
Total Physical Response, and more.
Each established method is supposed to have a specified set of theoretical
principles and a specified set of classroom practices. One might, therefore,
think that the methods listed above provide different pathways to language
learning and teaching. That is not so. In fact, there is considerable
overlap in their theory and practice. Sometimes, as Rivers (1991) rightly
pointed out, what appears to be a radically new method is more often than
not a variant of existing methods presented with “the fresh paint of a new
terminology that camouflages their fundamental similarity” (p. 283). What
is not a variant, however, is the myth surrounding the concept of method.
8.1.2. The Myth of Method
The established methods listed are motivated and maintained by multiple
myths that have long been accepted as professional articles of faith. These
myths have created an inflated image of the concept of method. Here are
some of the myths:
Myth #1: There is a best method out there ready and waiting to be discovered. For
a very long time, our profession has been preoccupied with, or as Stern
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 163
(1985) would say, obsessed with, a search for the best method—very much
like Monty Python searching for the Holy Grail. We went on expedition after
expedition searching for the best method. But still, the Holy Grail was
not in sight, partly because, as Mackey (1965) observed, “while sciences
have advanced by approximations in which each new stage results from an
improvement, not rejection, of what has gone before, language-teaching
methods have followed the pendulum of fashion from one extreme to the
other” (p. 138). Besides, the history of methods “suggests a problematic
progressivism, whereby whatever is happening now is presumed to be superior
to what happened before” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching
and Learning, 2000, p. 278).
We thought we should be able to find that one magical method through
objective analysis. Instead, we found out to our dismay that the formation
and implementation of a method have to take into account many variables
(such as language policy and planning, learning needs, wants and situations,
learner variations, teacher profiles, etc.) most of which cannot be
controlled for a systematic study. We also found out that we cannot even
compare known methods to see which one works best. The last time a systematic
and large-scale comparison of methods was carried out was in the
late 1960s. Called the Pennsylvania Project, the experiment investigated the
effectiveness of methods based on audiolingual and cognitive theories of
language learning and teaching. The project revealed that, apart from the
fact that method comparison was not a viable research activity, the type of
methods did not really matter very much at all, even when the competing
methods had been derived from competing, and mutually incompatible,
theories of language learning. The result was so embarrassing, prompting
the project leader to say: “these results were personally traumatic to the
Project staff” (Smith, 1970, p. 271). Now we know that “objective evaluation
is so difficult to implement that all attempts in the past have resulted in
a wider agreement on the difficulties of doing an evaluation than on the
resulting judgment on methods” (Prabhu, 1990, p. 168). But, the difficulties
in analyzing and assessing a method have not prevented us from using
it as a base for various aspects of language teaching, which leads us to the
next myth.
Myth #2: Method constitutes the organizing principle for language teaching. We
have all along believed, rather simplistically, that the concept of method
can constitute the core of the entire language learning and teaching operations.
We have treated method as an all-pervasive, all-powerful entity. It has
guided the form and function of every conceivable component of language
teaching including curriculum design, syllabus specifications, materials
preparation, instructional strategies, and testing techniques. Take for instance,
communicative language teaching. When it became fashionable, we
started getting a steady stream of books on communicative curriculum, com-
164 CHAPTER 8
municative syllabus, communicative tasks, communicative methods, communicative
materials, communicative testing, and so on.
The use of method as organizing principles for language learning and
teaching is unfortunate because method is too inadequate and too limited
to satisfactorily explain the complexity of language learning and teaching.
By concentrating excessively on method, we have ignored several other factors
that govern classroom processes and practices—factors such as teacher
cognition, learner perception, societal needs, cultural contexts, political
exigencies, economic imperatives, and institutional constraints, all of which
are inextricably linked together. Each of these factors shapes and reshapes
the content and character of language learning and teaching; each having
a huge impact on the success or failure of any language teaching enter-
prise.
The uncritical acceptance of the concept of method as the organizing
principle has also (mis)led us to believe that method has the capacity to cater
to various learning and teaching needs, wants and situations, thus, creating
yet another myth.
Myth #3: Method has a universal and ahistorical value. Our quest for the best
method has always directed us toward finding a universal, ahistorical
method that can be used anywhere and everywhere. There are several drawbacks
that are inherent in this outlook. First of all, established methods are
founded on idealized concepts geared toward idealized contexts. And, as
such, they are far removed from classroom reality. Because learning and
teaching needs, wants, and situations are unpredictably numerous, no idealized
method can visualize all the variables in advance in order to provide
context-specific solutions that practicing teachers badly need in order to
tackle the challenges they confront every day of their professional lives.
Secondly, our search for a universally applicable method has been predominantly
and inevitably a top–down exercise. That is, the conception
and construction of methods have been largely guided by a one-size-fits-all,
cookie-cutter approach that assumes a common clientele with common
goals. But, learners across the world do not learn a second or a foreign language
for the same reason; they have different purposes, and follow different
paths. Without acknowledging such a phenomenon, methods have
been preoccupied with their potential global reach; and, hence, they have
lacked an essential local touch.
Thirdly, and as a consequence of the conditions listed, we have completely
ignored local knowledge. We forget that people have been learning and
teaching foreign languages long before modern methods arrived on the
scene. Teachers and teacher educators in periphery communities such as in
South Asia, Southeast Asia, South America, and elsewhere have a tremendous
amount of local knowledge sedimented through years and years of
practical experience. But still, all the established methods are based on the
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 165
theoretical insights derived almost exclusively from a Western knowledge
base. The concept of method is bereft of any synthesis of external knowledge
from center-based communities and local knowledge from periphery communities.
Our misplaced faith in a universally applicable method and its
top–down orientation has created and sustained another myth.
