Reconceptualizing language teaching: an in-service teacher education course in uzbekistan

SECTION 2.4
Post-Method Era
“… Post-method pedagogy allows us to go beyond, 
and overcome the limitations of, method-based pedagogy. 
Incidentally, I use the term pedagogy in a broad sense to in-
clude not only issues pertaining to classroom strategies, in-
structional materials, curricular objectives, and evaluation 
measures but also a wide range of historio-political and so-
ciocultural experiences that directly or indirectly influence L2 
education” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 34).
GOALS
This section focuses on illustrating the main features of the current for-
eign language teaching approach – postmethod pedagogy – and address-
es challenges faced by Uzbek language teachers.
By the end of this section, you will be able to…
A) apply the principles of the postmethod pedagogy to your own 
teaching;
B) operate with ten general macrostrategies which follow the princi-
ples of the post-method pedagogy; and,
C) relate the principles of the post-method pedagogy to the CEFR de-
scriptors. 
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
The field of English language teaching and learning has moved for-
ward from language teaching methods into a post-method era. This sec-
tion will provide the rationale in how a post-method pedagogy evolved, 
with an explication of the theoretical frameworks, and the principles asso-
ciated with it.
Think about the following:
1) There are three parameters of post-method pedagogy: particularity, 
practicality, and possibility. What do you think they mean?

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86
RECONCEPTUALIZING LANGUAGE TEACHING
UZBEK VIGNETTE
A foreign expert in English teaching came to Uzbekistan and ob-
served two university English teacher’s classes and then, talked to each 
teacher one-on-one. One class he observed was an academic writing 
class for first year students of pedagogical majors; the other was a writing 
class for ESP students of law. He was confused because he noticed many 
things: (1) the writing teachers both taught in the same way and intro-
duced similar materials and had similar goals/objectives; (2) during each 
interview, the teachers could not explain clearly why they used activities 
they had; (3) during the interview the expert asked about the technology 
which was used during each lesson, and both teachers talked about the 
pedagogical technology jig-saw reading; (4) when the expert asked what 
method is the most widely used in Uzbekistan, all of the interviewed 
teachers said “communicative approach.”
REFLECTION
1. How would you respond to the foreign language expert’s confusion? In 
your response, please identify each problem he addresses, then explain what you 
think are the causes for each. We have listed a few (not all) possible causes below: 
a. Teachers may not know the difference between approach, method, 
and technique.
b. The teachers may not know the difference among task, exercise, and 
activity.
c. There may be confusion in terminology itself. In Russian and Uzbek 
languages, there is a term – pedagogical/educational technology. This 
technology
means what we do in class (similar in meaning with method 
or technique), but in the English language technology means technical 
equipment like computer or projector, or any other equipment.
d. Teachers may not know about the “Post-Method Pedagogy” in lan-
guage teaching and learning.
KEY CONCEPTS
There are fourteen key concepts: post-method condition; parameters 
of particularity, practicality, and possibility; macrostrategies (i.e., Maximize 
learning opportunities; minimize perceptual mismatches; facilitate nego-
tiated interaction; promote learner autonomy; foster language awareness; 
activate intuitive heuristics; contextualize linguistic input; integrate lan-
guage skills; ensure social relevance; and raise cultural consciousness).

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87
CHAPTER TWO: LANGUAGE TEACHING
Different language teaching methods have been proposed, evaluated, 
and researched since 1940. The purpose was to find the most effective way 
to teach students language, for efficient language learning to happen; and 
thus, if we compare the methods over time, we can see how the teacher’s 
role, learners’ role, classroom procedures evolve along the way. 
The problem with methods is that language teachers often do not 
adhere to only one method, because they often rely on their intuitive 
ability and experiential knowledge for more effective language teaching 
pedagogy. Language teachers in Uzbekistan often recycled the same 
ideas, which created a post-method condition – characterized by the need 
to create an alternative for method, not just recommending to language 
teachers the best method. Another characteristic of the post-method 
condition was the fact that teachers needed and had, in fact, autono-
my
– freedom from external control. Every day in their classrooms Uzbek 
teachers made the necessary decisions they felt benefited the language 
development of their students. 
Kumaravadivelu (2003) introduced the term of post-method condition, 
which signaled the beginning of the “Post-Method Era” in the early 1990’s. 
In this era teachers’ decisions are based on post-method pedagogy, which 
has three main parameters: particularity, practicality and possibility.