Kumaravadivelu argued that a post method pedagogy must (a) facilitate
the advancement of a context-sensitive language education based on a true
understanding of local linguistic, socio-cultural, and political
particularities; (b) rupture the reified role relationship between theorists
and practitioners by enabling teachers to construct their own theory of
practice; and (c) tap the sociopolitical consciousness that participants bring
with them in order to aid their quest for identity formation and social transformation.
Treating
learners, teachers, and teacher educators as coexplorers, Kumaravadivelu
discusses their roles and functions in a post-method pedagogy. He concludes by
raising the prospect of replacing the limited concept of method with the three pedagogic
parameters of particularity, practicality, and possibility as organizing
principles for L 2 teaching and teacher education.
In this very
assignment, I am going to highlight post-method condition, post-method
pedagogy, pedagogic parameters, pedagogic frameworks, advantages and
disadvantages of post-method pedagogy, negative and positive criticisms on
post-method pedagogy and conclusion.
Post-method
Condition
The post-method
condition signifies three interrelated attributes. First and foremost, it
signifies a search for an alternative to method rather than an alternative
method. While alternative methods are primarily products of top-down processes,
alternatives to method are mainly products of bottom-up processes. In practical
terms, this means that we need to refigure the relationship between the
theorizer and the practitioner of language teaching. If the conventional
concept of method entitles theorizers to construct professional theories of
pedagogy, the post-method condition empowers practitioners to construct
personal theories of practice. If the concept of method authorizes theorizers
to centralize pedagogic decision-making, the post-method condition enables
practitioners to generate location-specific, classroom-oriented innovative strategies.
Secondly, the
post-method condition signifies teacher autonomy. The conventional concept of
method “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). The post-method condition, however, recognizes the teachers’
potential to know not only how to teach but also 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 critical approach in order to self-observe, self-analyze, and self-evaluate
their own teaching practice with a view to effecting desired changes.
The third
attribute of the post-method condition is principled pragmatism. Unlike
eclecticism which is constrained by the conventional concept of method, in the
sense that one is supposed to put together practices from different established
methods, principled pragmatism is based on the pragmatics of pedagogy where “the
relationship between theory and practice, ideas and their actualization, can
only be realized within the domain of application, that is, through the
immediate activity of teaching” (Widdowson, 1990, p. 30). Principled pragmatism
thus focuses on how classroom learning can be shaped and reshaped by teachers
as a result of self-observation, self-analysis, and self-evaluation.
One way in which
teachers can follow principled pragmatism is by developing what Prabhu (1990)
calls “a sense of plausibility.” Teachers’ sense of plausibility is their
“subjective understanding of the teaching they do” (Prabhu, 1990, p. 172). This
subjective understanding may arise from their own experience as learners and
teachers, and through professional education and peer consultation. Since
teachers’ sense of plausibility is not linked to the concept of method, an
important concern is “not whether it implies a good or bad method, but more
basically, whether it is active, alive, or operational enough to create a sense
of involvement for both the teacher and the student” (Ibid., p. 173).
The three major
attributes of the post-method condition outlined above provide a solid
foundation on which the fundamental parameters of a post-method pedagogy can be
conceived and constructed.
Post-method
Pedagogy
Post-method pedagogy
allows us to go beyond, and overcome the limitations of method-based pedagogy.
Incidentally, the term pedagogy in a broad sense,
to include not only issues pertaining to classroom strategies, instructional
materials, curricular objectives, and evaluation measures but also a wide range
of historio-political and socio-cultural experiences that directly or indirectly
influence L2 education. Within such a broad-based definition, post-method
pedagogy can be visualized as a three-dimensional system consisting of
pedagogic parameters of particularity, practicality, and possibility. I briefly
outline below the salient features of each of these parameters indicating how
they interweave and interact with each other.
The Parameter of Particularity
The parameter of
particularity requires that any language pedagogy, to be relevant, 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 socio-cultural milieu. The parameter of particularity
then is opposed to the notion that there can be an established method with a
generic set of theoretical principles and a generic set of classroom practices.
From a pedagogic point of view, then, particularity is at once a goal and a
process. That is to say, one works for
and through particularity
at the same time. It is a progressive advancement of means and ends. It is the
ability to be sensitive to the local educational, institutional and social
contexts in which L2 learning and teaching take place. It starts with
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.
Such a continual cycle of observation, reflection, and action is a prerequisite
for the development of context-sensitive pedagogic theory and practice. Since
the particular is so deeply embedded in the practical, and cannot be achieved
or understood without it, the parameter of particularity is intertwined with
the parameter of practicality as well.
