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Ask teachers what method they subscribe to, and most will answer either that they don’t follow a method at all, or that they are ‘eclectic’, and pick and choose from techniques and procedures associated with a variety of different methods. Some might add that, essentially, their teaching follows the principles laid down by the communicative approach, itself a mixed bag, embracing anything from drills to communicative tasks, and everything in between. But the concept of a single, prescriptive ‘method’ – as in the Direct Method or the Oral Method – seems now to be dead and buried.

The demise of method is consistent with the widely held view that we are now in a ‘post-method’ era. Thus, as long ago as 1983, Stern declared that ‘several developments indicate a shift in language pedagogy away from the single method concept as the main approach to language teaching’ (1983). One such development was the failure, on the part of researchers, to find any significant advantage in one method over another. As Richards (1990) noted, ‘studies of the effectiveness of specific methods have had a hard time demonstrating that the method itself, rather than other factors, such as the teacher’s enthusiasm, or the novelty of the new method, was the crucial variable’. …

Kumaravadivelu (1994) identified what he called the ‘postmethod condition’, a result of ‘the widespread dissatisfaction with the conventional concept of method’. Rather than subscribe to a single set of procedures, postmethod teachers adapt their approach in accordance with local, contextual factors, while at the same time being guided by a number of ‘macrostrategies’. Two such macrostrategies are ‘Maximise learning opportunities’ and ‘Promote learner autonomy’. …

Nevertheless, and in spite of the claims of the postmethodists, the notion of method does not seem to have gone away completely. In fact, it seems to be doggedly persistent, even if the term itself is often replaced by its synonyms. … This is a view echoed by Bell (2007) who interviewed a number of teachers on the subject, and concluded that ‘methods, however the term is defined, are not dead. Teachers seem to be aware of both the usefulness of methods and the need to go beyond them.’

On the other hand, in a recent paper, Akbari (2008) suggests that it is textbooks that have largely replaced methods in their traditional sense: ‘The concept of method has not been replaced by the concept of postmethod but rather by an era of textbook-defined practice. What the majority of teachers teach and how they teach ... are now determined by textbooks’.

(by Scott Thornbury – http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/ methods-post-method-metodos. Adaptado)