Macrostrategies for Foreign Language Teaching in Postmethod Era

Abstract

The methodology of foreign language teaching has undergone numerous significant changes throughout its existence in accordance with the changing social and political, economic and cultural interests. At present, a number of language teaching methodologies have reached a considerably high level of development. Nevertheless, it is obvious that humankind has never created a method that perfectly fits any kind of educational goal and environment. The effectiveness of the method as a teaching technique has been questioned and there is an ongoing discussion about its limiting influence on the teaching process leading to the development of post method pedagogy – the pedagogical system formed as a consequence of the contradictory processes accompanying the development of foreign language teaching methodology over the past decades. Post method pedagogy is not a set of dogmatic principles, but a system of general directions and recommendations - a system which tries to free itself from the limiting influence of the pedagogical method.

There are three fundamental parameters of post method pedagogy: specificity (the compatibility of the pedagogical system with the peculiarities of the existing educational, sociocultural and political environment), the unity of theory and practice (rejection of the conventional separation of theoretical and practical areas of teaching) and the principle of probability (considering the probability of the influence of numerous external factors on the educational process and applying it in accordance with the goals of education).  The study also emphasizes the active role and considerably increased responsibility of the language learner, teacher and education expert in the post method era.

The major aim of the study is to analyze recommendatory macrostrategies giving specific directions to the aforementioned pedagogical parameters. These macrostrategies include: expanding the spectrum of learning opportunities, effective interaction of the participants of the learning process, minimizing perceptual inconsistencies, learner autonomy, insights into the nature of the target language, activating intuitive heuristics, enhancing the role of context, integrating language skills, raising cultural awareness and social and political compatibility.  

The system of macrostrategies presented above is of a recommendatory nature. It requires constant refinement, regular checking of effectiveness and development of relevant microstrategies (specific ways of implementing the macrostrategies in practice), which is within the competence of each teacher.

The most important feature of post method pedagogy is aspiration for professionalism based on individualism, creativity, initiative and freedom of choice, which fully corresponds to the requirements of the modern democratic society for the participants of the educational process.