TESOL METHODS: CHANGING TRACKS,

CHALLENGING TRENDS
KUMARAVADIVELU (2006)
This study traces the major trends in TESOL
methods from 1991 to 2006 in terms of three
perceptible shifts:
a) from communicative language teaching to
task-based language teaching
b) from method-based pedagogy to
postmethod pedagogy
c) from systemic discovery to critical discourse
The paper focuses on the nature and scope of the
transition from awareness to awakening, along with the
contributions and consequences associated with it.

Before 1990 Period of awareness

After 1990 Period of awakening

 What is method?
Method in general refers to what theorists
propose and to what teachers practice.
Method in this study is defined based on
Mackey’s (1965) view.
Mackey’s (1965) view of method
Mackey (1965) made a distinction between method analysis
and teaching analysis:

 Method analysis refers to an analysis of methods

conceptualized and constructed by experts by reviewing
the relevant literature.

 Teaching analysis refers to an analysis of what practicing

teachers actually do in the classroom by the study of
classroom input and interaction.

This article Method analysis

 FROM CLT TBLT
COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
 TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING
 CLT
 As a response to the failure of the audiolingual
method, CLT was sought to move classroom teaching
away from structural orientation toward a
communicative orientation.

 They also introduced innovative classroom activities

(such as games, role plays, and scenarios) aimed at
creating and sustaining learner motivation.

 The focus on the learner and the emphasis on

communication made CLT highly popular among ESL
teachers.
 Theoretical principles of CLT
It views competence in terms of social interaction
based on:
 Austin’s (1962) speech act theory: explains how
language users perform speech acts
 Halliday’s (1973) functional perspective:
highlights meaning potential
 Hymes’ (1972) theory of communicative
competence: incorporates interactional and
sociocultural norms
 Major problems with CLT
Authenticity: Do CLT classrooms reflect
authentic communication in real world?
Acceptability: Does CLT mark a revolutionary
step in language teaching?
Adaptability: Are the principles and practices
of CLT adaptable to various contexts across
the world and across time?
 Authenticity
 Data-based, classroom-oriented investigations
conducted in various contexts reveal that the so-
called communicative classrooms were anything
but communicative.
 In these classes form was more prominent than
function, and grammatical accuracy activities
dominated communicative fluency one.
 In communicative class, interactions may, in fact,
not be very communicative after all.
 Acceptability
 Several scholars have observed that CLT does
not represent any radical departure in language
teaching.
 CLT adhered to the same fundamental concepts
as the audiolingual method: the linear and
additive view of language learning, and the
presentation- practice-production vision of
language teaching.
 The claims of its distinctiveness are based more
on communicative activities
 Adaptability
The idea of adaptability has been repeatedly
called into question by reports of uneasiness
from different parts of the world.
These reports suggest that CLT offers a classic
case of a center- based pedagogy that is out
of sync with local linguistic, educational,
social, cultural, and political exigencies.
 TBLT
 The problems with CLT paved way for an interest in
task-based language teaching (TBLT), which, according
to some, is just CLT by another name.
 The trend away from CLT and toward TBLT is
illustrated in part by the fact that communicative has
been gradually replaced by task .
 In spite of the increasing number of publications,
there is no consensus on the definition of task.
 What is a task?
 Breen (1987) defined task as “a range of workplans
which have the overall purpose of facilitating
language learning”—from a simple exercise type to
problem-solving.

 Ellis (2003): A task is a workplan that requires

learners to process language pragmatically in order
to achieve an outcome that can be evaluated in terms
of whether the correct or appropriate propositional
content has been conveyed. A task is intended to
result in language use that bears a resemblance,
direct or indirect, to the way language is used in the
real world.
 Different task types
language-centered tasks focus on the
linguistic forms.
learner-centered tasks focus on both form
and function.
learning-centered tasks focus on negotiation,
interpretation, and expression of meaning,
without any explicit focus on form.
 TBLT and transition to postmethod
Since different methods can be employed to
carry out language learning tasks, TBLT is not
linked to any one particular method and it
has blurred the boundaries of major
methods.
 This shows that the development of
language teaching theory has arrived at a
postmethod condition.
 From Method to Postmethod
 Pennycook  method reflects a particular view of the world”,
and it “has diminished rather than enhanced our understanding of
language teaching.”

 Prabhu  there is no best method and what really matters is the

need for teachers to learn “to operate with some personal
conceptualization of how their teaching leads to desired learning

 Kumar  method has only a limited and limiting impact on

language learning and teaching, and that what is needed is not an
alternative method but an alternative to method.

 Allwright  method is dead

 Postmethod Perspectives

a) Three-Dimensional Framework (Stern,1992)

b) Exploratory Practice Framework (Allwright,

1997, 2000)

c) Macrostrategic Framework
(Kumaravadivelu, 1992, 2003)
 Three-Dimensional Framework

Stern’s framework consists of strategies and

techniques.

Strategies operate at the policy level, and

techniques at the procedural level.

