Locating methods in ELT Education: perspectives and possibilities

This chapter explores the place of language teaching methods within ELT education programmes. It asks what, if anything, a focus on methods brings to ELTE, and how methods might be explored in practice on teacher education programmes and courses, if, as is claimed, methods are ‘dead’ and ELT has entered a ‘Postmethod’ era.

The discussion first outlines ‘traditional’ understandings of ‘method’ and methods, and the substantial criticisms of these conceptualisations that have emerged since the early 1990s. It subsequently examines how thinking about language teacher education has developed in similar ways over the same period, with a move away from top-down prescriptions for practice to an appreciation of the importance of teachers’ own contextually-based reflections and understandings for their professional development. The chapter then draws on a range of ELT educators’ own perspectives to examine why and how language teaching methods are (still) focused upon in ELTE, given these moves towards complexity and diversity in the field. It finds that methods retain a place within ELTE programmes as they are seen to provide a prompt for teachers to attend to and reflect upon the links between practice and theory. Consequently, a focus on methods acts as a springboard for more general reflection about language teaching and learning. Central to this perspective, however, is the key acknowledgement of the importance of teachers’ own contextually-informed understandings, beliefs and sense of plausibility in implementing or adapting methodological ideas and shaping their classroom practices.