Reflecting on this study at this point leaves me with a feeling of both excitement and disappointment. When I first read of postmethod pedagogy in 2006, it
seemed that a solution had been found for my concerns about the relevance of the classroom practices which my colleagues and I at IHLL had been introducing to teachers from Mozambique. Postmethod pedagogy, as outlined by
Kumaravadivelu, seemed to offer language teachers and teacher educators a new direction. However, having now come to the end of this research project, it has become evident to me that the pedagogies of particularity, practicality, and possibility which form the core of postmethod pedagogy are at once liberating and limiting.
Liberation comes through the negotiation discourse (Bakhtin, 1981) which
emerges while teachers and students engage in postmethod pedagogy. From my experience of working with postmethod pedagogy a negotiation discourse
agenda has three very important positive benefits for all participants. Firstly, channels of communication are opened between participants, be it in the relationships between tutors and teachers, or teachers and observers, or teachers and students. Secondly, respecting subjectivity and self-identity potentially works towards equalizing power relationships within roles which traditionally are spaces of struggle. Thirdly, in a climate of negotiation (mediated by postmethod pedagogy) good working relationships develop when the teacher positions the other interlocutors as informants rather than opponents.
On recent TESSL courses at IHLL the negotiation discourse has created an interesting dynamic. Tutors hear more about the lived classroom experiences of the teachers attending the course and this contributes to greater sensitivity to what is practical and possible (Prabhu, 1990) in the teachers contexts. The teachers, who seldom have the opportunity to gather and discuss learning– teaching issues with colleagues from various parts of Mozambique, learn from each other. Furthermore, it could be argued that after teachers have participated in a discourse of negotiation, their own voices are strengthened, giving them the confidence to provide context-sensitive rationales for the learning and teaching decisions they make when they return to their contexts of practice. An example of
this is Pat, in this research study, who argued that translation was relevant in his beginner classroom. However, to introduce a note of caution, the voice of the institution can often ring louder in the teachers’ ears because of the dominant discourses from which the institution draws its pedagogy. This observation is especially relevant to this research study because the 2008 TESSL course continued to present and ‘enforce’ CLT techniques during sessions and during teaching practice classes. An example of a teacher who chose the dominant discourse was Alan who felt that an English only policy was completely appropriate to all contexts.
However, with challenges emerging from the data in this research study in regard to all aspects of the pedagogies of particularity, particularity and possibility, postmethod, it seems, may not be the solution for the contexts in which the teachers live and work or in which IHLL is situated. We learn from the data that teachers are locked into their contexts and are shaped by their contexts. Not even postmethod pedagogy seems to have the power to move teachers towards a ‘different version of the curriculum and a different version of society’
(Pennycook, 1994, p. 229). We learn that contexts themselves, which are a key construct of postmethod pedagogy, can both open up and close down
possibilities for teachers attempting to practice postmethod pedagogy. The pedagogy of practicality itself needs to be far more practical and possible for it to be useful to teachers. Also, teachers themselves need to be taken into
consideration. For example, what are the time constraints in terms of their teacher education? How much of the knowledge and skills which are so needed by postmethod researchers will teachers be able to take away with them from a two month teacher education programme? Finally, the pedagogy of possibility is fraught with problems. The literature review and the data revealed that the macrostrategies themselves do not support teachers sufficiently as they attempt to analyse the lessons. This is an area of the postmethod framework which needs far greater attention if the transformative function is to be realized.
Even with all of these challenges of implementing a postmethod pedagogy, it must be conceded that in attempting to weave together a range of
conceptualizations of language pedagogy in a single framework, Kumaravdivelu has opened up new possibilities for language teacher education programmes. Sessions such as those aimed at raising students’ critical cultural awareness, and awareness of how language works in establishing power relationships had not previously been offered in IHLL teacher education programmes. Their inclusion in TESSL courses has enriched the programme for both teacher educators and student teachers. With greater focus on the critical and more direction on how to work as a transformative intellectual some of the gaps in the framework can be addressed in subsequent courses. It must, however, be noted that the practice of postmethod pedagogy is severely limited by context and may not be fully realized in periphery contexts even when the framework has greater internal consistency and is more fully developed.
A possible future direction for IHLL teacher education programmes may be to continue underpinning all aspects of the programme with a discourse of negotiation and let this be an overarching principle. A discourse of negotiation incorporates the critical aspects of postmethod pedagogy and many of the macrostrategies which were not in the earlier TESSL course. I believe this will simplify the ‘message’ that teachers take back with them to their contexts of practice. The TESSL course in the future can model how to negotiate pedagogy within everyday interactions with colleagues and students and how to keep negotiations open even when faced with resistance. More work can be done on recognizing the values, ideologies and assumptions underpinning practice, and the teacher education programme itself will need to engage more fully with aspects of critical pedagogy.