The Parameter of Practicality
The parameter of
practicality relates to a much larger issue that directly impacts on the
practice of classroom teaching, namely, the relationship between theory and
practice. The parameter of practicality entails a teacher-generated theory of
practice. It recognizes that no theory of practice can be fully useful and
usable unless it is generated through practice. A logical corollary is that it
is the practicing teacher who, given adequate tools for exploration, is best
suited to produce such a practical theory. The intellectual exercise of
attempting to derive a theory of practice enables teachers 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 appraisal. In this sense, a theory of practice
involves continual reflection and action. If teachers’ reflection and action
are seen as constituting one side of the practicality coin, their insights and
intuition can be seen as constituting the other. Sedimented and solidified
through prior and ongoing encounters with learning and teaching is the
teacher’s unexplained and sometimes unexplainable awareness of what constitutes
good teaching. Teachers’ sense-making (van Manen, 1977) of good teaching
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. The seemingly instinctive and idiosyncratic
nature of the teacher’s sense-making disguises the fact that it is formed and
reformed by the pedagogic factors governing the microcosm of the classroom as
well as by the sociopolitical forces emanating from outside. Consequently,
sense-making requires that teachers view pedagogy not merely as a mechanism for
maximizing learning opportunities in the classroom but also as a means for
understanding and transforming possibilities in and outside the classroom. In
this sense, the parameter of practicality metamorphoses into the parameter of
possibility.
The parameter of
possibility is derived mainly from the works of critical pedagogists of
Freirean persuasion. Critical pedagogists take the position that any pedagogy
is implicated in relations of power and dominance, and is implemented to create
and sustain social inequalities. They call for recognition of learners’ and
teachers’ subject-positions, that is, their class, race, gender, and ethnicity,
and for sensitivity toward their impact on education. In the process of
sensitizing itself to the prevailing sociopolitical reality, the parameter of
possibility is also concerned with individual identity. More than any other
educational enterprise, language education provides its participants with
challenges and opportunities for a continual quest for subjectivity and self-identity
for, as Weeden (1987, p. 21) points 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.” This is even more
applicable to L2 education, which brings languages and cultures in contact. To
sum up this section, I have suggested that one way of conceptualizing a post-method
pedagogy is to look at it three-dimensionally as a pedagogy of particularity,
practicality, and possibility. The parameter of particularity seeks to
facilitate the advancement of a context-sensitive, location-specific pedagogy
that is based on a true understanding of local linguistic, socio-cultural, and
political particularities. The parameter of practicality seeks to rupture the
reified role relationship by enabling and encouraging teachers to theorize from
their practice and to practice what they theorize. The parameter of possibility
seeks to tap the sociopolitical consciousness that participants bring with them
to the classroom so that it can also function as a catalyst for a continual
quest for identity formation and social transformation. Inevitably, the
boundaries of the particular, the practical, and the possible are blurred.
As Figure 2.1
shows, the characteristics of these parameters overlap. Each one shapes and is
shaped by the other. They interweave and interact with each other in a synergic
relationship where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The result
of such a relationship will vary from context to context depending on what the
participants bring to bear on it.
If we assume
that the three pedagogic parameters of particularity, practicality, and
possibility have the potential to form the foundation for a post-method
pedagogy, and propel the language teaching profession beyond the limited and
limiting concept of method, then we need a coherent framework that can guide us
to carry out the salient features of the pedagogy in a classroom context. I
present below one such framework—a macrostrategic framework (Kumaravadivelu,
1994a).
Macrostrategic
Framework
The
macrostrategic framework for language teaching consists of macrostrategies and
microstrategies. Macrostrategies are defined as guiding principles derived from
historical, theoretical, empirical, and experiential insights related to L2
learning and teaching. A macrostrategy is thus a general plan, a broad
guideline based on which teachers will be able to generate their own
situation-specific, need-based microstrategies or classroom techniques. In
other words, macrostrategies are made operational in the classroom through microstrategies.
The suggested macrostrategies and the situated microstrategies can assist L2
teachers as they begin to construct their own theory of practice.
Macrostrategies
may be considered theory-neutral as well as method-neutral. Theory-neutral does
not mean atheoretical; rather it means that the framework is not constrained by
the underlying assumptions of any one particular professional theory of
language, language learning, or language teaching. Likewise, method-neutral does
not mean methodless; rather it means that the framework is not conditioned by
any of the particular set of theoretical principles or classroom procedures
normally associated with any of the particular language teaching methods
discussed in the early part of this chapter.
Ten
Macrostrategies as suggested by Kumaravadivelu are as follows-
1. Maximize
learning opportunities: This macrostrategy envisages teaching as a
process of creating and utilizing learning opportunities, a process in which
teachers strike a balance between their role as managers of teaching acts and
their role as mediators of learning acts.
2. Facilitate
negotiated interaction: This macrostrategy refers to meaningful
learner-learner, learner-teacher classroom interaction in which learners are
entitled and encouraged to initiate topic and talk, not just react and respond.
3. Minimize
perceptual mismatches: This macrostrategy emphasizes the recognition
of potential perceptual mismatches between intentions and interpretations of
the learner, the teacher, and the teacher educator.
