Week 4: Brown Ch 3 and Kumar article

Brown Chapter 3: The Post Method Era: Toward Informed Approches

      Brown discusses the concept of "post method" and taps into the different approaches within a language classroom. First, he discusses that it is better to focus on the approach the teacher uses for language teaching (effective tasks and techniques) instead of a method for all. As future teachers, we have to be aware of the learner's context and offer the appropriate blend of tasks for each student. Before entering the education program, I had ignored and was oblivious about the fact that a learner's needs and geographical, social, and political contexts play a vital part on teaching and learning. We need to consider their context and apply our teaching to their specific needs to appropriately educate them. Now, I have learned to be more focused on the learners' background and specific needs, apply it to the approach I am going to use, as well as reflect on my own experiences and practice, to effectively teach every diverse student I will come across in the future. The beginning of the chapter caught my attention because it explains that no matter how inexperienced I am in teaching, I have learned from my personal experiences and previous classes, as well as classroom observations and experiences as a learner (which is true!), and these will help me develop an "enlightened approach" when I teach in the future.
      Moving onto the specific approaches Brown discusses, he mentions the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Some of the characteristics of this approach are to focus on all components (such as sociolinguistic, grammatical, discourse, etc.), create language techniques for meaningful purposes, focus on fluency and accuracy, apply real world contexts, and allow students to be aware of their own learning, and finally, students are active participants in their learning while teachers step back and guides them. Another important approach is the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). This approach has been said to be somewhat similar to CLT by both authors discussed in this post, Kumar and Brown. This approach focuses on the learner and meaning, using problem-solving to engage students and creating communicative goals with carefully designed elements. Like the CLT, it also applies real world contexts.
      Some of the others are: Learner-centered instruction (giving the learner a "sense of ownership" by allowing them to take control, use creativity and focus on their needs), Cooperative Learning (teaching them how to communicate effectively and work with others to accomplish a task), Interactive Learning (communicating effectively with others to create interaction in the classroom through negotiation, spontaneity, and authentic language input), Whole Language Education (viewing language as a whole and connecting between oral and written language), Content-Based Instruction (focusing on the study of language and subject matter, "with the form and sequence of language presentation dictated by content material). I believe each approach has disadvantages and advantages, teachers can design their own approach gathering the appropriate techniques and tasks from other approaches to fit their own classroom. I learned that in this profession, one has to be an observer of their own and others practices, analyze them, and become a researcher for their own classrooms.

Kumar and his article "TESOL methods: Changing Tracks, Challenging Trends".

      Kumar discusses different perspectives on the language teaching methods within the TESOL profession. He taps into CLT and TBLT and compares them historically discussing their disadvantages and advantages as approaches being currently used by teachers in the education field. There have been various arguments between CLT and TBLT given by theorists analyzing the reliability of these approaches. Overall, Kumar suggests that both approaches are effective depending on the classroom, because there is no definitive research on which one is better. He also touches on method-based versus postmethod pedagogy. He suggests that creating a new method is not the way to go, but instead it is to find a new way to help and advise teachers to create a sense of plausibility. Method should not be considered valuable anymore. Post method pedagogy helps language teachers be cautious and value the learner's context, carefully assess and treat the learner, and appropriately work with diverse students with aid from "local assessments of students' strategies for learning". And finally, he discusses critical discourse emphasizing on the importance of "extending the educational space to the social, cultural, political language use", not just settling on teaching the pragmatic domains of language use. It is to consider the culture and knowledge within the personal experiences of the students and teachers. Teachers have to create a sense of awareness on beliefs, identities and overall structure within the classroom environment.
      It is interesting to see the correlation between both authors and theories about CLT and TBLT, as well as post method pedagogy. Both agree that teachers have to have a sense of plausibility, awareness of the student's uniqueness, and reflect on their practices to develop a better teaching approach. After reading both assignments, I wonder what type of approach will I be using in the future to effectively teach my diverse students? or maybe a mix of various approaches?