Language Teaching Research 11,2 (2007); pp.

243–250

Book reviews

B. Kumaravadivelu, 2005: Understanding language teaching: from method

to postmethod. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 280 pp. $24.50 (PB).
ISBN 0-8058-5676-5.

Understanding Language Teaching (ULT) is a welcome addition to literatures

on emerging approaches to the teaching of second and/or foreign languages.
Within one volume, ULT contextualizes, elaborates and moves beyond
several of the author’s widely cited previous contributions. Kumaravadivelu
provides background discussion of broad issues on the topics of language,
learning and teaching (Chapters 1–3): an informative history, description and
assessment of both well-known and lesser known teaching methods (Chapters
4–7); and a state-of-the-art synthesis of emerging post-method developments
(Chapters 8–10). As a reviewer interested in the book’s potential as reading
material for MA TESOL courses, I found it especially helpful that Chapters
8 through 10 are grounded not only in the author’s well-known conceptual-
ization of an emerging postmethod condition but also in a parallel conceptu-
alization proposed by Henry Stern and Dick Allwright. The book also
includes a final postscript, a unified list of references, an Author Index and a
Subject Index. Note that chapters do not provide alternative pedagogical sup-
ports such as end-of-chapter discussion questions.
Throughout ULT, the author’s voice is confident, relaxed and informative.
Kumaravadivelu is exceptionally well versed in historical and contemporary
developments of language teaching methods, and the book follows a logical
progression. Kumaravadivelu first discusses language as system, discourse
and ideology, before turning his attention to teaching methods. Later, the
book culminates with in-depth discussion of contemporary developments in
the postmethod era. For anyone considering the book. I recommend first read-
ing its concise six-page preface. Though the entire text is well structured,
these initial six pages are refreshingly informative, and even inspirational.
Within them Kumaravadivelu borrows an image from the anthropologist
Gregory Bateson (the pattern which connects) as a means for explaining his
purposes as an author.
Few writers are as capable as Kumaravadivelu of engendering in a reader
the feeling that you are in the hands of a thoughtful, and always thought-
provoking, guide. Each chapter begins with a substantive preview of what
you are about to read, followed by the heart of the author’s discussion, and
finally a concise summary section that reviews concepts just introduced.
This preface-body-synopsis structure recurs at both a macro-level for the
entire book and at micro-levels within each chapter. For example, at the
macro-level the book’s preface is balanced by a final postscript that closes

© 2007 SAGE Publications 10.1177/1362168807074614

Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at UCSF LIBRARY & CKM on April 13, 2015
244 Book reviews

with a repetition of the book’s central goal, ‘to explore the pattern which
connects the higher order philosophical, pedagogical, and ideological tenets
and norms of the language teaching enterprise’ (p. 224). Most of the core
positions Kumaravadivelu sets forth have been discussed in either his pre-
vious book (2003) or in a series of influential journal articles in TESOL
Quarterly, ELT Journal and elsewhere. Though initially sceptical that this
most recent text could have anything new to say, I have been won over.
Kumaravadivelu re-conceptualizes essential background issues that are
blended convincingly with the book’s major theme: the emergence of a
postmethod condition in the teaching of second/foreign languages.
Not afraid to address controversies straight on, in Chapters 4 through 7
Kumaravadivelu outlines the progression of how the construct of ‘methods’
has fallen into irrelevance over the past two decades. He also provides the most
informative discussion currently available on how and why a decline of the
methods construct was inevitable. Though other specialists have developed
similar positions (e.g. D. Allwright, H.D. Brown, D. Nunan, N.S. Prabhu),
Kumaravadivelu goes considerably further. He provides a convincing picture
of likely directions in which language teachers’ (and other language instruc-
tion specialists’) attentions to conceptual understanding, principles and teach-
ing practices will continue to evolve in the twenty-first century.
For those well versed in the field of language teaching/learning, ULT might
be appreciated as three books in one. The first chapter (‘Language: Concepts
and Precepts’) seems best suited for an introductory course in linguistics. It
provides three perspectives on the nature of language: first as system, then as
discourse and finally as ideology. Chapters 2 and 3 offer a state-of-the-art
synopsis and synthesis of contemporary literatures on second language acqui-
sition (SLA). They would be especially appropriate to incorporate within an
MA-level SLA course. However, Kumaravadivelu does more than merely
review what contemporary specialists propose about SLA processes and
implications. He reframes basic concepts, provides provocative critiques and
encourages readers to consider for themselves how language learners’ potential
engagements with the interactive nature of input, intake and output processes
might be realized. Chapters 4 through 7 provide ‘a brief history, description,
and assessment of language teaching methods . . . within a coherent framework
of theoretical principles and classroom procedures’ (p. xvi), which the author
grounds in the conceptual understanding introduced in preceding chapters.
Though ULT would be a very useful book for any prospective or practising
language teacher to read for private study, I suspect that its largest readership
will be graduate students in applied linguistics programmes and the teacher
educators who serve as their course instructors. As a reviewer, I feel well
positioned to comment on the quality of the book since I have been offering
an MA TESOL methods course at least once a year for the past two decades.
Would I recommend incorporating this book into such courses? Yes, certainly,
but with a caveat. I probably would not include the entire book within the
single-semester course I teach. For programmes in which the methods course

Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at UCSF LIBRARY & CKM on April 13, 2015
 Book reviews 245

is expanded to two or more semsesters, inclusion of the entire book might be

more feasible. Now that I am acquainted with ULT, however, I plan to
incorporate my favourite three chapters as required reading, probably toward
the final weeks of the semester. These chapters are devoted to the postmethod
condition (Chapter 8), postmethod pedagogy (Chapter 9) and further discus-
sion of the postmethod predicament (Chapter 10). They represent the core
innovations that Kumaravadivelu contributes to discussions of L2 teaching
methods.
ULT is filled with provocative positions that force the reader to reconsider
some of the widely accepted themes of applied linguistics literature. For
example, near the end of a chapter titled ‘Constituents and Categories of
Methods’ (Chapter 4) the author begins to discuss the widely cited ‘designer
methods’ of recent decades (e.g. Community Language Learning, Silent Way
and Total Physical Response). Here, Kumaravadivelu builds a convincing
case for moving away from the popular term ‘designer methods’ and renam-
ing them ‘designer ‘nonmethods’ since ‘they are all no more than classroom
procedures that are consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of a learner-
centered pedagogy [as defined in Chapter 6]. . . . they have been wrongly
treated as new methods. A treatment that really required a stretch of interpre-
tation’ (p. 94). Though some readers may take issue with Kumaravadivelu’s
characterizations, the logic behind his analysis is convincingly presented,
well supported and will likely be appreciated by language teachers interested
in generating context-sensitive principles and teaching strategies from
postmethod perspectives.
To cite another example, Kumaravadivelu states directly that what he offers
in Chapters 4 through 7 is a ‘methods’ analysis and not a ‘teaching’ analysis.
As the author explains, ‘a methods analysis can be done. . . . by analyzing and
interpreting what has been written about methods, but a teaching analysis can
be done only by entering the classroom arena where a method or a combina-
tion of methods is used’ (p. xvii). Through such explanations we see one of
Kumaravadivelu’s clearest strengths as a writer: his care in accounting for his
aims and purposes. Readers who are interested in detailed analyses of ‘teach-
ing’ will have to look elsewhere, but they will be considerably better prepared
to do so having appreciated what Kumaravadivelu has to offer through his own
analyses of language teaching methods.
In sum, this is a terrific book and an important contribution to the meth-
ods literatures. A shortcoming is that it does not feature much in the way of
illustrations of how contemporary language teachers may be applying some
of the postmethod understandings Kumaravadivelu calls for. This omission
reflects the author’s intention to devote ULT to ‘methods’ analysis. Perhaps
as a way of compensating. Kumaravadivelu recommends available litera-
tures from specialists (e.g. Breen and Littlejohn, 2000; Johnson and
Golombek, 2002; Edge, 2002) who do provide illustrations of ‘teaching’
analysis and who feature the voices of contemporary language teachers from
different parts of the world. As a reviewer I may be particularly sensitive to

Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at UCSF LIBRARY & CKM on April 13, 2015
246 Book reviews

this missing element since my own work (e.g. Murphy and Byrd, 2001) tends
to provide more in the way of ‘teaching’ descriptions and analyses than
‘methods’ analysis. Having read ULT with the careful attention this essential
book certainly deserves, readers interested in illustrations of the postmethod
condition through teachers’ own voices may be interested in continuing to
examine some of the contributions of several of the other specialists
mentioned above.

References
Breen, M.P. and Littlejohn, A., editors, 2000: Classroom decision-making.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edge, J. 2000: Continuing cooperative development. Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press.
Johnson, K.E. and Golombek, P.R., editors, 2002: Teachers’ narrative inquiry as
professional development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kumaravadivelu, R. 2003: Beyond methods: macrostrategies for language teaching.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Murphy, J.M. and Byrd, H.P., editors, 2001: Understanding the courses we teach:
local perspectives on English language teaching. Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press.

John M. Murphy
Georgia State University

Harriet Luria, Deborah M. Seymour and Trudy Smoke, editors, 2006:

Language and linguistics in context: readings and applications for
teachers. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 427 pp. $49.95 (PB). ISBN
0-8058-5500-9.

This collection of thirty-three chapters is ‘designed for a range of courses in

English and language arts, bilingualism, applied linguistics and ESL courses
in teacher education programs’. The readings, all reprinted from other
sources, are diverse not only in topic but also in level of assumed knowledge
and in degree of linguistic formalism. The stated aim of the book is to achieve
both breadth and depth, providing a ‘big picture’ view of basic linguistics
while being specific enough for the beginner. These are ambitious goals, and
it is clear that the editors set themselves a lofty aim in attempting to appeal to
such a wide range of needs.
The book is divided into three main Units: I: What is language and how is
it acquired? II: How does Language Change? and III: What is Literacy? The
stated rationale for this organization is that these are questions asked by the
Editors’ students. This is a reasonable premise for a teaching text, but I
wondered why these particular questions were chosen, and looked in vain for

Downloaded from ltr.sagepub.com at UCSF LIBRARY & CKM on April 13, 2015