Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.

(TESOL)

Method and Postmethod: Are They Really So Incompatible?

Author(s): David M. Bell
Source: TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer, 2003), pp. 325-336
Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)
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THE FORUM

TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in th

profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles or
published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.

Method and Postmethod:

Are They Really So Incompatible?
DAVID M. BELL
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio, United States

0 TESOL methodology is said to have moved "beyon

(Richards, 1990, p. 35) to the "postmethod condition" (Ku
1994, p. 27). Although "postmethod pedagogy" (Kumarava
has freed us as TESOL professionals from many of the cons
concept of method and invigorated our practices by pr
options to the classroom teacher, the postmethod condition
with it its own constraints on our thinking, not least of whi
that methods are dead. Contrary to this claim, some consid
method to remain an apt description of what teachers do in
Block (2001) argues that

while method has been discredited at an etic level (that is, in the
nomenclature of scholars) it certainly retains a great deal of vi
grassroots, emic level (that is, it is still part of the nomenclatur
and teachers). (p. 72)

The 36th Annual TESOL Convention (in 2002) reflected this

At a session on teacher education, after the speakers had ou
own exciting visions of postmethod pedagogy, an audie
pointedly asked, "Don't the practices the speakers de
remarkably like methods?"
In this commentary, I argue that, whether postmethodolo
or not, methods have not gone away, nor are they likely to.

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 37, No. 2, Summer 2003 325

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postmethodologist's target, I summarize the ways that method has been
defined in language teaching. I discuss the arguments that postmethod-
ologists have used against methods to show how they inflate the
influence of methods to better knock them down. I then examine the
roots of postmethodology in the larger area of postmodernism, arguin
that postmethod, rather than being evidence of the maturation
teaching practices, is a further manifestation of the search for metho
and so is subject to the same criticisms. Postmethod, despite its dispar
agement of innovations called methods, can be seen as an attempt
unify these disparate elements into a more holistic, redefined commun
cative language teaching (CLT) through a dialectical process of build
and deconstructing forces.

THREE DEFINITIONS OF METHOD

The fact that the term methods is used in a variety of ways

offers a challenge for anyone wishing to enter into the an
deconstruction of methods. At least three somewhat distinct
can be identified.

Definition 1: Smorgasbord of Ideas

Methods with a lowercase m means a grab bag of classroom practices.
According to Oller in the second edition of Methods That Work (1993),
methods include "programs, curricula, procedures, demonstrations,
modes of presentation, research findings, tests, manners of interaction,
materials, texts, films, videos, computers and more" (p. 3). But how can
one fashion a coherent whole from such a "smorgasbord of ideas"-the
subtitle of the first edition of Methods That Work (Oller & Richard-Amato,
1983)?

Definition 2: Prescription for Practice

Methods with an uppercase M seems to mean a fixed set of classroom
practices that serve as a prescription and therefore do not allow
variation. Brown (2000) defines method this way when he argues that
"virtually all language teaching methods make the oversimplified as-
sumption that what language teachers 'do' in the classroom can be
conventionalized into a set of procedures that fits all contexts" (p. 170).
For Kumaravadivelu (1994), a method "consists of a single set of
theoretical principles derived from feeder disciplines and a single set of
classroom procedures directed at classroom teachers" (p. 29). Richards
and Rodgers (2001) add that methods are relatively fixed in time, leave
little scope for individual interpretation, and are learned through
training. This definition is pejorative and refers mainly to a small set of

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1970s "designer/guru" methods, such as suggestopedia, community
language learning, and the silent way. Defining methods like this leaves
little alternative but to abandon the term altogether; hence the notion of
going beyond methods to the postmethod condition.

