This document provides an overview of Bala Kumaravadivelu's contributions to English language teaching (ELT) through his development of postmethod pedagogy. It discusses Kumaravadivelu's biography and key concepts such as critiquing the imposition of Western ELT methods. It then summarizes Kumaravadivelu's theoretical development over several publications where he proposed postmethod pedagogy as an alternative framework focused on practicality, particularity, and possibility. The document concludes with Kumaravadivelu's legacy in establishing postmethod pedagogy principles and strategies to make teaching more responsive to local contexts.

1. An intro to the postmethod
condition: an overview of
Kumaravadivelu’s
contributions in ELT
Yamith José Fandiño Parra
February 2023

2. CONTENTS
 Introduction.
 Bala Kumaravadivelu's biography.
 Kumaravadivelu’s key concepts.
 Kumaravadivelu’s theoretical development.
 Kumaravadivelu’s legacy.
 Food for thought.
 References

3. INTRODUCTION
First, read the following criticisms on methods.
- In practice, methods typically prescribe teachers what and how to teach.
- Methods are assumed to be applicable in any part of the world and valid under
any circumstance.
- The role of the teachers is relegated because they must first know the method by
heart and then must be able to apply its principles correctly.
- There is little room for the teachers' own personal initiative and teaching style.
- Learners are viewed as passive recipients of the methods, as they are expected to
submit themselves to their regime of exercises and activities.
(Adapted from Halomoan, 2016, http://EzineArticles.com/9512674)
 How do you interpret these five criticisms? What do they say about the teaching
and learning of foreign languages?
 Based on these criticisms, what do you think teacher education in ELT should
change or improve?

4. 1

5. BALA KUMARAVADIVELU’S BIOGRAPHY
• Was born in a small town in Coimbatore district, Tamilnadu, South India.
• Received his first M.A. from the University of Madras and started teaching at Tamilnadu
Agricultural University in Coimbatore.
• Thanks to a fellowship from the British Council, pursued a second M.A. in Lancaster
University in England.
• Taught at the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (now English and
Foreign Languages University) in Hyderabad.
• Given the opportunity to be a teaching assistant in the University of Michigan to do a
Ph.D.
• ventured into American academia and became a Professor at San José State University.
• First specialized in language teaching methods, teacher education, classroom discourse
analysis, and teaching culture and then proposed the postmethod pedagogy.
• Has published papers, wrote books, and delivered keynote/plenary speeches.

6. 2

7. KUMARAVADIVELU’S KEY CONCEPTS
• As a non-native English teacher, he considers that the Western English-speaking
countries (England and USA, mainly) have imposed a mode of English teaching
that is inappropriate to other countries, their teachers and their learners.
• Using critical geopolitical terminology, he calls oppressive countries the “Center”
and oppressed countries the "Periphery“.
• He has supported the equation Globalization = Westernization = Americanization.
Cap, 2019, p. 10.

8. • He has denounced the colonial practices of the Teaching of English to Other Languages
association (TESOL) in areas such as language policy, curriculum design, materials
development, language testing, teaching methodology, and second language research.
• He has concurred with decolonial critique, which considered that colonialism has
continued until today under new forms of domination, those of the international
networks of economic, political, ideological and cultural power.
• He believes one of the instruments for perpetuating this colonial domination is the
international teaching of English, which spreads an oppressive center-based
methodology.
• This center-based methodology endangers the linguistic and cultural identity of teachers
and learners in the periphery, promoting a collective acculturation.
Fandiño, 2021,
p. 173

9. • In this context, he argues for an "epistemic break” that
(a) innovates the definition and the functioning of language teaching and
learning
and
(a) enables the appropriation of ELT in countries of the periphery.
• This epistemic break criticizes the instrumentalization of the communicative
language teaching by some countries from the center.
• This epistemic break denounces an ethnocentric western-based view of
culture learning and teaching.
• This epistemic break calls for the construction of a context-specific ELT
pedagogy that countering the methodological manipulation that come with
Center-based methods.
• This epistemic break asks for a shift from methodism to
postmethodism.

10. Transmissional
From experts to
teachers
and
from teachers to
learners.
Methodism
Interactional
Experts,
Teachers, and
Learners
Post
methodism

11. Bahheradabi, 2017

12. 3

13. KUMARAVADIVELU’S THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENT
1994 - The postmethod condition: (E)merging strategies for second/foreign
language teaching
A refiguration of the relationship between the theorizers and the practitioners of
method, moving from a conventional perspective to a postmethod condition.
Conventional perspective: Theorizers construct knowledge-oriented theories of
pedagogy and centralize pedagogic decision making.
Postmethod condition: Practitioners construct classroom-oriented theories of
practices and generate location-specific innovative practices.
 A search for an alternative to methods, not just an alternative method.
 A recognition of teacher autonomy: teachers’ self-decisions and actions.
 A spread of principled pragmatism: informed teaching and critical judgement.
 A strategic framework for L2 teaching.

14. KUMARAVADIVELU’S DEVELOPMENT
The integration of an alternative to methods, teacher autonomy, and principled
pragmatism enables:
 A search for an alternative to methods, not just an alternative method,
 A recognition of teacher autonomy: teachers’ self-decisions and actions.
 A spread of principled pragmatism: informed teaching and critical judgement,
and
 A strategic framework of macrostrategies for L2 teaching:
1. Maximize learning opportunities.
2. Facilitate negotiated interaction.
3. Minimize perceptual mismatches.
4. Activate intuitive heuristics (implicit, inductive, or discovery learning).
5. Foster language awareness.
6. Contextualize linguistic input.
7. Integrate language skills.
8. Promote learner autonomy.
9. Raise cultural awareness.
10. Ensure social relevance.