Myth #4: Theorists conceive knowledge, and teachers consume knowledge. In the
field of language teaching, there is a clearly perceptible dichotomy between
theory and practice, resulting in an unfortunate division of labor between
the theorist and the teacher. The relationship between the theorist and the
teacher that exists today is not unlike the relationship between the producer
and the consumer of a marketable commodity. Such a commercialized
relationship has inevitably resulted in the creation of a privileged class
of theorists and an underprivileged class of practitioners. Unfortunately,
the hierarchical relationship between the theorist and the teacher has not
only minimized any meaningful dialogue between them, but has also contributed
to some degree of mutual disrespect.
The artificial dichotomy between theory and practice has also led us to
believe that teachers would gladly follow the principles and practices of established
methods. They rarely do. They seem to know better. They know
that none of the established methods can be realized in their purest form in
the actual classroom primarily because they are not derived from their
classroom but are artificially transplanted into it. They reveal their dissatisfaction
with method through their actions in the classroom. Classroomoriented
research carried out in the last two decades (e.g., Kumaravadivelu,
1993a; Nunan, 1987; Swaffer, Arens, & Morgan, 1982) have revealed four
interrelated facts:
· Teachers who claim to follow a particular method do not conform to
its theoretical principles and classroom procedures at all;
· teachers who claim to follow different methods often use the same
classroom procedures;
· teachers who claim to follow the same method often use different procedures,
and
· teachers develop and follow in their classroom a carefully crafted sequence
of activities not necessarily associated with any particular
method.
In other words, teachers seem to be convinced that no single theory of
learning and no single method of teaching will help them confront the
challenges of everyday teaching. They use their own intuitive ability and experiential
knowledge to decide what works and what does not work. There
is thus a significant variance between what theorists advocate and what
teachers do in their classroom.
166 CHAPTER 8
Myth #5: Method is neutral, and has no ideological motivation. In chapter 1,
we discussed the connection between ideology and language in general.
The ideological nature of English language teaching has also been wellexamined
(e.g., Canagarajah, 1999; Pennycook, 1998; Phillipson, 1992;
Ricento, 2000). In an incisive analysis of the concept of method in particular,
Pennycook (1989) demonstrated how “the concept reflects a particular
view of the world and is articulated in the interests of unequal power relationships”
(pp. 589–590). Arguing that method represents what he calls interested
knowledge, he showed how it “has diminished rather than enhanced
our understanding of language teaching” (p. 597). Discussing the forms of
resistance to such center-based interested knowledge imposed on the language
classroom in periphery countries, Canagarajah (1999) called for a
pedagogy in which members of the periphery communities will “have the
agency to think critically and work out ideological alternatives that favor
their own environment” (p. 2).
Furthermore, as I have observed elsewhere (Kumaravadivelu (2003b),
the concept of method is indeed a construct of marginality. One aspect of
this marginality has taken the form of gendered division in the English Language
Teaching (ELT) workforce. As Pennycook (1989) suggested, the
method concept “has played a major role in maintaining the gendered division
of the workforce, a hierarchically organized division between male
conceptualizers and female practitioners” (pp. 610–611). Another aspect
has taken a broader form of native/nonnative division in the global ELT
workforce, where nonnative professionals are marginalized.
Expanding on the last point, I have argued that that method as a means
of marginality has four interrelated dimensions—scholastic, linguistic, cultural,
and economic (Kumaravadivelu, 2003b):
· The scholastic dimension relates to the ways in which Western scholars
have treated local knowledge, as discussed in Myth #3.
· The linguistic dimension relates to the ways in which methods prevent
nonnative learners and teachers of English from putting to use their excellent
L1 linguistic resource to serve the cause of their L2 education. It is a
move that automatically privileges teachers who are native speakers of English,
most of whom do not share the language of their learners. Phillipson
(1992) has called it the monolingual tenet of L2 pedagogy.
· The cultural dimension treats second-language teaching as second culture
teaching directed at helping L2 learner “gain an understanding of the
native speaker’s perspective” (Stern, 1992, p. 216). The overall aim is to
help them develop sociocultural ability for the purpose of culturally empathizing,
if not culturally assimilating, with native speakers of English.
· The economic dimension relates to the ways in which the monolingual
tenet and the emphasis on culture teaching create and sustain global emPOSTMETHOD
CONDITION 167
ployment opportunities for native speakers of English, sometimes at the expense
of qualified local candidates.
These four dimensions of method as a means of marginality tend to extend
and expand the agenda for sustaining “an ideological dependence” (Phillipson,
1992, p. 199).
The matters raised so far, and particularly the ambiguous use of the
term, method, and the multiple myths that are associated with it, have contributed
to a gradual erosion of its usability as a construct in language learning
and teaching, prompting some to say that the concept of method is
dead.
8.1.3. The Death of Method
In 1991, the British applied linguist, Dick Allwright gave a plenary talk in a
conference at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and the talk (as well as
the published version) was titled, “The Death of the Method.” In choosing
what he called a “deliberately contentious title,” he was emphasizing “the
relative unhelpfulness of the existence of ‘methods’” (Allwright, 1991, p.
1). Following his lead, the American scholar, Brown, has used the imagery
of death again and again (e.g., 2002). He has sought to “lay to rest” (p. 11)
the concept of method, and to write a “requiem” (p. 17) for “recently interred
methods” (p. 14). By opting for these colorful expressions, the two
reputed scholars from across the Atlantic are not being polemical; rather,
they wish to draw attention to the fact that the concept of method has lost
its significance. It should no longer be considered a valuable or a viable
construct in language learning and teaching. In fact, as indicated earlier,
several scholars (e.g., Mackey, 1965; Stern, 1985) have made similar observations
before, using less vivid phrases.