Definition 3: Organizing Principles

Richards and Rodgers (2001) write about methods as an umbrella
term comprising approach, design, and procedure. This perspective has
become influential through the use of their text, Approaches and Methods
in Language Teaching (1986, 2001), in TESOL teacher education courses.
According to Richards and Rodgers, "a method is theoretically related to
an approach, is organizationally determined by a design, and is practi-
cally 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/learning activities, teacher/
learner roles, and the role of the instructional materials. Procedures are
the techniques derived from a particular approach and design. However,
Richards and Rodgers confound this definition and Definition 2 in the
discussion of CLT, which "is best considered an approach rather than a
method" (p. 172) in the sense of Definition 2. Approaches have core sets
of principles but no specific set of prescriptions and classroom tech-
niques. But if approach, according to Definition 3, is a subcomponent of
method, then what constitutes an approach as something separate from
a method in Richards and Rodgers' framework? According to Brown
(2000),

What they [Richards & Rodgers] would like us to call "method" [Definition 3]
is more comfortably referred to as "methodology" in order to avoid confusion
with what we will no doubt always think of as those separate entities (like
Audiolingual or Suggestopedia) that are no longer at the center of our
teaching philosophy. (p. 170)

Postmethod perspectives seem to focus on the smorgasbord and

prescriptive senses of methods when they advocate abandoning methods
in general. These perspectives ignore the evidence indicating that,
despite its shortcomings, the concept of methods as prescription is still a
salient one for classroom teachers (Block, 2001; Liu, 1995). They also
ignore the idea that methods as organizing principles are important for
understanding what TESOL professionals do.

THE POSTMETHOD KIILING OF METHODS

Writers like Brown (2002) and Pennycook (1989) quote Ste

who laments the "century-old obsession" (p. 251) with the searc

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ultimate method. For Kumaravadivelu (2001), method "has had a
magical hold on us" (p. 557). But scholars more than practitioners seem
to be obsessed, and the obsession has become stronger even after the so-
called demise of methods. Brown makes frequent references to the
death of methods-"we lay to rest . . . methods" (p. 11), "recently
interred methods" (p. 14), "requiem for methods" (p. 17)-as if there
still lurks an unspeakable fear that methods, Dracula-like, might rise
from the dead. Whereas theorists have been consumed with methods
and which one is the best, many teachers appear to me to take what
practical solutions are available. Indeed, postmethodologists have
such a wonderful job in killing off methods that one wonders if
methods bogeyman really existed.
The arguments used to defeat method can also be seen as evid
that teachers, at least, were never really in the thrall of methods. F
postmethodologists argue that Methods (prescriptions for practice) w
really very limited in that they dealt only with the first lessons of m
lower level courses. If this is true, and it certainly is, then why shoul
take too seriously their claims for universal applicability? In reality,
methods were never applied universally, and their lack of generaliza
and limited contextual application is immediately obvious to even no
methods students. 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 a better guide to the so-called distinction between
method and approach. If a method has limited realization, then one
would expect little variation in its procedures, but if, like CLT, the
method has such wide-scale application, variations in its realization
would be normal.
Second, postmethodologists argue that methods can never be realized
in their purest form in the classroom according to the principles of thei
originator because methods are not derived from classroom practic
Richards (1990) calls the designer methods ideal types. However, su
porters of particular designer methods ascribe the failure to reali
methods to a lack of understanding of their basic tenets. Oprandy
(1999), who trained under Caleb Gattegno and Charles Curran, comment

II define CLT as a diverse set of principles that essentially stress the engagement of learne
in authentic, meaningful, and fluent communication, usually through task-based activities th
seek to maximize opportunities for the interpretation, expression, and negotiation of mean
in integrated language skills contexts; and that facilitate inductive or discovery learning of th
grammatical, pragmatic, sociolinguistic, strategic, and discourse rules of the language with th
ultimate goal of developing communicative competence. Given the diversity of these principle
CLT usually supports a wide variety of classroom procedures (Richards & Rodgers, 200
Savignon, 2001).

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 I have cringed when teachers without such training take Cuisenaire rods or
tape recorders into their classrooms and tell me they are "doing" Silent Way
(or Counseling Learning) today. . . . They claim to be imitating something
they really know nothing about. As a result, in time, despite the incredible
richness of these approaches, they fall into unfair disrepute. (p. 52)

