What is role of the 

learner?
[Link]. The Postmethod Learner. Postmethod pedagogy seeks to make the most
use of learner investment and learner interest by giving them, to the extent feasible,
a meaningful role in pedagogic decision making. As Breen and Littlejohn (2000)
observed, “a pedagogy that does not directly call upon students’ capacities to make
decisions conveys to them that either they are not allowed to or that they are
incapable of doing so; or it may convey that the more overt struggle to interpret
and plan is not part of ‘proper’ learning” (p. 21). Postmethod pedagogy allows
learners a role in pedagogic decision making by treating them as active and
autonomous players.

What is learner autonomy?

Explain narrow and broad views of L2 learner autonomy.

Postmethod pedagogy takes into account two views of learner autonomy, a narrow
view and a broad view (Kumaravadivelu, 2003a). The narrow view seeks to
develop in the learner a capacity to learn to learn whereas the broad view goes
beyond that to include a capacity to learn to liberate as well. Helping learners learn
to learn involves developing in them the ability to “take charge of one’s own
learning,” (Holec, 1981, p. 3). Taking charge, according to Holec, means to (a)
have and to hold the responsibility for determining learning objectives, (b) for
defining contents and progressions, (c) for selecting methods and techniques to be
used, (d) for monitoring the procedure of acquisition, and finally, (e) for evaluating
what has been acquired.

What are L2 leaners’ strategies and why are they important?

Generally, learning to learn means learning to use appropriate strategies to realize

desired learning objectives. In the L2 literature, one can find useful taxonomies of
learning strategies (e.g., O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990) as well as user-
friendly manuals (e.g., Chamot, et. al., 1999; Scharle & Szabo, 2000), which offer
learners insights into what they need to know and can do to plan and regulate their
learning. These sources tell us that learners use several metacognitive, cognitive,
social, and affective strategies to achieve their learning objectives. They also tell us
that there are many individual ways of learning a language successfully, and that
different learners will approach language learning differently. We further learn that
more successful learners use a greater variety of strategies and use them in ways
appropriate to the language learning task, and that less successful learners not only
have fewer strategy types in their repertoire, but also frequently use strategies that
are inappropriate to the task.
By using appropriate learning strategies, learners can monitor their learning
process and maximize their learning potential. As I have stated elsewhere
(Kumaravadivelu, 2003a, pp. 139–140), learners can exploit some of these
opportunities by: Identifying their learning strategies and styles in order to know
their strengths and weaknesses as language learners; stretching their strategies and
styles by incorporating some of those employed by successful language learners;
reaching out for opportunities for additional language reception or production
beyond what they get in the classroom, for example, through library resources,
learning centers and electronic media such as the Internet; collaborating with other
learners to pool information on a specific project they are working on; and taking
advantage of opportunities to communicate with competent speakers of the
language. Collectively, these activities help learners gain a sense of responsibility
for aiding their own learning. While the narrow view of learner autonomy treats
learning to learn a language as an end in itself, the broad view treats learning to
learn a language as a means to an end, the end being learning to liberate. In other
words, the former stands for academic autonomy and the latter, for liberatory
autonomy. If academic autonomy enables learners to be effective learners,
liberatory autonomy empowers them to be critical thinkers. Thus, liberatory
autonomy goes much further by actively seeking to help learners recognize
sociopolitical impediments that prevent them from realizing their full human
potential, and by providing them with the intellectual and cognitive tools necessary
to overcome them.
Taken together, what the two types of autonomy promise is the development of
overall academic ability, intellectual competence, social consciousness, and mental
attitude necessary for learners to avail opportunities, and overcome challenges both
in and outside the classroom. Clearly, such a farreaching goal cannot be attained by
learners working alone; they need the willing cooperation of all others who directly
or indirectly shape their educational agenda, particularly that of their teachers.