Allwright explains the “relative unhelpfulness” of the method concept by
listing six reasons. To quote:
· It is built on seeing differences where similarities may be more important,
since methods that are different in abstract principle seem to be
far less so in classroom practice;
· it simplifies unhelpfully a highly complex set of issues, for example seeing
similarities among learners when differences may be more important
. . . ;
· it diverts energies from potentially more productive concerns, since
time spent learning how to implement a particular method is time not
available for such alternative activities as classroom task design;
· it breeds a brand loyalty which is unlikely to be helpful to the profession,
since it fosters pointless rivalries on essentially irrelevant issues;
168 CHAPTER 8
· it breeds complacency, if, as it surely must, it conveys the impression
that answers have indeed been found to all the major methodological
questions in our profession;
· it offers a “cheap” externally derived sense of coherence for language
teachers, which may itself inhibit the development of a personally “expensive,”
but ultimately far more valuable, internally derived sense of
coherence . . . (Allwright, 1991, pp. 7–8)
Interestingly, most of these reasons are teacher related, and can be easily
linked to some of the myths of the method discussed in the above section.
Allwright’s observation that the concept of method may inhibit the development
of a “valuable, internally-derived sense of coherence” on the
part of the classroom teacher is an important one. It has been addressed in
detail by Clarke (2003), who posited “coherence” as “the ideal to strive for”
but laments that the concept of method shifts the focus to something else:
“it is not uncommon for the focus to shift from improving learning to improving
method, not unlike the gardener who spends an inordinate
amount of time building the ideal hothouse and forgets to tend to the tomatoes”
(p. 128).
Teachers find it difficult to develop a “valuable, internally-derived sense
of coherence” about language teaching, in part, because the transmission
model of teacher education they may have undergone does little more than
passing on to them a ready-made package of methods and methods-related
body of knowledge. They find such a methods-based teacher education
woefully inadequate to meet the challenges of the practice of everyday
teaching. Therefore, in an earnest attempt “to tend to the tomatoes,” they
try to develop a sense of what works in the classroom and what doesn’t,
based on their intuitive ability and experiential knowledge. In a clear repudiation
of established methods and their estranged myths, teachers try to
derive a “method” of their own and call it eclectic method.
Constructing a principled eclectic method is not easy. As Widdowson
(1990) observed, “if by eclecticism is meant the random and expedient use
of whatever technique comes most readily to hand, then it has no merit
whatever” (p. 50). The difficulties faced by teachers in developing an enlightened
eclectic method are not hard to find. Stern (1992) pointed out
some of them:
the weakness of the eclectic position is that it offers no criteria according to
which we can determine which is the best theory, nor does it provide any principles
by which to include or exclude features which form part of existing theories
or practices. The choice is left to the individual’s intuitive judgment and
is, therefore, too broad and too vague to be satisfactory as a theory in its own
right. (p. 11)
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 169
As can be expected, methods-based, teacher-education programs do not
make any sustained and systematic effort to develop in prospective teachers
the knowledge and skill necessary to be responsibly eclectic.
The net result is that practicing teachers end up with some form of eclectic
method that is, as Long writes in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Language
Teaching and Learning (2000):
usually little more than an amalgam of their inventors’ prejudices. The same
relative ignorance about SLA affects everyone, and makes the eclecticist’s
claim to be able to select the alleged “best parts” of several theories absurd.
Worse, given that different theories by definition reflect different understandings,
the resulting methodological mish-mash is guaranteed to be
wrong, whereas an approach to language teaching based, in part, on one theory
can at least be coherent, and, subject to the previously discussed caveats,
has a chance of being right. (p. 4)
Consequently, teachers find themselves in an unenviable position where
they have to straddle two pedagogic worlds: a method-based one that is imposed
on them, and a methodological one that is improvised by them.
What the aforementioned discussion shows is that the concept of
method has little theoretical validity and even less practical utility. Its meaning
is ambiguous, and its claim dubious. Given such a checkered history, it
has come to be looked on as “a label without substance” (Clarke, 1983, p.
109) that has only “diminished rather than enhanced our understanding of
language teaching” (Pennycook, 1989, p. 597), resulting in the feeling that
“language teaching might be better understood and better executed if the
concept of method were not to exist at all” (Jarvis, 1991, p. 295). It is therefore
no wonder that there is a strong sentiment to call it dead, sing a requiem,
and assign it “to the dustbin” (Nunan, 1989, p. 2) of history.
For reasons discussed above, the deep discontent with the concept of
method accumulating for a considerable length of time has finally resulted
in the emergence of the postmethod condition. Synthesizing and expanding
some of my earlier work (Kumaravadivelu, 1994b, 2001, 2002, 2003a), I
briefly present the logic of postmethod.
8.2. THE LOGIC OF POSTMETHOD
The postmethod condition is a sustainable state of affairs that compels us to
fundamentally restructure our view of language teaching and teacher education.
It urges us to review the character and content of classroom teaching
in all its pedagogical and ideological perspectives. It drives us to streamline
our teacher education by refiguring the reified relationship between
theory and practice. In short, it demands that we seriously contemplate the
170 CHAPTER 8
essentials of a coherent postmethod pedagogy. I present below the essentials
of postmethod pedagogy in terms of pedagogic parameters and pedagogic
indicators. How these parameters and indictors can shape the construction
of a postmethod pedagogy will be the subject of chapter 9.
8.2.1. Pedagogic Parameters
Postmethod pedagogy can be visualized as a three-dimensional system consisting
of three pedagogic parameters: particularity, practicality, and possibility.
As will become clear, each parameter shapes and is shaped by the others.
They interweave and interact with each other in a synergic relationship
where the whole is much more than the sum of its parts. Let us consider
each of them.
