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Method and Postmethod in Language Teaching provides a comprehensive, accessible, and engaging guide to the much-debated notions of 'method', 'methods', and 'postmethod' in language teaching.
Divided into three sections - 'Contexts', 'Concepts', and 'Debates' - the book sets out 'traditional' understandings of method(s), examines alternative accounts and critiques that inform, and at times go beyond, postmethod thinking within language teaching, and finally relates these issues to key practical debates and dilemmas that teachers navigate in the classrooms.
Highlighting the importance of teachers' understandings of their own professional contexts, the volume uses the notion of method as a 'lens' through which teachers and other language teaching professionals can clarify their understandings of language teaching, both in terms of pedagogic practices and classroom possibilities, and with regard to the development of this diverse field more generally.
Throughout, readers are encouraged to develop their own thinking and practice in contextually appropriate ways, supported by discussion questions and key readings that accompany each chapter, a glossary of key terms, and suggestions for additional reading.
This book is an indispensable resource for language teachers and other language teaching professionals, as well as postgraduate and upper-level undergraduate students of Applied Linguistics, Language Teacher Education, and ELT/TESOL and other language teaching programmes.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Section 1: Survey
Part I - Contexts: Framing the issues - contexts, communities, and method
Chapter 1 'Method', methods, and postmethod: initial questions, perspectives, and possibilities
Chapter 2 Locating language teaching: contexts, cultures, and cognition
Part II - Concepts: Methods past, present, and future - histories, critiques, and alternatives
Chapter 3 A profusion of methods: progress, 'products of their times', and the 'procession of methods' narratives
Chapter 4 Beyond method ... to postmethod? Critiques, alternative accounts, and local realities
Part III - Debates: Methods and methodologies, theories, and practices - questions, possibilities, and classroom realities
Chapter 5 'Language', 'language learning', and the language classroom: theoretical insights and practical implications
Chapter 6 Language teaching in practice: pedagogical debates, possibilities, and realities
Section 2: Further reading
Section 3: Glossary
References
About the author
Graham Hall is Professor of Applied Linguistics/TESOL at Northumbria University, UK. He is the author of Exploring English Language Teaching: Language in Action (2011; 2nd edition, 2017), which was the winner of the 2012 British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) book prize. He is also the editor of The Routledge Handbook of English Language Teaching (2016) and was editor of the ELT Journal from 2013−2017.
Summary
Method and Postmethod in Language Teaching is both an accessible and engaging introductory textbook and a handy reference guide that explores the different ways language teaching methods have been understood and valued.
