Faculty of Education, University of Kragujevac, Jagodina

Integrated Language Teaching
Lecturer: Vera Savić
Students: Danica Pavlovic and Nevena Kovinic
Winter semester 2019/2020
Topic: Postmethod condition
14.11.2019.

 Postmethod condition

The learner’s main role in postmethod pedagogy is being an active and autonomous part of the decision making process. Learner is allowed to show interest, engage and participate in their own learning.

Postmethod pedagogy takes into account two views of learner autonomy, a narrow view and a broad view (Kumaravadivelu, 2003).

From the perspective of academic autonomy or the narrow view, learners simply learn how to be an effective learners and how to learn, but broad view goes even further and beyond that and helps the learners to become more liberate in the learning process and to think critically, and that’s way it is also called liberatory autonomy.

Liberatory autonomy can be achieved in those classrooms where:

●       learners are encouraged and inspired to give assumptions, prepositions and conclusions regarding the process of learning and using of language, while also exploring the World Wide Web and being motivated to discuss about different topics;

●       learners are allowed to reflect on their progress by keeping track of it in the forms of dairies or journals, where they can express their views on it and perspective on their role in the society itself;

●       learners are participants in their own process of learning but as a part of a cohesive and supportive social group where there is mutual respect, trust and opportunities for self-improvement.

There are several sources that tell us that in order to learn a language successfully, learners need to use different learning strategies. According to those sources, learners can use several  metacognitive, cognitive, social, and affective strategies. It is important to note that each learner learns a language in a different way, but it is shown that using many various strategies appropriately, can lead to more successful language learning, while inappropriate using of fewer strategies can lead to the opposite.

It is crucial to attain harmony of liberatory and academic autonomy together with teacher, who is guider and adviser in one’s educational process.

In postmethod pedagogy, teacher’s autonomy is seen as the core that represents the ability to overcome each principle or even obstacle that institution, curriculum or state gives as certain necessity and to be liberate in using different methods and techniques combined together.

It also promotes the ability of teachers to know how to develop a reflective approach to their own teaching, how to analyze and evaluate their own teaching acts, how to initiate change in their classroom, and how to monitor the effects of such changes. (Wallace, 1991, cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2006)

After the class, teachers should often reflect and ask themselves what part can they change to be better next time and what was good during that class and shouldn’t be changed.

All teachers have a certain amount of base knowledge of teaching and learning before they enter the classroom, but, right after that, they begin to realize that such knowledge is not enough to deal with different issues that happen in the classroom, so they try to develop their own eclectic method which is created from their own personal experiences and knowledge about teaching and learning. Personal knowledge of L2 teacher “does not simply entail behavioral knowledge of how to do particular things in the classroom; it involves a cognitive dimension that links thought with activity, centering on the context-embedded, interpretive process of knowing what to do”. (Freeman, 1996, cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2006)

This kind of knowledge doesn’t simply develop as easily. It takes a lot of time, effort and teacher’s willingness and determination for self-improvement.

Teacher cognition is a set of beliefs, thoughts and knowledge that teacher has and develops over time. After years of practise in classroom, what teacher believes, thinks and know is affected by actions in class, i.e. by learners’ behavior and by their accomplishments. After years of teaching practise, teacher develops his own theory of practise based on his cognition, knowledge of teaching and overall previous experience.

To achieve self-improvement and self-development, many teachers do teacher research. By conducting these kind of teacher research, based on 3P, teachers expand their own beliefs, knowledge and thoughts which ultimatively leads them to their own self-improvement and self-development  and that is the main goal of it.

The task of the postmethod teacher educator is to create conditions for prospective teachers to acquire necessary authority and autonomy that will enable them to reflect on and shape their own pedagogic experiences. In other words, it becomes necessary to have teacher education that is dialogically constructed by participants who think and act critically.

References:

1. Kumaravadivelu B. (2006): Understanding Language Teaching – From Method to Postmethod, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, London.