15. 2001. Toward a Postmethod Pedagogy.
KUMARAVADIVELU’S DEVELOPMENT
• A pedagogy of particularity: Sensitiveness to concrete groups of teachers
and learners.
• A pedagogy of practicality: Teachers theorize from their practice and
practice what they theorize.
• A pedagogy of possibility: A quest for identity formation and social
transformation.
Conceptualizing
postmethod
pedagogy as a 3-
dimensional system
• An autonomous learner who gains responsibility, develops understanding
toward others, and seeks academic, social, and liberatory consciousness.
The postmethod
learner
• An autonomous individual whose practices emerge from professional
and personal knowledge and are based on the use of his/her
investigative capacities.
The postmethod
teacher
The postmethod
teacher educator
• A professional educator who recognizes and boosts prospective teachers’
voices and visions through developing their critical capabilities and
promoting a dialogic interaction and construction of meaning.

16. 2006. Understanding Language Teaching: From Method to Postmethod.
KUMARAVADIVELU’S DEVELOPMENT
Part 1
• Concepts and precepts of
language: language as
system, discourse, ideology
and competence.
• Factors and processes of
learning: Input, intake, and
output.
• Input and interaction in
teaching: modifications,
activities, and specifications.
Part 2
• Constituents and categories of
methods: approach, method,
technique, etc.
• Language-centered methods:
Linguistics and psychology.
• Learner-centered methods:
Anthropology, sociology,
pragmatics, etc.
• Learning-centered methods:
Process-oriented methods, e.g.,
the natural approach and
communicative approach.
Part 3
• Postmethod condition: the death of
method, parameters of postmethod
and the postmethod learner,
teacher, and teacher educator.
• Postmethod pedagogy: 3-
dimensional framework (Intralingual-
crosslingual, Analytic-experiential,
and explicit-implicit), exploratory
practice framework (puzzle solving),
and macrostrategic framework.
• Postmethod predicament:
challenging pedagogic and
ideological barriers.

17. 4

18. Postmethod
pedagogy
• It is not a method,
but rather a teaching
philosophy and a
principled approach
to teacher
development.
• It focuses on the
specific ways of
teaching that
teachers develop
according to their
experiences, learners’
needs, available
resources and
socioeducational
contexts.
Parameters
• PARTICULARITY: It
seeks to facilitate the
advancement of a
context-sensitive, location-
specific pedagogy that is
based on a true
understanding of local
linguistic, sociocultural,
and political particularities.
• PRACTICALITY: It seeks
to enable and encourage
teachers to become
producers of knowledge by
theorizing from their
practice and practicing
what they theorize,
• POSSIBILITY: It seeks to
tap the sociopolitical
consciousness that
participants bring with
them to the classroom so
that it can also function as
a catalyst for a continual
quest for identity formation
and social transformation.
Strategies
• Maximizing Learning
Opportunities.
• Minimizing Perceptual
Mismatches.
• Facilitating
Negotiated
Interaction.
• Promoting Learner
Autonomy.
• Fostering Language
Awareness.
• Activating Intuitive
Heuristics (self-
Discovery).
• Contextualizing
Linguistic Input.
• Integrating Language
Skills.
• Ensuring Social
Relevance.
• Raising Cultural
Consciousness.
KUMARAVADIVELU’S LEGACY

19. KUMARAVADIVELU’S LEGACY
The pedagogic
Wheel,
Kumaravadivelu,
2006,
p. 209.

20. 5

21. Food for thought
 The postmethod condition involves a particular group of teachers working
with a particular group of learners following a particular set of goals within a
particular institutional context embedded in a particular socio-cultural milieu.
How should this perspective impact or transform the education of prospective
or future L2 teachers?
 A major feature of the postmethod condition is the consistent focus on
teachers as decision-makers within their local, political, social, and linguistic
settings. To what extent do you think this focus is useful or pertinent in
today’s ELT contexts?
 The postmethod condition demands moving from methods, approaches,
designs, and procedures into teaching parameters and macrostrategies. On
the other hand, only a few teachers have the time, resources, or the
willingness to fashion classes to the post-method model; some also lack the
required. These circumstances can arise new anxieties and difficulties for
teachers who were trained on methods. What can L2 teachers and L2 teacher
educators do to overcome or alleviate such anxieties and difficulties?

22. References
Bagherababi, M. (2017). Postmethod and ELT.
https://www.slideshare.net/MohammadGhasemiBaghe/postmethod-and-elt
Cap, P. (2019). Discourse studies: Between social constructionism and linguistics. A critical overview.
Topics in Linguistics, 20(2), pp. 1-16
Fandiño, Y. J. (2021). Decolonizing English Language Teaching in Colombia: Epistemological
Perspectives and Discursive Alternatives. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, 23(2), 166–181.
https://doi.org/10.14483/22487085.17087
Halomoan, S. (2016). Criticisms on teaching methods. https://ezinearticles.com/?Criticisms-on-
Teaching-Methods&id=9512674
Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The Postmethod Condition: (E)merging Strategies for Second/Foreign
Language Teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28(1), 27-48.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). Toward a Postmethod pedagogy. TESOL QUARTERLY, 35(4), 537-560.
Kumaravadively, B. (2006). Understanding language teaching: from method to posmethod. Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Puren, C. (2022). Didactic analysis of the postmethod condition of B. Kumaravadivelu:
eclecticism and complex didactics of languages and-cultures. https://www.christianpuren.com/mes-
travaux/2022b-en/