Definition of Post Method Era

The definition of  post- method era

‘A language teaching method is a single set of procedures which teachers are to follow in the classroom. Methods asually based on aset of beliefs about the  nature of language and learning.’ (Nunan,2003,p.5).At around the same time,  Kumaravadivelu (1994) identified what he call the ‘post method condition’, a result of ‘the widespread dissatisfaction with the conventional concept of method’ (p.43). Rather than subcribe to single set of procedures, postmethod teachers adapt their approach in accordance with a local, contextual factor,while at the same time being guided by a number of ’macrostrategies’. Two such macrostrategies are ‘maximise learning opportunities’ and ‘promote learner autonomy’.

 Postmethodologist have used againts methods to show how they inflate the influence of methods to better knock them down. The roots of postmethodology in the larger area of  postmodernism, arguing that postmethod, rather than being evidence of the maturation of teaching practices, is a further manifestation of the search for method and so is subject to the same criticisms. Postmethod, despites its disparagement of innovations called methods, can be seen as an attempt to unify these disparate element in to a more holistic, redifined communicative language teaching (CLT) thruogh a dialectical process of building and deconsructing forces.

Definitions of method

Richards and Rodgers (2001) write about methods as an umbrella term comprising approach,design, and procedures. This prespective has influential through the use of thei text. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (1986, 2001). According to Richards and Rodgers,  “a method is theoritically related to an approach, is organizationally determined by a design, and is practically realized in procedure” (2001, p. 20). Approach is the underlying theory of language and language learning.Design is how those theories determine the objectives, syllabus, teaching and learning activities, teacher and learner roles and the role of the instructional materials. Procedures are the techniques derives from the particular approach and design.  However, Richards and Rodgers confound this definition in the discussion of CLT, which is the best considered an approach rather than a method, (p.172) in the same of definition.

Methods with lowercase m mean a grab bag of classroom practices. According to Oller in the second addition of Method That Work (1993), methods include: program, curricula, procedures, demonstrations, modes of presentation, research findings, test, manner of interaction, materials, texts, films, videos, computers and more, (p.3).

Methods with an uppercase M seem to mean fixed set of classroom practices that serve as a prescription and therefore do not allow variation.Richards and Rodgers add that methods are relatively fixed in time, leave little scope for individual interpretation and are learned through training. This definition is refers mainly to small set of 1970s designer methods, such as suggestopedia, community language learning and the silent way. Devining methods like this leaves little alternatives but to abandon the term altogether; hence the notion og going beyond methods to the post method condition.

The postmethod killing of methods

The arguments used to defeat method can also be seen as evidence that teachers, at least, were never really in the thrall of methods, Bell in’ TESOL Quarterly,’ (2003) First, postmethodologists argue that the methods (prescription for practice) were really very limited in that they deal only with the first lessons of mainly lower level courses. Contrast these limited methods with CLT, which though never claiming universality, has arguably been the most widely applied of any method since grammar translation. Indeed the degree of application may be better guide to the so-called distinction between method and approach. If the method has liimited realization, then one would expect little variation in its procedures, but if, like CLT, the method has such wide- scale application, variation in its realization would be normal.

Second, post methodologists argue that the methods can never be realized in their purest form in the classroom according to the principles of their originator because methods are not derives from classroom practice. Richards (1990) calls the designer methods ideals types.

At the same time, L2 teaching professioals know that what is realized as methods in the classroom emerges overtime as result of the interaction among the teacher, the students, and the materials and activities (Richards, 1990). This notion of the social construction of methods in milion of different classroom sugest that what is called methods is often an a posteriori rationalization of many similar teaching practices rather than an apriori set of prescriptions emanating from one source.

A further dismissive argument against prescriptive methods is that litle of  interest remain in them, but the argument ignores the huge influence that the core philosophies of community language learning, silent way, and suggestopedia have had on language teaching. Indeed, the development of CLT has in part been driven by the co-option of the humanistic, student-centered principles of designer methods. The emergence of post methods pedagogy may have more to do with larger social forces than with pedagogical maturity.

Post-method and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Nunan (1991) argues that “the way to overcome the pendulum effect in language teaching is to derive appropriate classroom practice from empirical evidence on the nature of language learning and use and from insights into what make learners tick” (p.1). so within the broader framework of principled pracmatism, postmethodology theorist outline universal principles or strategies. Posmethodology, therefore,rather than going beyond method, may be understood as synthesis of various method under the umbrella of CLT.

 Brown (2007) in Teaching by Principles offer the seven interconnected characteristics as a description of CLT: (a) Overal goals. CLT suggest a focus on all of the components (gramatical, discourse, functional, sociolinguistic, and srategic) of comunicative competence. (b) Relationship of form and function. Language techniques are design to engage learner in the pracmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningfull purposes. (c) Fluency and Accuracy focus on the “flow” of comprehension and production... and formal accuracy of production...underlying communacative techniques. (d) Focus on real-world context. Students in a communicative class ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively in unrehearsed context outside the classroom. (e) Autonomy and strategic involvement. Students are givent apportunities to focus on their own learning process through raising their ‘awareness of their own styles of learning (strengths, weaknesses, preferences) and through  the development of appropriate strategies for production and comprehension. (f) Teacher roles. The role of the teacher is that of facilitator and guide, not an all-knowing font of knowladge. The teacher is an empathetic “coach” who values the students’ linguistic development. (g) Student role. Students are active participants in their own learning process, learner centered, coopreative, collaborative learning is emphasized. These seven characteristics underscore some major departures from earlier methods and approaches.