8.2.1.1. The Parameter of Particularity. The most important aspect of
postmethod pedagogy is its particularity. That is to say, any postmethod pedagogy
“must be sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular
group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular
institutional context embedded in a particular sociocultural mileu” (Kumaravadivelu,
2001, p. 538). The parameter of particularity then rejects the
very idea method-based pedagogies are founded upon, namely, there can
be one set of teaching aims and objectives realizable through one set of
teaching principles and procedures. At its core, the idea of pedagogic particularity
is consistent with the hermeneutic perspective of situational understanding,
which claims that a meaningful pedagogy cannot be constructed
without a holistic interpretation of particular situations, and that it cannot
be improved without a general improvement of those particular situations
(Elliott, 1993).
The parameter of particularity emphasizes local exigencies and lived experiences.
Pedagogies that ignore them will ultimately prove to be “so disturbing
for those affected by them—so threatening to their belief systems—
that hostility is aroused and learning becomes impossible” (Coleman, 1996,
p. 11). For instance, communicative language teaching with its focus on
sociocultural negotiation, expression, and interpretation (see chap. 6, this
volume, for details) has created a deep sense of disillusionment in certain
parts of the world. Consider the following:
· From South Africa, Chick (1996) wondered whether “our choice of
communicative language teaching as a goal was possibly a sort of naive
ethnocentricism prompted by the thought that what is good for Europe
or the USA had to be good for KwaZulu” (p. 22).
· From Pakistan, Shamim (1996) reported that her attempt to introduce
communicative language teaching into her classroom met with a great
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 171
deal of resistance from her learners, making her “terribly exhausted,”
leading her to realize that, by introducing this methodology, she was
actually “creating psychological barriers to learning . . .” (p. 109).
· From Singapore, Pakir (1999) suggested that communicative language
teaching with its professional practices based on “Anglo-Saxon assumptions”
(p. 112) has to be modified taking into account what she calls
“glocal” linguistic and cultural considerations.
· From India, Tickoo (1996) narrated how even locally initiated, pedagogic
innovations have failed because they merely tinkered with the
method-based framework inherited from abroad.
All these research reports present a classic case of a centrally produced pedagogy
that is out of sync with local linguistic, sociocultural, and political particularities.
In fact, dealing with a similar situation within the United States,
scholars such as Delpit (1995) and Smitherman (2000) stressed the need
for a language education that is sensitive to the linguistic particularities of
“nonstandard” speakers of English.
A context-sensitive language education can emerge only from the practice
of particularity. It involves a critical awareness of local conditions of
learning and teaching that policymakers and program administrators have
to seriously consider in putting together an effective teaching agenda.
More importantly, it involves practicing teachers, either individually or collectively,
observing their teaching acts, evaluating their outcomes, identifying
problems, finding solutions, and trying them out to see once again what
works and what doesn’t. In that sense, the particular is so deeply embedded
in the practical, and cannot be achieved or understood without it. The parameter
of particularity, therefore, merges into the parameter of practicality.
8.2.1.2. The Parameter of Practicality. The parameter of practicality relates
broadly to the relationship between theory and practice, and narrowly
to the teacher’s skill in monitoring his or her own teaching effectiveness. As
we discussed earlier, there is a harmful dichotomy between theory and
practice, between the theorist’s role and the teacher’s role in education.
One of the ways by which general educationists have addressed the dichotomy
is by positing a distinction between professional theories and personal
theories. According to O’Hanlon (1993), professional theories are those that
are generated by experts, and are generally transmitted from centers of
higher learning. Personal theories, on the other hand, are those that are developed
by teachers by interpreting and applying professional theories in
practical situations while they are on the job.
It is this distinction between theorists’ theory and teachers’ theory that
has, in part, influenced the emphasis on action research. “The fundamental
aim of action research,” as Elliott (1991) makes it crystal clear, “is to im-
172 CHAPTER 8
prove practice rather than to produce knowledge” (p. 49). The teacher is
advised to do action research in the classroom by testing, interpreting, and
judging the usefulness of professional theories proposed by experts. Such
an interpretation of teacher research is very narrow because it leaves very
little room for self-conceptualization and self-construction of pedagogic
knowledge on the part of the teacher.
The parameter of practicality goes beyond such deficiencies inherent in
the theory versus practice and theorists’ theory versus teachers’ theory dichotomies.
As I have argued elsewhere (Kumaravadivelu, 1999b), if context-sensitive
pedagogic knowledge has to emerge from teachers and their
practice of everyday teaching, then they ought to be enabled to theorize
from their practice and practice what they theorize. Edge (2001) made similar
observations when he stated that “the thinking teacher is no longer perceived
as someone who applies theories, but someone who theorizes practice”
(p. 6). This objective, however, cannot be achieved simply by asking
them to put into practice professional theories proposed by others. It can
be achieved only by helping them develop the knowledge and skill, attitude,
and autonomy necessary to construct their own context-sensitive theory
of practice.
A theory of practice is conceived when, to paraphrase van Manen (1991),
there is a union of action and thought, or more precisely, when there is
action in thought and thought in action. It is the result of what he has
called “pedagogical thoughtfulness.” In the context of deriving a theory of
practice, pedagogical thoughtfulness simultaneously feeds and is fed by
reflective thinking on the part of teachers. Freeman (1998) called such a
reflective thinking inquiry-oriented teacher research, which he defines as “a
state of being engaged in what is going on in the classroom that drives one
to better understand what is happening—and can happen—there” (p.
14). He sees inquiry as something that “includes both the attitude that
spawns this engagement and the energy and activity that put it into action”
(p. 34). It enables them to understand and identify problems, analyze
and assess information, consider and evaluate alternatives, and then
choose the best available alternative that is then subjected to further critical
evaluation.