At the same time, L2 teaching professionals know that what is realized

as method in the classroom emerges over time as a result of the
interaction among the teacher, the students, and the materials and
activities (Richards, 1990). This notion of the social construction of
method in millions of different classrooms suggests that what is called
method is often an a posteriori rationalization of many similar teaching
practices rather than an a priori set of prescriptions emanating from one
source. Even seemingly monolithic methods like grammar translation
and the audiolingual method owe much of their apparent prescriptive
coherence to the rationalizations of methods historians (Howatt, 1984;
Pennycook, 1989). Given the immense difficulty of realizing a set of a
priori methodological outcomes in the classroom, why on earth should
we become so obsessed with such prescriptions?
A further dismissive argument against prescriptive Methods is that
little of interest remains in them, but this argument ignores the huge
influence that the core philosophies of community language learning,
silent way, and suggestopedia have had on language teaching. Teachers,
like Stevick (1998), who have closely studied these designer methods,
find that their core philosophies-the emphasis on socioaffective factors,
student validation, self-realization and autonomy, peer support and
interaction, and problem solving-still play a fundamental role in the
classroom. Indeed, the development of CLT has in part been driven by
the co-option of the humanistic, student-centered principles of designer
methods. And it is not hard to find in the principles and strategies of
postmethod theorists the very core elements of the 1970s designer
methods. Kumaravadivelu (2001) tells us that "the postmethod learner is
an autonomous learner" (p. 545), and Brown's (2002) 12 principles of
accepted assumptions about second language acquisition include lan-
guage ego, self-confidence, and risk taking, all concerns that Curran,
Gattegno, and Georgi Lozanov addressed in their methods. Just as
proponents of designer methods often doubted that teachers left to their
own devices would teach systematically, postmethodologists fear teachers
will slavishly follow whatever method they have been trained in. The
obsessions of both sets of theorists underestimate the intellectual au-
tonomy and discernment of the practitioner.
Whereas the concept of method has been attacked for its positivist and
progressivist view of the linear development of TESOL practices (Penny-
cook, 1989), the charge can equally be made against postmethod peda-
gogy. Brown (2000) comments,

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 The profession has at last reached the level of maturity [italics added] where we
recognize the complexity of language learners in multiple worldwide contexts
demands an eclectic blend of tasks, each tailored for a particular group of
learners studying for particular purposes in a given amount of time. (p. 172)

This "maturity" is contrasted with the quackery of methods: "We have

emerged well beyond the dark ages of language teaching when a handful
of prepackaged elixirs filled up a small shelf of options" (Brown, 2002, p.
17). But yesterday's quackery has a habit of becoming today's conven-
tion. Brown's (2002) postmethodology, in suitable metaphorical reaction
to quackery, envisages teachers as "operating" like medical doctors:

Our approach .... is the cumulative body of knowledge and principles that
enables teachers, as "technicians" in the classroom, to diagnose the needs of
students, to treat students with successful pedagogical techniques, and to
assess the outcomes of those treatments. (p. 11)

Such positivist and progressivist views of the linear accumulations of

knowledge contrast with Pennycook's (1989) view that change in lan-
guage teaching is better seen as "a reordering of the same basic options,
and... [a reflection of] the social, cultural, political, and philosophical
environment" (p. 600). The emergence of postmethod pedagogy may
have more to do with larger social forces than with pedagogical maturity.

POSTMETHOD AND POSTMODERNISM

One of the great myths of postmethodology is that whe

identifies interested knowledge (Pennycook, 1989) in the con
postmethod pedagogy seeks the higher ground by clai
alternative to method and so to interested knowledge.
postmethod pedagogy is derived on the local level from CL
larger level from the ideas of postmodernist thinking. Pos
characterized by (a) the failure of the enlightenme
unconditional belief in the value of scientific progress for
good-and the downgrading of absolute conceptions of t
the growth of pragmatism; (b) the growth of intracom
diversity; and (c) the ever-growing pace of social, economi
logical change (Best & Kellner, 2001). The implication fo
been a strengthening of progressive approaches, especially
ofJohn Dewey and the emphases on learner centeredness;
student autonomy; problem solving, experimentation, and
ing in the framework of group and project work; and sub
within an overall multicultural context (Winch & Gingell,
shared by postmethod pedagogy.
For example, Kumaravadivelu's (2001) notion of "par