There are ten
sources of perpetual mismatches-
A) Cognitive B)
Pedagogy C) Evaluate D) Communicative E) Strategic F) Procedural G) Linguistic
H) Cultural I) Instructional J) Attitudinal
4. Activate
intuitive heuristics: This macrostrategy highlights the importance
of providing rich textual data so that learners can infer and internalize
underlying rules governing grammatical usage and communicative use. It also
encourages self-discovery and self-learning.
5. Foster
language awareness: This macrostrategy refers to any attempt to draw
learners’ attention to the formal and functional properties of their L2 in
order to increase the degree of explicitness required to promote L2 learning.
6. Contextualize
linguistic input: This macrostrategy highlights how language
usage and use are shaped by linguistic, extralinguistic, situational, and
extrasituational contexts.
7. Integrate
language skills: This macrostrategy refers to the need to
holistically integrate language skills traditionally separated and sequenced as
listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
8. Promote learner autonomy: This
macrostrategy involves helping learners learn how to learn, equipping them with
the means necessary to self-direct and self-monitor their own learning.
9. Raise
cultural consciousness: This macrostrategy emphasizes the need to
treat learners as cultural informants so that they are encouraged to engage in
a process of classroom participation that puts a premium on their
power/knowledge.
10. Ensure
social relevance: This macrostrategy refers to the need for teachers
to be sensitive to the societal, political, economic, and educational
environment in which L2 learning and teaching take place.
From the wheel,
we can agree that the ten macrostrategies are typically in a systemic relationship,
supporting one another. That is to say, a particular macrostrategy is connected
with and is related to a cluster of other macrostrategies. Clustering of
macrostrategies may be useful depending on specific teaching objectives for a
given day of instruction. When teachers have an opportunity to process and
practice their teaching through a variety of macrostrategies, they will
discover how they all hang together.
Advantages
·
The Post-method era lets us learn and understand different
methods and approaches and also takes from them different elements to build up
our own.
·
As
a teacher, we have to make our selection and analyses taking into account the
needs and interests of the student.
Disadvantages
·
As methods are prescribed, teachers sometimes cannot work
freely.
·
Methods
and approaches are not culturally universal so they cannot be applied in any
culture. If we want to apply them, we have to take into account the social,
cultural, political context.
Criticisms on Post-method
Pedagogy
Positive Criticisms:
1.
Post-method pedagogy is “a compelling idea that emphasizes greater judgment
from teachers in each context and a better match between the means and the
ends” (Crabbe, 2003: 16)
2.
It encourages the teacher “to engage in a carefully crafted process of
diagnosis, treatment, and assessment” (Brown, 2002: 13).
3.
“It also provides one possible way to be responsive to be lived experiences of
learners and teachers, and to the local exigencies of learning and teaching”
(Kumaravadivelu, 2006a: 73).
Negative
Criticisms:
1.
Post-method is not an alternative to method but only an addition to method
(Liu, 1995).
2.
Questioning the very concept of post-method pedagogy: “Kumaravadivelu’s
macrostrategies constitute a method” (Larsen-Freeman, 2005: 24).
3.
Bell (2003) laments that “by deconstructing methods, post-method pedagogy has
tended to cut teachers off from their sense of plausibility, their passion and
involvement”.
Requirements
for implementation of post-method pedagogy
·
Teachers
construct self-reflections
·
Teachers’
centrality in developing ELT.
·
Teacher
education and development programs.
Conclusion
There are at
least three broad, overlapping strands of thought that emerge from what we have
discussed so far. First, the traditional concept of method with its generic set
of theoretical principles and classroom techniques offers only a limited and
limiting perspective on language learning and teaching. Second, learning and
teaching needs, wants, and situations are unpredictably numerous. Therefore,
current models of teacher education programs can hardly prepare teachers to
tackle all these unpredictable needs, wants, and situations. Third, the primary
task of in-service and pre-service teacher education programs is to create
conditions for present and prospective teachers to acquire the necessary
knowledge, skill, authority, and autonomy to construct their own personal pedagogic
knowledge. Thus, there is an imperative need to move away from a method-based
pedagogy to a post-method pedagogy.
One possible way
of conceptualizing and constructing a post-method pedagogy is to be sensitive
to the parameters of particularity, practicality, and possibility, which can be
incorporated in the macrostrategic framework. The framework, then, seeks to
transform classroom practitioners into strategic thinkers, strategic teachers,
and strategic explorers who channel their time and effort in order to-
·
reflect
on the specific needs, wants, situations, and processes of learning and
teaching
·
stretch
their knowledge, skill, and attitude to stay informed and involved
·
design
and use appropriate microstrategies to maximize learning potential in the
classroom
·
monitor
and evaluate their ability to react to myriad situations in meaningful ways.
In short, the
framework seeks to provide a possible mechanism for classroom teachers to begin
to theorize from their practice and practice what they theorize.
Good summary of Post Method Era.
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