The parameter of practicality, then, focuses on teachers’ reflection and
action, which are also based on their insights and intuition. Through prior
and ongoing experience with learning and teaching, teachers gather an
unexplained and sometimes unexplainable awareness of what constitutes
good teaching. Prabhu (1990) called it teachers’ sense of plausibility. It is
their “personal conceptualization of how their teaching leads to desired
learning, with a notion of causation that has a measure of credibility for
them” (p. 172). In a similar vein, Hargreaves (1994) called it the ethic of practicality—a
phrase he used to refer to the teacher’s
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 173
powerful sense of what works and what doesn’t; of which changes will go and
which will not—not in the abstract, or even as a general rule, but for this
teacher in this context. In this simple yet deeply influential sense of practicality
among teachers is the distillation of complex and potent combinations of
purpose, person, politics and workplace constraints. (p. 12, emphasis in origi-
nal)
More than a quarter century ago, van Manen (1977) called this awareness,
simply, sense-making.
Teachers’ sense-making matures over time as they learn to cope with
competing pulls and pressures representing the content and character of
professional preparation, personal beliefs, institutional constraints, learner
expectations, assessment instruments, and other factors. This seemingly instinctive
and idiosyncratic nature of the teacher’s sense-making disguises
the fact that it is formed and re-formed by the pedagogic factors governing
the microcosm of the classroom as well as by the larger sociopolitical forces
emanating from outside. In this sense, the parameter of practicality metamorphoses
into the parameter of possibility.
8.2.1.3. The Parameter of Possibility. The parameter of possibility owes
much of its origin to the educational philosophy of the Brazilian intellectual,
Paulo Freire. He and his followers (e.g., Giroux, 1988; Simon, 1988)
took the position that pedagogy, any pedagogy, is closely linked to power
and dominance, and is aimed at creating and sustaining social inequalities.
They stress the importance of acknowledging and highlighting students’
and teachers’ individual identity, and they encourage them to question the
status quo that keeps them subjugated. They also stress the “the need to develop
theories, forms of knowledge, and social practices that work with the
experiences that people bring to the pedagogical setting” (Giroux, 1988, p.
134, emphasis in original).
The experiences participants bring to the pedagogical setting are
shaped, not just by what they experience in the classroom, but also by a
broader social, economic, and political environment in which they grow
up. These experiences have the potential to alter classroom aims and activities
in ways unintended and unexpected by policy planners or curriculum
designers or textbook producers. For instance, Canagarajah (1999) reported
how Tamil students of English in the civil war-torn Sri Lanka offered
resistance to Western representations of English language and culture and
how they, motivated by their own cultural and historical backgrounds, appropriated
the language and used it in their own terms according to their
own aspirations, needs, and values. He reported how the students, through
marginal comments and graphics, actually reframed, reinterpreted and rewrote
the content of their ESL textbooks written and produced by Anglo-
174 CHAPTER 8
American authors. The students’ resistance, Canagarajah concluded, suggests
“the strategic ways by which discourses may be negotiated, intimating
the resilient ability of human subjects to creatively fashion a voice for themselves
from amidst the deafening channels of domination” (p. 197).
The parameter of possibility is also concerned with language ideology
and learner identity. As we saw in chapter 1, more than any other educational
enterprise, language education provides its participants with challenges
and opportunities for a continual quest for subjectivity and selfidentity;
for, as Weeden (1987) pointed out “language is the place where
actual and possible forms of social organization and their likely social and
political consequences are defined and contested. Yet it is also the place
where our sense of ourselves, our subjectivity, is constructed” (p. 21). This
is even more applicable to L2 education, which brings languages and cultures
in contact. That this contact results in identity conflicts has been
convincingly brought out by Norton’s study of immigrant women in Canada.
“The historically and socially constructed identity of learners,” Norton
(2000) wrote, “influences the subject position they take up in the language
classroom and the relationship they establish with the language
teacher” (p. 142).
Applying such a critical stance to teach English to speakers of other languages,
Auerbach (1995), Benesch (2001), Morgan (1998) and others have
suggested new ways of broadening the nature and scope of classroom aims
and activities. More specifically, Auerbach has showed us how participatory
pedagogy can bring together learners, teachers, and community activists in
mutually beneficial, collaborative projects. Morgan has demonstrated how
even in teaching units of language as system, such as phonological and grammatical
features, the values of critical practice and community development
can be profitably used. Similarly, Benesch has suggested ways and means of
linking the linguistic text and sociopolitical context as well as the academic
content and the larger community for the purpose of turning classroom input
and interaction into effective instruments of transformation.
What follows from the aforementioned discussion is that language teachers
can ill afford to ignore the sociocultural reality that influences identity
formation in the classroom nor can they afford to separate the linguistic
needs of learners from their social needs. They will be able to reconcile
these seemingly competing forces if they “achieve a deepening awareness
both of the sociocultural reality that shapes their lives and of their capacity
to transform that reality” (van Manen, 1977, p. 222). Such a deepening
awareness has a built-in quality to transform the life of the teachers themselves.
Studies by Clandinin and her colleagues attest to this self-transforming
phenomenon: “As we worked together we talked about ways of seeing
new possibility in our practices as teachers, as teacher educators, and
with children in our classroom. As we saw possibilities in our professional
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 175
lives we also came to see new possibilities in our personal lives” (Clandinin,
Davis, Hogan, & Kennard, 1993, p. 209).
In sum, the three pedagogic parameters of particularity, practicality, and
possibility constitute the conceptual foundation for a postmethod pedagogy.
They have the potential to function as operating principles, guiding
various aspects of L2 learning and teaching. These operating principles
manifest themselves in what may be called pedagogic indicators.
