Postmethod Era

The Postmethod Era: Toward Informed Approaches

I like how Brown starts off the chapter talking about unifying our approach to language teaching and designing appropriate tasks for our students.  This should be our main priority as teachers, making useful and appropriate tasks that our students comprehend and use to their advantage. “Postmethod need not imply the end of methods but rather an understanding of the limitations of the notion of method and a desire to transcend those limitations”. I think Bell describes postmethods perfectly, it is not putting an end to methods and planning but it understands that methods have limitations. There is no a one size fits all method, we have to look at the classroom environment; the geographic, social and political background’s of the student to see what fits our learners the best.

The problem with theory and practice is that there is one person who organizes, researches and applies an approach while the teacher takes the backseat most of the time. When the practitioner does little to question or appeal the theory this is when setbacks happen and students can fall behind.

Communicative Language Teaching is hard to define because it is a unified but broad approach that relies on the nature of language and real life communication. Goals of the CLT approach are to encompass all of the components of communicative competence as well as organizational and pragmatic aspects of language. The relationship between form and function are important as well as fluency and accuracy and focusing on real world contexts. Teachers are a facilitator and guides and students are active participants in their own language and are active in their own learning process. Students are also encouraged to interact as much as they can with other students and the teacher. I value this approach because of the focus on communication. Real life communication and interacting with others is extremely important in language, just as important as grammar rules and I liked how CLT puts focus on both. There are positives to the CLT approach but there are negatives also. It is difficult for nonnative-speaking teachers who are not very proficient in the second language to teach effectively. It is also easy to focus on one aspect of CLT but it is important to focus on all aspects, this can be difficult so a direct approach can be helpful.

Task Based Language Teaching is a popular approach within CLT. The tasks specify what the students need to learn and use organizational skills to meet these goals and tasks. A task is an “activity which requires learners to use language with emphasis on meaning to attain an objective.” TBLT also puts emphasis on real world language, communication, and problem solving.

Learner Centered Instruction focuses on the individual student. It emphasizes the learners needs, style of learning, and goals. LCI gives some of the control to the student, allows student creativity and sense of competence. This is good for the student, especially ESL students because it allows them to create a sense of independence and I could see students gaining confidence in their language skills when LCI is used. Cooperative learning also involves the same characteristics in LCI but students and teachers work together as a team to reach goals. It is not as focused on the individual learner but it is said to “heighten self esteem”. Interactive learning also incorporates group work, uses real life language, focuses on communication, and prepares students for the real world. This approach is effective because it prepares students for the real world and working together enhances the input and output of the student.

Whole language education focuses on the wholeness of the language, not breaking it down into smaller pieces. Oral and written language are equally important in learning a second language. Because we learn our L1 in “wholes” not “parts” L2 teachers try to create the same idea and not build language up from the bottom. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are all equally important which is a great characteristic to this approach because in the real world they are all important and as teachers one of our goals is to prepare our students for the real world.

Content Based Instruction brings language and subject matter together and language becomes the means to which the student accomplishes a set of goals. This approach can become complicated and frustrating because the teacher has to become the double expert in both language and the content subject.

Postmethods

In the beginning of his essay Kuma describes the modern way we should be thinking about TESOL practices. He states that before 1990 TESOL was in a period of awareness but now we are in a period of awakening. I like how he says this, as teachers we learn so many pedagogies, methods and techniques we need to take what we think is best look at our students and figure out what is most beneficial for our classroom. We should not just be aware of these teachings we should be “awakened”, figure out how to put these practices into action.

CLT (communicative language teaching) is a classic approach, covering a multitude of aspects. Today the approach seems stale and out of date with society and what we value in language today. That is why task based teaching (TBLT) is more popular today, it breaks language learning down into smaller tasks that seem easier to conquer. There is so much that goes into TBLT like grammar rules, meaning, communication, integration of language skills and connecting all of these to your psychological process.

Because we are moving away from being dependent on methods because they are “dead” or “there is no best method” we can look at other approaches and perspectives. Strategy and technique for example is not just another word for method according to Stern. There are three layers in the strategy and technique approach; connecting the student’s first and second language, code communication and explicit-implicit option. When I read about the strategy/technique approach in Brown I was not very impressed, I felt like a lazy or unmotivated teacher would use this approach, it was an easy way out. Because Kuma went further in depth with this approach I could see how it could be constructive for both teachers and students.