B.

Kumaravadivelu Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for

Language Teaching

Yale University Press

New Haven, 2003

Chapter 1
5
“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 profession
And 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 teachers

Passive technicians
Pass on knowledge
Reflective practitioners
Dewey; reflection on action/in action
Gets involved with the job and role
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals
Freire/ 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 theory
Findings of empirical research
Experiential knowledge of practicing teachers

20-21
Cites Donald McINtyre (1993) on three levels of theorizing (extends Alexander)
Technical level: short-term, class centered goals
Using 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 teaching
Critical/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. “

25
Three 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 methods
Attempts 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).

29-30
Four 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.

32-33
1 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 theories
Enables 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