8.2.2. Pedagogic Indicators
Pedagogic indicators refer to those functions and features that are considered
to reflect the role played by key participants in the L2 learning and
teaching operations governing postmethod pedagogy. They are conceptually
consistent with the three parameters already discussed. They indicate
the degree to which shared decision making is incorporated into the planning
and implementation of classroom aims and activities, especially the
decision-making process shared by postmethod learners, teachers, and
teacher educators.
8.2.2.1. The Postmethod Learner. Postmethod pedagogy seeks to make
the most use of learner investment and learner interest by giving them, to
the extent feasible, a meaningful role in pedagogic decision making. As
Breen and Littlejohn (2000) observed, “a pedagogy that does not directly
call upon students’ capacities to make decisions conveys to them that either
they are not allowed to or that they are incapable of doing so; or it may convey
that the more overt struggle to interpret and plan is not part of ‘proper’
learning” (p. 21). Postmethod pedagogy allows learners a role in pedagogic
decision making by treating them as active and autonomous players.
Postmethod pedagogy takes into account two views of learner autonomy,
a narrow view and a broad view (Kumaravadivelu, 2003a). The narrow view
seeks to develop in the learner a capacity to learn to learn whereas the
broad view goes beyond that to include a capacity to learn to liberate as
well. Helping learners learn to learn involves developing in them the ability
to “take charge of one’s own learning,” (Holec, 1981, p. 3). Taking charge,
according to Holec, means to (a) have and to hold the responsibility for determining
learning objectives, (b) for defining contents and progressions,
(c) for selecting methods and techniques to be used, (d) for monitoring
the procedure of acquisition, and finally, (e) for evaluating what has been
acquired.
Generally, learning to learn means learning to use appropriate strategies
to realize desired learning objectives. In the L2 literature, one can find useful
taxonomies of learning strategies (e.g., O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford,
1990) as well as user-friendly manuals (e.g., Chamot, et. al., 1999;
176 CHAPTER 8
Scharle & Szabo, 2000), which offer learners insights into what they need to
know and can do to plan and regulate their learning. These sources tell us
that learners use several metacognitive, cognitive, social, and affective strategies
to achieve their learning objectives. They also tell us that there are
many individual ways of learning a language successfully, and that different
learners will approach language learning differently. We further learn that
more successful learners use a greater variety of strategies and use them in
ways appropriate to the language learning task, and that less successful
learners not only have fewer strategy types in their repertoire, but also frequently
use strategies that are inappropriate to the task.
By using appropriate learning strategies, learners can monitor their
learning process and maximize their learning potential. As I have stated
elsewhere (Kumaravadivelu, 2003a, pp. 139–140), learners can exploit
some of these opportunities by:
· Identifying their learning strategies and styles in order to know their
strengths and weaknesses as language learners;
· stretching their strategies and styles by incorporating some of those
employed by successful language learners;
· reaching out for opportunities for additional language reception or
production beyond what they get in the classroom, for example,
through library resources, learning centers and electronic media such
as the Internet;
· collaborating with other learners to pool information on a specific
project they are working on; and
· taking advantage of opportunities to communicate with competent
speakers of the language.
Collectively, these activities help learners gain a sense of responsibility for
aiding their own learning.
While the narrow view of learner autonomy treats learning to learn a language
as an end in itself, the broad view treats learning to learn a language
as a means to an end, the end being learning to liberate. In other words, the
former stands for academic autonomy and the latter, for liberatory autonomy.
If academic autonomy enables learners to be effective learners, liberatory
autonomy empowers them to be critical thinkers. Thus, liberatory autonomy
goes much further by actively seeking to help learners recognize sociopolitical
impediments that prevent them from realizing their full human
potential, and by providing them with the intellectual and cognitive tools
necessary to overcome them.
More than any other educational enterprise, language teaching, where
almost any and all topics can potentially constitute the content of classroom
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 177
activity, offers ample opportunities for teachers to experiment with liberatory
autonomy. Meaningful liberatory autonomy can be promoted in the
language classroom by, among other things:
· Encouraging learners to assume, with the help of their teachers, the
role of mini-ethnographers so that they can investigate and understand
how, for instance, language as ideology serves vested interests;
· asking them to reflect on their developing identities by writing diaries
or journal entries about issues that engage their sense of who they are
and how they relate to the social world;
· helping them in the formation of learning communities where they
develop into unified, socially cohesive, mutually supportive groups
seeking self-awareness and self-improvement; and
· providing opportunities for them to explore the unlimited possibilities
offered by online services on the World Wide Web, and bringing back
to the class their own topics and materials for discussion, and their own
perspectives on those topics.
Taken together, what the two types of autonomy promise is the development
of overall academic ability, intellectual competence, social consciousness,
and mental attitude necessary for learners to avail opportunities, and
overcome challenges both in and outside the classroom. Clearly, such a farreaching
goal cannot be attained by learners working alone; they need the
willing cooperation of all others who directly or indirectly shape their educational
agenda, particularly that of their teachers.
8.2.2.2. The Postmethod Teacher. The postmethod teacher is considered
to be an autonomous teacher. Teacher autonomy is so central that it
can be seen as defining the heart of postmethod pedagogy. Method-based
pedagogy “overlooks the fund of experience and tacit knowledge about
teaching which the teachers already have by virtue of their lives as students”
(Freeman, 1991, p. 35). Postmethod pedagogy, on the other hand, recognizes
the teachers’ prior knowledge as well as their potential to know not
only how to teach but also know how to act autonomously within the academic
and administrative constraints imposed by institutions, curricula,
and textbooks. It also promotes the ability of teachers to know how to develop
a reflective approach to their own teaching, how to analyze and evaluate
their own teaching acts, how to initiate change in their classroom, and
how to monitor the effects of such changes (Wallace, 1991). Such an ability
can evolve only if teachers have a desire and a determination to acquire and
assert a fair degree of autonomy in pedagogic decision making.
