B. Kumaravadivelu Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching

Yale University PressNew Haven, 2003

Chapter 15“We often hear educators say that teaching is both an art and a science. I take this to mean that teaching is basically a subjective activity carried out in an organized way.”

5-6 He addresses the numerous roles described by David Hansen (Call to Teach):

Job vocation work career occupation professionAnd distinguishes the different definitions.

6“Teaching is aimed at creating optimal conditions for desired learning to take place in as short a time as possible.”

Good definition to use

6-7“We know by experiential knowledge that teaching does not have to automatically lead to learning; conversely, learning can very well take place in the absence of teaching. The entire edifice of education, however, is constructed on the foundation that teaching can contribute to accelerated and accomplished learning.”

Reviews three traditional/historical roles for teachersPassive technicians

Pass on knowledgeReflective practitioners

Dewey; reflection on action/in actionGets involved with the job and role

Teachers as Transformative IntellectualsFreire/ McClaren/Giroux

16 chart which compares/contrasts the three historical roles

18 what constitutes, who creates, and whose theory counts have all been controversial

“Practice is seen to constitute a set of teaching and learning strategies indicated by the theorist or the syllabus designer or the materials producer, and adopted or adapted by the teacher and the learner in order to jointly accomplish the stated and unstated goal of language learning and teaching in the classroom.”

Good def.

18-19 Cites O’Hanolon’s 1993 definition/distinction between professional and personal theories

B. Kumaravadivelu Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching

20 theorizing as an intellectual activity

20 cites Alexander’s claim (1986) that theory of practice should be based on these types of knowledge

Speculative theoryFindings of empirical researchExperiential knowledge of practicing teachers

20-21Cites Donald McINtyre (1993) on three levels of theorizing (extends Alexander)

Technical level: short-term, class centered goalsUsing ideas of experts of others and textbook writers

Practical level: centered on assumptions, values, and consequences of classroom activities

Practical reflectivity; theorize about their subjects, students, and teachingCritical/emancipator: wider ethical, social, historical, and political issues, including social

forces that impact the teacher

Chapter 2

23 coming out of L2 teaching and background

24“The term methods, as currently used in the literature on second and foreign language (L2) teaching, does not refer to what teachers actually do in the classroom; rather, it refers to established methods conceptualized and constructed by experts in the field. “

25Three prime kinds of methods: language-centered, learner-centered, and learning-centered.

28 problems with method“The disjunction between method as conceptualized by theorists and method as conducted by teachers is the direct consequence of the inherent limitations of the concept of method itself. First and foremost, methods are based on idealized concepts geared toward idealized contexts.”

How practical is it? Do academics even really care?

“Not anchored in any specific learning and teaching context, and caught up in the whirlwind of fashion, methods tend to wildly drift from one theoretical extreme to the other.”

Variation in methodsAttempts for universal application

B. Kumaravadivelu Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching

29 “Yet another crucial shortcoming of the concept of method is that it is too inadequate and too limited to satisfactorily explain the complexity of language teaching operations around the world. Concerned primarily and narrowly with classroom instructional strategies, it ignores the fact that the success or failure of classroom instruction depends to a large extent on the unstated and unstable interaction of multiple factors such as teacher cognition, learner perception, societal needs, cultural contexts, political exigencies, economic imperatives, and institutional constraints, all of which are inextricably interwoven” (Kumaravadivelu 29).

29-30Four main points that Kumara and other researchers found about method

Teachers trained or loyal to a method do not conform to its principles & classroom procedures

Teachers who claim to follow the same method use different procedures that are not consistent with the adopted method (near quote)

Teacher who claim to follow different methods oft use same classroom procedures“[O]ver time, teachers develop and follow a carefully delineated task-hierarchy, a

weighted sequence of activities not necessarily associated with any established method.

32-331 Postmethod as an alternative to method as opposed to being a method

“Refigure relationship between theorizer and the practitioner of language teaching.” Encourages/empowers teachers to create/generate personal theoriesEnables teachers/practitioners to generate site-specific, classroom-oriented strategies

2 signifies teacher autonomy : “…promotes the ability of teachers to know how to develop a critical approach in order to self-observe, self-analyze, and self-evaluate their own teaching practice with a view to effecting desired changes.”

3 principled pragmatism: “how learning can be shaped and reshaped by teachers as a result of self-observation, self-analysis, and self-evaluation.”(Kumaravadivelu 32-33).

34 Postmethod pedagogy