Hadjer Gouasmia Group 2
Didactics 3rd homework :
Limits of method
● Based on idealized concepts
geared towards idealized context.
● “Too inadequate and too limited
to explain the complexity of
language teaching”
(kumaravadivelu,2006)
● “Overlooks the fund of
experience and tacit knowledge.”
(Freeman,1961.p.35)
● Unlikely to be widely adopted
● Difficult to understand and use.
● Too prescriptive
● Fixed in time and there is
generally little scope for
individual interpretation.
● Quite distinctive at the early
stages but in later ones they are
indistinguishable.
● Method can never be so clearly
verified by impirical validation
Also limitation related to:
● Ambiguous usage and application
● The exaggerated claims made by
its proponents
● The gradual erosion of its
utilitarian value
Myths of method
● Myth1: there is always a method
ready and waiting to be
discovered
Despite our common belief that what is
new must be better than what went before.
it proves impossible to compare one
method against another because there are
simply too many variables at play for
serious scientific analysis (including
language policy, teacher beliefs, individual
learner variations and needs).
● Myth2: method can shape the
core of the entire language
learning and teaching operations
Any method is too inadequate and limited
to explain the complexity of language
learning and teaching.
● Myth3: Method has a universal
and ahistorical value.
The search is always on for a method that
works anywhere, but this ignores the
realities of classrooms where there is so
much unpredictability and variation. In
addition, we cannot ignore all the local
knowledge picked up over the years in
different countries, the cultures of which
may not benefit so much from a Western
research base.
● Myth 4: Theorists conceive
knowledge and teachers consume
knowledge.
There is a large gap between theory and practice
which can be likened to that between the producer
and consumers. This results in a degree of mistrust
between teachers and theorists. Teachers rarely
follow a method by the book because they think
 experience allows them to know best. They see the
limitations of any single method and adapt it, often
considerably. Indeed, teachers claiming to follow
different methods often do very similar things in
the classroom. They often craft detailed sequences
of tasks which follow no one theoretical method at
all.
● Myth 5: Method is neutral and
has no ideological motivation.
One particular way ideological factors may
have an effect is in the attitude to target
language use. Methods which favor
extensive TL use work against non-native
speakers who may, nevertheless, have very
good declarative knowledge of grammar as
well as native (L1) language skills which
can play a useful role in the classroom.
This has been labeled the “monolingual
tenet of L2 pedagogy.”

2 one way of conceptualizing a post method pedagogy is to look at it three-

dimensionally as a pedagogy of particularity, practicality, and possibility.

The parameter of The parameter of The parameter of

particularity: practicality: possibility:
● The parameter of ● The parameter of ● The parameter of
particularity seeks to practicality seeks to possibility seeks to
facilitate the rupture the reified tap the sociopolitical
advancement of a role relationship by consciousness that
context-sensitive, enabling and participants bring
location-specific encouraging teachers with them to the
pedagogy that is to theorize from classroom so that it
based on a true their practice and to can also function as
understanding of practice what they a catalyst for a
local linguistic, theorize. continual quest for
sociocultural, and identity formation
political and social
particularities. transformation.