In the field of L2 education, most teachers enter into the realm of professional
knowledge, with very few exceptions, through a “methods” pack-
178 CHAPTER 8
age. That is, they learn that the supposedly objective knowledge of language
learning and teaching has been closely linked to a particular method
which, in turn, is closely linked to a particular school of thought in psychology,
linguistics, and other related disciplines. When they begin to teach,
however, they quickly recognize the limitations of such a knowledge base,
and try to break away from such a constraining concept of method. In the
process, they attempt, as we saw earlier, to develop their own eclectic
method. In order to do that, they have to increasingly rely on their prior
and evolving personal knowledge of learning and teaching.
Personal knowledge “does not simply entail behavioral knowledge of
how to do particular things in the classroom; it involves a cognitive dimension
that links thought with activity, centering on the context-embedded,
interpretive process of knowing what to do” (Freeman, 1996, p. 99). Personal
knowledge does not develop instantly before one’s peering eyes, as
film develops in an instant camera. It evolves over time, through determined
effort. Under these circumstances, it is evident that teachers can become
autonomous only to the extent they are willing and able to embark
on a continual process of self-development.
Facilitating teacher self-development, to a large extent, depends on what
we know about teacher cognition which is a fairly new, but a rapidly growing,
professional topic in L2 teacher education. Teacher cognition, as Borg
(2003) said, refers to “what teachers know, believe, and think” (p. 81). According
to his recent state-of-the-art review, teacher cognition has been the
focus of 47 research studies since 1996. Some of these studies have shed
useful light on how teachers interpret and evaluate the events, activities,
and interactions that occur in the teaching process, and how these interpretations
and evaluations can help them enrich their knowledge, and eventually
enable them to become self-directed individuals. These and other studies
on teacher cognition reveal “greater understanding of the contextual
factors—e.g., institutional, social, instructional, physical—which shape
what language teachers do are central to deeper insights into relationships
between cognition and practice” (Borg, 2003, p. 106).
A study conducted in Australia by Breen and his colleagues (Breen,
Hird, Milton, Oliver, & Thwaite, 2001) clearly brings out the possible relationship
between teacher beliefs, guiding principles, and classroom actions,
and their unfailing impact on immediate, ongoing thinking and decision
making. Consider Fig. 8.1.
Studying a group of 18 Australian teachers of English as a second language
(ESL) whose teaching experience varied from 5 to 33 years, Breen et
al. (2001) found that teachers’ beliefs comprise a set of guiding principles
that, in turn, “appeared to derive from underlying beliefs or personal theories
the teachers held regarding the nature of the broader educational
process, the nature of language, how it is learned, and how it may be best
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 179
taught” (pp. 472–473). According to them, the pedagogic principles mediate
between the experientially informed teacher beliefs and the teacher’s
ongoing decision making and actions with a particular class of learners in a
particular teaching situation. These principles are “reflexive in both shaping
what the teacher does whilst being responsive to what the teacher observes
about the learners’ behavior and their achievements in class” (p.
473). Over time, teachers evolve a coherent pedagogic framework consisting
of core principles that are applied across teaching situations. What
postmethod pedagogy assumes is that this kind personal knowledge teachers
develop over time will eventually lead them to construct their own theory
of practice.
While the above-mentioned authors provide teachers’ articulated encounters
with certain aspects of particularity and practicality, scholars such
as Clarke (2003), Edge (2002), and Johnston (2003) showed more recently
how teachers can enlarge their vision by embracing aspects of possibility as
180 CHAPTER 8
FIG 8.1. Teacher conceptualizations and classroom practices (Breen et al.,
2001, p. 473).
well. Their contributions demonstrate once again that “language teachers
cannot hope to fully satisfy their pedagogic obligations without at the same
time satisfying their social obligations” (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 544). In
other words, teachers cannot afford to remain sociopolitically naive.
Sociopolitical naiveté commonly occurs, as Hargreaves (1994) wisely
warned us,
when teachers are encouraged to reflect on their personal biographies without
also connecting them to broader histories of which they are a part; or
when they are asked to reflect on their personal images of teaching and learning
without also theorizing the conditions which gave rise to those images and
the consequences which follow from them. (p. 74)
He argued, quite rightly, that when divorced from its surrounding social
and political contexts, teachers’ personal knowledge can quickly turn into
“parochial knowledge.”
In pursuing their professional self-development, postmethod teachers
perform teacher research involving the triple parameters of particularity,
practicality, and possibility. Teacher research is initiated and implemented
by them, and is motivated mainly by their own desire to self-explore and
self-improve. Contrary to common misconception, doing teacher research
does not necessarily involve highly sophisticated, statistically laden, variable-controlled
experimental studies for which practicing teachers have
neither the time nor the energy. Rather, it involves keeping one’s eyes, ears,
and minds open in the classroom to see what works and what doesn’t, with
what group(s) of learners, for what reason, and assessing what changes are
necessary to make instruction achieve its desired goals. Teachers can conduct
teacher research by developing and using investigative capabilities derived
from the practices of exploratory research (Allwright, 1993), teacherresearch
cycle (Freeman, 1998), and critical classroom discourse analysis
(Kumaravadivelu, 1999a, 1999b).
The goal of teacher research is achieved when teachers exploit and extend
their intuitively held pedagogic beliefs based on their educational histories
and personal biographies by conducting a more structured and more
goal-oriented teacher research based on the parameters of particularity,
practicality, and possibility. Most part of such teacher research is doable if,
as far as possible, it is not separated from and is fully integrated with day-today
teaching and learning. As Allwright (1993) argued, language teachers
and learners are in a privileged position to use class time for investigative
purposes as long as the activities are done through the medium of the target
language being taught and learned. To successfully carry out investigative
as well as instructional responsibilities thrust on them by the postmethod
condition, teachers, no doubt, need the services of committed
teacher educators.
