Starting in the 1990s, teachers and researchers came to realize that no single research finding and no single method of language would bring final success in foreign language teaching (FLT) (Brown, 2002). Owing to the influence of post-modernism, the postmethod pedagogy emerged to respond the demand for a most optimal way of teaching English free from the method-based restrictions. In 1994 Kumaravadivelu defined postmethod condition as a state of affairs that forces us to refigure the relationship between the theorizers and the practitioners. He explained that “the conventional concept of method entitles theorizers to construct knowledge-oriented pedagogic theories, while the postmethod condition enables the practitioners to construct classroom-oriented theories of practice. The conventional method authorizes theorizers to centralize pedagogic decision making, while the postmethod condition enables practitioners to produce local, specific, and novel practices” (Kumaravadivelu, 1994, p. 29).

The postmethod condition has three distinct features for redefining the relationship between the periphery and the center. The first feature is that it is a search for an alternative to method rather than an alternative method. The second feature is teacher autonomy. Teachers have the potential to know how to teach, to be able to handle problems within constrains. Promoting teacher autonomy means enabling and empowering teachers to theorize from their practice and practice what they have theorized (ibid, p. 30). The third feature is principled pragmatism. By “principled pragmatism” Kumaravadivelu explains that it is different from eclecticism, which often “degenerates into an unsystematic, unprincipled, and uncritical pedagogy because teachers with very little professional preparation to be eclectic in a principled way have little option but to randomly put together a package of techniques from various methods and label it eclectic” (ibid, p. 30). Kumaravadivelu uses the term pedagogy in a broad way, intending to cover not only issues about classroom strategies, instructional materials, curricular objectives, and evaluation measures, but also many historical, political and sociocultural experiences that more or less influence ELT. He then visualizes a postmethod pedagogy as a three-dimensional system made up of three pedagogic parameters: particularity, practicality, and possibility (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, pp. 537-538). He takes method as consisting of a single set of theoretical principles derived from feeder disciplines and a single set of classroom procedures directed at classroom teachers (Kumaravadivelu, 1994, p. 29). Nilufer Can claims that “postmethod can be defined as the construction of classroom procedures and principles by the teacher herself/himself based on his/her prior and experimental knowledge and/or certain strategies.” Kumaravadivelu (1994, p. 24) reaffirms that the concept of method involves theorizers constructing knowledge-oriented theories of pedagogy. Postmethod, on the other hand, involves practitioners constructing classroom-oriented theories of practice. Cheng (2006) gives a rather comprehensive interpretation about postmethod pedagogy: flexible, dynamic and open-ended teaching concept different from any traditional approaches of language teaching. It opposes the practices of simplifying FLT and emphasizes its complexity. It heightens the importance of context sensitivity in FLT, and stresses that society, politics and education system have an important effect on FLT.

Adapted from: CHEN, M. Postmethod Pedagogy

and Its Influence on EFLTeaching Strategies. English Language Teaching; Vol. 7, No. 5; 2014.