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538) can be connected to the notion of context sensitivity within the
larger current of contemporary thought. Particularity "seeks to facilitate
the advancement of a context-sensitive, location-specific pedagogy that is
based on a true understanding of local linguistic, sociocultural, and
political particularities" (p. 537). Similarly in art and architecture, the
notion of site specificity seeks to invoke form out of what is given rather
than impose form. The land art of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is
perhaps the most famous example of site specificity (Menand, 2002).
Oprandy (1999) sees striking parallels between student-centered ap-
proaches in language teaching and the urban planning approach ofJane
Jacobs, with its rejection of the grand plans of the city planners and
emphasis on people-centered, bottom-up planning.
Clearly, we have not arrived at the postmethod condition through
pedagogical maturity. As Winch and Gingell (1999) suggest, "The
question of whether we live in a post-modern era may not ... be a matter
of entirely disinterested debate among educational policymakers, but
may instead provide a new backdrop to old debates" (p. 178). If
postmethod is substituted for "post-modern," and applied linguists for
"educational policymakers," one can see that postmethodology is one
further manifestation of the search for method, certainly an alternative
to method as it is narrowly defined in the second sense-prescriptions
for practice-but at the same time an alternative method as defined in
the sense of organizing principles. In the same way that Pennycook
(1989) notes that "the construction of the Method concept in language
teaching has been a typical example of the attempt to validate current
forms of knowledge at the expense of past forms" (p. 608), so, too,
postmethod pedagogy seeks validation through the defeat of Methods.

Postmethod and CLT

Nunan (1991) argues that "the way to overcome the pendulum ef

[in language teaching] is to derive appropriate classroom practices
empirical evidence on the nature of language learning and use and
insights into what makes learners tick" (p. 1). So within the b
framework of principled pragmatism, postmethodology theorists
universal principles or strategies. Brown's (2002) "principled ap
lists 12 "relatively widely accepted theoretical assumptions" (p. 12
L2 learning and teaching. Richards' (1990) notion of effective t
is based in part on the best practices approach of developing m
ological principles from the study of classroom practices and p
used by effective teachers. Kumaravadivelu (1994) outlines a frame
of 10 macrostrategies based on "current theoretical, empirica
pedagogical insights" (p. 27). According to Kumaravadivelu (19
macrostrategy is a broad guideline, based on which teachers can

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ate their own situation-specific, need-based microstrategies or classroom
techniques. .. . macrostrategies are theory neutral as well as method
neutral" (p. 32). Yet many of Kumaravadivelu's macrostrategies-negoti-
ated interaction, integrated language skills, learner autonomy, and so
on-look remarkably like CLT.
Let us compare these postmethodological frameworks withJacobs and
Farrell's (2001) analysis of the paradigm shift in L2 teaching in the past
40 years. They have no qualms about calling the prevailing paradigm
CLT. They go on to discuss the major changes in the paradigm: learner
autonomy, cooperative learning, curricular integration, focus on mean-
ing, diversity, thinking skills, alternative assessment, and teachers as
colearners. The paradigm shift, of which these changes are part, is seen
as an element in a larger shift from positivism to postpositivism and from
behaviorism to cognitivism. Jacobs and Farrell argue that although the
paradigm shift in L2 education began many years ago, it still has been
only partially implemented because of the attempt to understand and
implement each of these changes separately rather than holistically.
Indeed, Celce-Murcia, D6rnyei, and Thurrell (1997) note that the "need
for guiding principles [in CLT] is, in fact, not inconsistent with the
postmethod perspective" (p. 149). Postmethod pedagogy can therefore
be seen as both an attempt to understand the paradigm shift that L2
education has gone through in the past 40 years and an attempt to unify
practices in a more holistic way. The 1970s designer methods can be seen
as piecemeal attempts to usher in the new paradigm shift. Postmethod-
ology, therefore, rather than going beyond method, may be understood
as a synthesis of various methods under the umbrella of CLT, or what Liu
(1995) calls a "method redefining condition" (p. 176).

