Exploring postmethod pedagogy with Mozambican secondary school teachers.
Date
2010-11-11
Authors
Delport, Susan
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Abstract
This research explores postmethod pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 165)
with two Mozambican secondary school teachers who expressed an interest in
carrying out an exploratory research project in their context of practice. The
research was undertaken to investigate how teachers, who had attended an
International House Language Lab (IHLL) teacher education programme in 2008,
were theorizing from their practice with the aim of developing a context-sensitive
pedagogy.
The research is a qualitative study consisting of two case studies. Each case is
based on the practices of a teacher attempting to implement an exploratory
research project. The exploratory projects included the following activities: the
teacher teaching a lesson with a colleague observing; the teacher and observer
meeting both before and after the observed lesson to discuss and analyse the
lesson; and finally, the teacher inviting a group of students to discuss their
perceptions of selected episodes in the lesson. The teachers used the
exploratory research projects to explore their classroom practice in order to learn
more about their teaching.
Of particular relevance to this study is literature on practitioner research and
teachers as reflective practitioners. In analysing the data, I demonstrate that
although the exploratory research projects provided a frame of reference and
point of departure for postmethod pedagogy, the teachers’ ability to ‘develop a
systematic, coherent, and relevant personal theory of practice’ (Kumaravadivelu,
2003, p. 40) was limited by: the context, the surface level application of
macrostrategies, and a lack of foregrounding of the critical in the postmethod
macrostrategies. The study concludes with a critical reflection on the value of
postmethod pedagogy for teacher education programmes offered at IHLL, as well
as for the teachers’ contexts of practice. I offer some ‘fuzzy generalizations’
(Bassey, 1999) about the place of postmethod principles in teacher development
courses for language teachers from a range of classroom and community
contexts.
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Keywords
Postmethod pedagogy, EFL pedagogy, EFL methodology, Critical pedagogy, EFL teacher education, Practitioner research, Critical reflection, Exploratory research projects