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TESOL Methods: Changing Tracks, Challenging Trends
Author(s) -
KUMARAVADIVELU B.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
tesol quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.737
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1545-7249
pISSN - 0039-8322
DOI - 10.2307/40264511
Subject(s) - vitality , communicative language teaching , pedagogy , sociology , politics , task (project management) , teaching method , critical pedagogy , language education , transition (genetics) , political science , engineering , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , theology , systems engineering , law , gene
This article traces the major trends in TESOL methods in the past 15 years. It focuses on the TESOL profession's evolving perspectives on language teaching methods in terms of three perceptible shifts: (a) from communicative language teaching to task‐based language teaching, (b) from method‐based pedagogy to postmethod pedagogy, and (c) from systemic discovery to critical discourse. It is evident that during this transitional period, the profession has witnessed a heightened awareness about communicative and task‐based language teaching, about the limitations of the concept of method, about possible postmethod pedagogies that seek to address some of the limitations of method, about the complexity of teacher beliefs that inform the practice of everyday teaching, and about the vitality of the macrostructures—social, cultural, political, and historical—that shape the microstructures of the language classroom. This article deals briefly with the changes and challenges the trend‐setting transition seems to be bringing about in the profession's collective thought and action.