The Dialectic of Method and Postmethod

A second way of looking at postmethod is to see it in a potential

dialectical relationship with method. Roughly speaking, method impose
practices top-down; postmethod constructs practices bottom-up. Tak
together, they may mediate the negative features of each viewpoint tak
in isolation. For its part, postmethod has quite rightly warned of t
dangers of notions of one-size-fits-all in methods. Yet in the rush to bu
methods, postmethod pedagogy has obscured the positive aspects
method. Even in the narrow sense of Definition 2, methods can be seen
as vehicles for innovation and challenge to the status quo. What h
often driven applied linguistics in the past has been the attempt to refu
the claims of the gurus, who have often turned out to be ahead of t
research: Silent way teachers do not need wait-time research to confirm
what they intuitively know about the power of silence. As vehicles for
change, let us hope that Methods never stop challenging our practic

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however irritating and arrogant their claims may sound. Rodgers' (2000)
predictions of methods in the new millennium suggest that one need not
fear their demise. Rodgers gives "the millennial candidates identifying
labels in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek style [strategopedia, total func-
tional response, full-frontal communicativity] perhaps reminiscent of
yesteryear's method labels" (p. 2). Let us add Li Yang's crazy English
shouting Method (Spaeth, 1999), surely a suitably outrageous method
for the new millennium in the tradition of the 1970s mountebanks,
which also fulfill some of the requirements of postmethod context
sensitivity. And intuitively, as teachers, we know that there is something
interesting here. That ultimately is the thrill of Methods in Definition 2:
They offer unique insights, however piecemeal and limited they may be.
Furthermore, by highlighting the pernicious effects of the totalizing
tendency of methods, postmethod pedagogy has obscured the beneficial
effects if not the inevitability of a unified view of what teachers do.
Prabhu (1990) has described the negative effect as one of "overrou-
tinization" (p. 173) and the positive effect in terms of "real" (p. 174)
teaching. "Real" teaching requires a sense of involvement on the part of
the teacher, what Prabhu calls "a teacher's sense of plausibility" (p. 172).
Methods have the "power to influence-to invoke, activate, interact with,
alter in some way, and generally keep alive-differing teachers' differing
senses of plausibility, thus helping to promote and enlarge the occur-
rence of 'real' teaching" (p. 175). As has been pointed out many times,
it is not the method that is the crucial variable in successful pedagogy but
the teacher's passion for whatever method is embraced and the way that
passion is passed on to the learners (Block, 2001). By deconstructing
methods, postmethod pedagogy has tended to cut teachers off from
their sense of plausibility, their passion and involvement, what Grundy
(1999) has described as going from "model to muddle" (p. 54). To
believe in what we as teachers are doing inevitably requires us to have a
set of prescriptions when we arrive in the classroom, a set of beliefs we
are committed to. As one teacher notes, "Learning will take place when
students believe in 'teachers.' And when will students do that? Regretta-
bly, only when teachers believe in themselves" (Walker, 1999, p. 231).
Although one effect of antimethods has been to cut teachers off from
their sense of commitment to a totalizing vision of what they do,
postmethodology has given them the tools to deconstruct their totalizing
tendencies and so counter the tendency toward overroutinization. In
terms of Richards and Rodgers' (2001) organizing framework, postmethod
strategies and principles can be understood as articulating the design
features-teaching and learning activities, teacher/learner roles, and
the role of the instructional materials-of the current paradigm of CLT.
What is so refreshing about these design features is that they contain
within them the tools-learner autonomy, context sensitivity, teacher/

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student reflection-to construct and deconstruct the method that inevi-
tably emerges from the procedures derived from them.

CONCLUSION

In the final analysis, methods are not dead, nor will they
Shome (1998) argues with reference to the term postcoloni
'post' .. . does not mean a final closure, nor does it ann
of that which it is appended; rather it suggests a thinking
beyond the problematics of that which it is appended" (as
2002, p. 19). Likewise, postmethod need not imply the e
but rather an understanding of the limitations of the not
and a desire to transcend those limitations. I have sugg
transcendence of methods in terms of postmethod ca
process of thinking through and pulling together the dive
attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to articulate the paradigm
CLT. The current paradigm should not be understood as m
rather as a construction of the prevailing socioeconomi
ideological forces. As those forces shift, so will metho
element in those shifting forces is the way that method a
can also be seen as inevitable and necessary dialectical f
imposing methodological coherence, the other deconstruct
izing tendency of method from the perspective of loca
other words, method and postmethod together can liberat

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to two anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewers for their

comments on an earlier draft of this commentary.

THE AUTHOR

David Bell is assistant professor of applied linguistics at Ohio Univers

courses in methodology, materials development, and pedagogical gr
supervises the teaching practicum. He has taught ESOL in Britain, Ita
the United States. Besides TESOL methodology, his research interest
and movement, and pragmatics.

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