| Popis: |
This research explores postmethod pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 165) with two Mozambican secondary school teachers who expressed an interest in carrying out an exploratory research project in their context of practice. The research was undertaken to investigate how teachers, who had attended an International House Language Lab (IHLL) teacher education programme in 2008, were theorizing from their practice with the aim of developing a context-sensitive pedagogy. The research is a qualitative study consisting of two case studies. Each case is based on the practices of a teacher attempting to implement an exploratory research project. The exploratory projects included the following activities: the teacher teaching a lesson with a colleague observing; the teacher and observer meeting both before and after the observed lesson to discuss and analyse the lesson; and finally, the teacher inviting a group of students to discuss their perceptions of selected episodes in the lesson. The teachers used the exploratory research projects to explore their classroom practice in order to learn more about their teaching. Of particular relevance to this study is literature on practitioner research and teachers as reflective practitioners. In analysing the data, I demonstrate that although the exploratory research projects provided a frame of reference and point of departure for postmethod pedagogy, the teachers’ ability to ‘develop a systematic, coherent, and relevant personal theory of practice’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 40) was limited by: the context, the surface level application of macrostrategies, and a lack of foregrounding of the critical in the postmethod macrostrategies. The study concludes with a critical reflection on the value of postmethod pedagogy for teacher education programmes offered at IHLL, as well as for the teachers’ contexts of practice. I offer some ‘fuzzy generalizations’ (Bassey, 1999) about the place of postmethod principles in teacher development courses for language teachers from a range of classroom and community contexts. |