His framework has three dimensions. Each

dimension consists of two strategies plotted
at two ends of a continuum.
Three Dimensional Framework
(Stern, 1992)
Intralingual-Crosslingual
strategies

Code-Communication
dilemma

Explicit/Implicit
dimension
Dimensions of Stern’s Framework
1) The L1-L2 connection, concerning the use of
the first language in learning the second.
2) The code-communication dilemma,
concerning the structure-message
relationship.
3) The explicit- implicit option, concerning the
basic approach to language learning.
 First dimension of Stern’s framework
 Intralingual-crosslingual strategies that remain
within the target language and target culture as
the frame of reference for teaching.
 The intralingual strategy relates to coordinate
bilingualism, where the two language systems
are kept completely separate from each other.
 Crosslingual strategy believes in compound
bilingualism, where the L2 is acquired and
known through the use of the L1.
 Second & Third dimensions
Second dimension: explicit focus on the
formal properties of language ( from
grammar to communicative properties).

Third dimension: the key issue of whether

learning an L2 is a conscious intellectual
exercise or an unconscious intuitive one.
 Allwright’s Exploratory Practice
Framework
 Allwright’s framework gives more priority to
understanding the quality of classroom life, as a
social matter, rather than the instructional
efficiency.
 Based on such a philosophy, he derives some
broad principles of language teaching, which
inform specific practices.
 EP involves a series of basic steps and the central
focus of EP is local practice.
EP’s Principles of Language Teaching
①Put quality of life first,
②Work primarily to understand classroom life,
③Involve everybody,
④Work to bring people together,
⑤Work also for mutual development,
⑥Integrate the work for understanding into
classroom practice, and
⑦make the work a continuous enterprise.
 Macrostrategic Framework
His framework is shaped by three operating
principles of particularity, practicality, and
possibility.
Based on these principles, he suggests a
network of ten macrostrategies.
Using these macrostrategies as guidelines,
practicing teachers can design their own
microstrategies or classroom activities.
Principles of Macrostrategic Framework

Particularity

Practicality

Possibility
 Particularity: facilitates the advancement of a
context-sensitive, location-specific pedagogy
based on a true understanding of local, social,
cultural, and political particularities.

 Practicality: enables teachers to theorize from

their practice and to practice what they theorize.

 Possibility: seeks to tap the sociopolitical

consciousness that students bring with them so
that it can function as a catalyst for identity
formation and social transformation.
 Macrostrategies
① Maximize learning opportunities,
② Facilitate negotiated interaction,
③ Minimize perceptual mismatches,
④ Activate intuitive heuristics,
⑤ Foster language awareness,
⑥ Contextualize linguistic input,
⑦ Integrate language skills,
⑧ Promote learner autonomy,
⑨ Ensure social relevance, and
⑩ Raise cultural consciousness.
 Postmethod pedagogies
 The frameworks discussed here seek to lay the
foundation for the construction of postmethod
pedagogies.

 They merely offer certain operating principles

pointing the way.

 Any actual postmethod pedagogy has to be

constructed by teachers themselves by taking into
consideration linguistic, social, cultural, and political
particularities.
 FROM SYSTEMIC DISCOVERY TO
CRITICAL DISCOURSE
Criticality is about:
 Connecting the word with the world
 Viewing language as ideology, not just a system
 Extending the educational space to the social,
cultural, and political dynamics of language use
 Considering learner identity, teacher beliefs,
teaching values, and local knowledge.
Chances and challenges of Transition
The transition is still unfolding and the three
major shifts have created new chances and
challenges:

CLT TBLT
Method Postmethod
CLT TBLT: Chances & Challenges
Chances
 CLT has become more
sociolinguistically oriented ,
TBLT is more
psycholinguistically oriented
Challenges
 Relationship between form &
meaning and its attendant
issue of how the learner’s
attention resources are
allocated is not clear.
 Context refers to linguistic and
pragmatic features of language
and language use, not the
broader social, cultural,
political, and historical
particularities.
 Method
Chances
 Emphasizing the role of
local knowledge & local
teachers
 Valuing the experiences,
values, & beliefs of learners
and teachers
 Transformative teacher
education program*
Postmethod
Challenges
 It’s argued that postmethod
is a method itself, not an
alternative to method.
 It’s claimed that by
deconstructing methods,
postmethod pedagogy has
tended to cut teachers off
from their sense of
plausibility, their passion
and involvement.
Skepticism towards critical pedagogy
 It’s criticized for rejecting traditional applied
linguistics as an enterprise which has never been
neutral.

 It’s argued than since everybody supports social

justice, there’s no need to give it the label
‘critical’ and put it into controversy.

 Research methods in critical pedagogy are also

criticized for not being rigorous and critical.
 We have awakened to….
 The necessity of making methods-based pedagogies more
sensitive to local exigencies

 The opportunity afforded by postmethod pedagogies to help

practicing teachers develop their own theory of practice

 The multiplicity of learner identities

 The complexity of teacher beliefs

 The vitality of macrostructures—social, cultural, political, and

historical—that shape and reshape the micro- structures of our
pedagogic enterprise.
 Related sources
1. Rosenberg, Sheila K. 2007. A Critical History of ESOL in the UK
1870–2006. Leicester: NIACE.
2. Howatt, A. P. R. 1984. A History of English Language Teaching.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Harasawa, M.H. 2015. A Critical Survey of English Language
Teaching in Japan: A Personal View
4. Cheung, Wing Fai, 2014. A critical analysis of English language
teaching in Hong Kong mainstream primary schools: the
interplay between curriculum development, assessment and
classroom practices
5. Barry, C. 2011. English Language Teaching in Brunei: A View
Through a Critical Lens