Postmethod Era

“First and foremost, it signifies a search for an alternative to method rather than an alternative method.”  Instead of beginning with theorists in a bottom-down approach, the postmethod condition enables teachers to create their own innovative strategies that are specific to their own school and learners.  The postmethod condition recognizes a teacher’s own competency, pedagogical knowledge, and past experiences as crucial to being a good teacher.  It shows how learning can be reshaped through reflective teaching and self-evaluation.  The way that you teach will look different depending on the individual learners that you’re teaching and what their goals are for the school year.  I really like the parameter of practicality because it recognizes that no theory can be fully useful or usable unless you practice it.  

I like the Communicative Language Teaching method as Brown describes it in Chapter 3.  I especially like it because I am an early childhood major and we base most of our teaching on learner-centered instruction.  We build classroom environments where we value cooperative and interactive learning.  The teacher’s role is to guide children towards learning and the students are seen as being active participants in their own learning process.  When it comes to reading and writing I think whole language approach is important to balance with the smaller parts like phonemes.  Some teachers rely completely on phonics and then the kids lose the big picture of reading and focus so much on each individual sound which sometimes puts them behind in their fluency.  I think it’s important to teach them both whole language and phonics.  We also are taught to teach theme-based/content-based instruction.  A lot of these approaches I’m already familiar with, but it’s cool to see them specifically in regard to language teaching.  

In the article, I thought it was really interesting to see that many teachers that claim to be CLT teachers really don’t have a lot of communication in the classroom.  There’s a gap between what methods/approaches teachers say they use and how the teachers are really teaching.  Every individual method is going to have weaknesses and I think it’s important to draw on many different methods because they all have different strengths that are needed.  I agree that language teaching needs a balance between both form and meaning.  The difference between CLT and the postmethod condition is still a little foggy to me.  It seems like the postmethod era is trying to be completely new and different but I feel like regardless of how a teacher is teaching they’re using methods.  I think it’s possible to be a reflective transformative teacher and still draw on different methods, approaches, and strategies.  My best guess is that they’re just trying to get away from a one size fits all mentality to teaching.  In the past people would use one method to the exclusion of all others and now it seems like there’s more of a pull to look at everything and then use what is best for you as a teacher and your specific learners and be flexible.  In the past it seems like teachers would use the same lessons and teach the same way for decades.  Now, if they’re good reflective and transformative teachers that wouldn't happen because the student’s needs are always changing.