The Postmethod Era Chapter 3 Brown (2007) by Katalina Perez

The Postmethod Era Chapter 3 Brown (2007) by Katalina Perez

1. The Postmethod approach aimed at addressing teachers' and learners' particular needs

   • "Action research" and "Classroom-based research" provide an opportunity for teachers to relate research and practice in the classroom and apply it in the real world to avoid a disconnect between too much theory and scarce practice.
     • There's a new tendency to develop your own approach, which is well-informed, based on research and experience and tailored to your students' needs.
       • An approach can be defined as a dynamic and changing way of providing learning opportunities to our students

2. Communicative Language Teaching

   • It's also called "communicative approach"
     • It can be defined as an approach that uses communication as the objective and the means of learning
       • The teacher is considered a facilitator rather than an instructor, whose main objective is to create learning opportunities for students
         • Main characteristics: focuses on all aspects of communicative competence, both form and function are important, fluency and accuracy are both important, focuses on real-world contexts, students are encouraged to focus on their own learning, teacher as facilitator, and students are active participants in their own learning

3. Task-Based Language Teaching

   • It's also called "Task-based instruction"
     • This approach focuses on the use of authentic language and the use of tasks that reflect real life interactions
       • Best types of tasks identified for this approach: open-ended, structured, teacher-fronted, small group, and pair work
         • Main characteristics: tasks take students from form to real-world contexts, communicative and meaningful tasks, engaging tasks that promote problem-solving activity

4. Learner-Centered Instruction

   • The term applies to curricula and specific techniques
     • This approaches engaging in hard work, reflecting on their learning process, and learning independently or collaboratively.
       • Techniques focus on learners' needs, styles, and goals and gives students some control over the types of activities

5. Cooperative Learning

   • This approach aims at organizing activities into academic and social learning experiences.
     • The objective goes beyond group work, it seeks to promote positive interdependence, so that students cooperate with each other to learn together.
       • The characteristics of this approach are the same as in the learner-centered approach.

6. Other approaches

   • Interactive Learning seeks to emulate the interactive nature of communication and promotes interaction in the classroom.
     • Whole Language Education is the approach that seeks to view language as a whole, not in pieces, learning is viewed as student-centered, interactive, social, cooperative and focused on meaning.
       • Content-Based Instruction (CLT) is the integration of content learning with language teaching objectives. Language is the vehicle for learning other subjects, like history, science, etc. to make learning more meaningful.
         • Other CLT Approaches
           • Lexical Approach is the idea that an important part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and produce lexical phrases as chunks.
             • Multiple Intelligences brings Gardner's theory into language learner. Gardner (1983) has identified the following intelligences: Verbal/Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Visual/Spatial, Bodily/Kinesthetic, Musical, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal and Naturalist. The main idea behind it is for teachers to address all these learning styles in the classroom to promote learning opportunities for all.