POSTMETHOD CONDITION 181
8.2.2.3. The Postmethod Teacher Educator. “Mainstream approaches to
teacher education in TESOL,” as Pennycook (2004) pointed out, “have frequently
lacked a social or political dimension that helps locate English and
English language teaching within the complex social, cultural, economic,
and political environments in which it occurs” (p. 335). That is because
most models of teacher education are designed to transmit a set of preselected
and presequenced body of knowledge from the teacher educator to
the prospective teacher. This is essentially a top–down approach in which
teacher educators perceive their role to be one of engineering the classroom
teaching of student teachers, offering them suggestions on the best
way to teach, modeling appropriate teaching behaviors for them, and evaluating
their mastery of discrete pedagogic behaviors through a capstone
course called practicum or practice teaching. Such a transmission model of
teacher education is hopelessly inadequate to produce self-directing and
self-determining teachers who constitute the backbone of any postmethod
pedagogy.
The task of the postmethod teacher educator is to create conditions for
prospective teachers to acquire necessary authority and autonomy that will
enable them to reflect on and shape their own pedagogic experiences, and
in certain cases transform such experiences. In other words, it becomes necessary
to have teacher education that does not merely pass on a body of
knowledge, but rather one that is dialogically constructed by participants
who think and act critically. In other words, the interaction between the
teacher educator and the prospective teacher should become dialogic in the
Bakhtinian sense (Kumaravadivelu, 1999b). According to Bakhtin (1981), interaction
is “dialogic” when all the participants to an interactional exchange
have the authority and the autonomy to express their voice and exhibit their
identity. A dialogue, controlled by one individual, is “monologic” even if two
or more individuals take part in it. Dialogic discourse, then, facilitates an interaction
between meanings, between belief systems; an interaction that produces
what Bakhtin calls, “a responsive understanding.” In such a dialogic
enterprise, the primary responsibility of the teacher educator is not to provide
the teacher with a borrowed voice, however enlightened it may be, but
to provide opportunities for the dialogic construction of meaning out of
which an identity or voice may emerge.
From a postmethod perspective, teacher education is treated not as the
experience and interpretation of a predetermined, prescribed pedagogic
practice, but rather as an ongoing, dialogically constructed entity involving
critically reflective participants. When teacher education is dialogic, a series
of actions ensue: through purposeful interactions, channels of communication
between student-teachers and teacher-educators open-up. Student
teachers actively and freely use the linguistic, cultural and pedagogic capital
they bring with them. Teacher educators show a willingness to use the
182 CHAPTER 8
student teacher’s values, beliefs, and knowledge as an integral part of the
learning process. When all this happens, the entire process of teacher education
becomes reflective and rewarding.
In practical terms, what this discussion means is that the role of the
postmethod teacher educator becomes one of:
· Recognizing and helping student teachers recognize the inequalities
built into the current teacher education programs, which treat teacher
educators as producers of knowledge, and practicing teachers as consumers
of knowledge;
· enabling prospective teachers to articulate their thoughts and experience,
and share with other student teachers in class their evolving personal
beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge about language learning
and teaching at the beginning, during, and at the end of their teacher
education program;
· encouraging prospective teachers to think critically so that they may
relate their personal knowledge with the professional knowledge they
are being exposed to, monitor how each shapes and is shaped by the
other, assess how the generic professional knowledge could be used to
derive their own personal theory of practice;
· creating conditions for student teachers to acquire basic, classroomdiscourse
analytical skills that will help them understand the nature of
classroom input and interaction;
· rechannelizing part of their own research agenda to do what Cameron,
Frazer, Harvey, Rampton, and Richardson (1992) called “empowering
research,” that is, research with rather than on their student
teachers; and
· exposing student teachers to a pedagogy of possibility by helping them
critically engage authors who have raised our consciousness about
power and politics, ideas and ideologies that inform L2 education.
These are, no doubt, challenging tasks. Unfortunately, most of the current
teacher education programs are unable to meet these challenges. The programs
require a fundamental restructuring that transforms an informationoriented
teacher education into an inquiry-oriented one.
8.3. CONCLUSION
The purpose of this chapter has been threefold: first, to deconstruct the existing
concept of method; second, to describe the antimethod sentiments;
and third, to delineate the emerging postmethod condition. I have pointed
out that the concept of method is beset with ambiguous meanings and mulPOSTMETHOD
CONDITION 183
tiple myths, and, as a result, has lost much of its significance. I have also
stressed that a greater awareness of its limitations among a growing section
of the professional community has caused the emergence of what has been
called the postmethod condition.
I have argued that any postmethod pedagogy must take into account the
pedagogic parameters of particularity, practicality, and possibility. The first
relates to the advancement of a context-sensitive pedagogy based on a true
understanding of local linguistic, sociocultural, and political particularities.
The second seeks to enable and encourage teachers to theorize from their
practice and practice what they theorize. And the third emphasizes the importance
of larger social, political, educational, and institutional forces that
shape identity formation and social transformation. The boundaries of the
particular, the practical, and the possible are blurred as they shape and are
shaped by the others.
I have also suggested that the three parameters have the potential to provide
the organizing principles for the construction of a context-sensitive
pedagogic framework. This potential opens up unlimited opportunities for
the emergence of various types of postmethod pedagogies that are sensitive
to various learning and teaching needs, wants, and situations. In chapter 9,
I describe three recent attempts at formulating the basics of postmethod
pedagogy that transcend the limitations of the concept of method in different
ways.
184 CHAPTER 8