●  Postmetod Teacher
What is teacher autonomy? What does it involve?
How do teachers develop their own eclectic method?
What is personal knowledge of L2 teacher and how does it
develop?
What is teacher cognition?
How do teachers construct their own theory of practice?
What is the goal of teacher research?
[Link]. The Postmethod Teacher. The postmethod teacher is considered to be an
autonomous teacher. Teacher autonomy is so central that it can be seen as defining
the heart of postmethod pedagogy. Method-based pedagogy “overlooks the fund of
experience and tacit knowledge about teaching which the teachers already have by
virtue of their lives as students” (Freeman, 1991, p. 35). Postmethod pedagogy, on
the other hand, recognizes the teachers’ prior knowledge as well as their potential
to know not only how to teach but also know how to act autonomously within the
academic and administrative constraints imposed by institutions, curricula, and
textbooks. It also promotes the ability of teachers to know how to develop a
reflective approach to their own teaching, how to analyze and evaluate their own
teaching acts, how to initiate change in their classroom, and how to monitor the
effects of such changes (Wallace, 1991). Such an ability can evolve only if teachers
have a desire and a determination to acquire and assert a fair degree of autonomy
in pedagogic decision making. In the field of L2 education, most teachers enter
into the realm of professional knowledge, with very few exceptions, through a
“methods” package. That is, they learn that the supposedly objective knowledge of
language learning and teaching has been closely linked to a particular method
which, in turn, is closely linked to a particular school of thought in psychology,
linguistics, and other related disciplines. When they begin to teach, however, they
quickly recognize the limitations of such a knowledge base, and try to break away
from such a constraining concept of method. In the process, they attempt, as we
saw earlier, to develop their own eclectic method. In order to do that, they have to
increasingly rely on their prior and evolving personal knowledge of learning and
teaching. Personal knowledge “does not simply entail behavioral knowledge of
how to do particular things in the classroom; it involves a cognitive dimension that
links thought with activity, centering on the context-embedded, interpretive process
of knowing what to do” (Freeman, 1996, p. 99). Personal knowledge does not
develop instantly before one’s peering eyes, as film develops in an instant camera.
It evolves over time, through determined effort. Under these circumstances, it is
evident that teachers can become autonomous only to the extent they are willing
and able to embark on a continual process of self-development. Facilitating teacher
self-development, to a large extent, depends on what we know about teacher
cognition which is a fairly new, but a rapidly growing, professional topic in L2
teacher education. Teacher cognition, as Borg (2003) said, refers to “what teachers
know, believe, and think” (p. 81). According to his recent state-of-the-art review,
teacher cognition has been the focus of 47 research studies since 1996. Some of
these studies have shed useful light on how teachers interpret and evaluate the
events, activities, and interactions that occur in the teaching process, and how these
interpretations and evaluations can help them enrich their knowledge, and
eventually enable them to become self-directed individuals. These and other
studies on teacher cognition reveal “greater understanding of the contextual factors
—e.g., institutional, social, instructional, physical—which shape what language
teachers do are central to deeper insights into relationships between cognition and
practice” (Borg, 2003, p. 106). A study conducted in Australia by Breen and his
colleagues (Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, & Thwaite, 2001) clearly brings out the
possible relationship between teacher beliefs, guiding principles, and classroom
actions, and their unfailing impact on immediate, ongoing thinking and decision
making. Consider Fig. 8.1. Studying a group of 18 Australian teachers of English
as a second language (ESL) whose teaching experience varied from 5 to 33 years,
Breen et al. (2001) found that teachers’ beliefs comprise a set of guiding principles
that, in turn, “appeared to derive from underlying beliefs or personal theories the
teachers held regarding the nature of the broader educational process, the nature of
language, how it is learned, and how it may be best taught” (pp. 472–473).
According to them, the pedagogic principles mediate between the experientially
informed teacher beliefs and the teacher’s ongoing decision making and actions
with a particular class of learners in a particular teaching situation. These
principles are “reflexive in both shaping what the teacher does whilst being
responsive to what the teacher observes about the learners’ behavior and their
achievements in class” (p. 473). Over time, teachers evolve a coherent pedagogic
framework consisting of core principles that are applied across teaching situations.
What postmethod pedagogy assumes is that this kind personal knowledge teachers
develop over time will eventually lead them to construct their own theory of
practice. While the above-mentioned authors provide teachers’ articulated
encounters with certain aspects of particularity and practicality, scholars such as
Clarke (2003), Edge (2002), and Johnston (2003) showed more recently how
teachers can enlarge their vision by embracing aspects of possibility aswell. Their
contributions demonstrate once again that “language teachers cannot hope to fully
satisfy their pedagogic obligations without at the same time satisfying their social
obligations” (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 544). In other words, teachers cannot
afford to remain sociopolitically naive. Sociopolitical naiveté commonly occurs, as
Hargreaves (1994) wisely warned us, when teachers are encouraged to reflect on
their personal biographies without also connecting them to broader histories of
which they are a part; or when they are asked to reflect on their personal images of
teaching and learning without also theorizing the conditions which gave rise to
those images and the consequences which follow from them. (p. 74) He argued,
quite rightly, that when divorced from its surrounding social and political contexts,
teachers’ personal knowledge can quickly turn into “parochial knowledge.” In
pursuing their professional self-development, postmethod teachers perform teacher
research involving the triple parameters of particularity, practicality, and
possibility. Teacher research is initiated and implemented by them, and is
motivated mainly by their own desire to self-explore and self-improve. Contrary to
common misconception, doing teacher research does not necessarily involve
highly sophisticated, statistically laden, variable-controlled experimental studies
for which practicing teachers have neither the time nor the energy. Rather, it
involves keeping one’s eyes, ears, and minds open in the classroom to see what
works and what doesn’t, with what group(s) of learners, for what reason, and
assessing what changes are necessary to make instruction achieve its desired goals.
Teachers can conduct teacher research by developing and using investigative
capabilities derived from the practices of exploratory research (Allwright, 1993),
teacherresearch cycle (Freeman, 1998), and critical classroom discourse analysis
(Kumaravadivelu, 1999a, 1999b). The goal of teacher research is achieved when
teachers exploit and extend their intuitively held pedagogic beliefs based on their
educational histories and personal biographies by conducting a more structured and
more goal-oriented teacher research based on the parameters of particularity,
practicality, and possibility. Most part of such teacher research is doable if, as far
as possible, it is not separated from and is fully integrated with day-today teaching
and learning. As Allwright (1993) argued, language teachers and learners are in a
privileged position to use class time for investigative purposes as long as the
activities are done through the medium of the target language being taught and
learned. To successfully carry out investigative as well as instructional
responsibilities thrust on them by the postmethod condition, teachers, no doubt,
need the services of committed teacher educators.