Presentation (Sep.14) - The Concept of Method, Interested Knowledge, and the Politics of Language Teaching (by A. Pennycook, 1989) & TQ chapter 2

The Concept of Method, Interested Knowledge, and the Politics of Language Teaching (by A. Pennycook, 1989)

1. Interested Knowledge and the politics of SLE
“all education is political”
- SLE: a complex constellation of educational and linguistic relationships that must be considered in the language teaching.
- language and language teaching are always inscribed in relations of power (political issues).

“all knowledge is interested”
* positivist (or scientist) orientation : tradition
- “the produced knowledge is neutral and objective” -> the removal of the personal and the political from the investigation of human issues -> an ahistorical and apolitical approach .

* criticism on positivist orientation
- all knowledge is produced within a particular configuration of social, cultural, economic, political , and historical circumstances -> all claims to knowledge represent the interests of certain individuals or groups” -> need to look critically at the interests, especially in relationships of power.

2. Methods in Language Teaching

What is Method?
- a product of early scientism, an attempt to delineate modes of inquiry and define problems. (p.597)
- “the term ‘method’ is a label without substance” (Clarke, 1983)
- the construction of the Method concept in language teaching has been … the attempt to validate current forms of knowledge at the expense of past forms. (p.608)
- the Method concept is ultimately prescriptive rather than descriptive. (p.609)

Criticism on Method
Feyerabend (1988) - “ the modern obsession with Method”
Stern(1985) – “…preoccupation with the new methods …. unproductive and misguided”
Clarke(1983)- Little agreement as to which methods existed when and in what order
History of language teaching

Kelly (1969) : a pattern of cyclical change
Classical, Renaissance & Modern periods: an emphasis on oral communication
Middle Ages & Enlightenment: emphasis on analysis of the written text

Adherents of the concept of Method & their offers on Method
H.D. Brown (4 methods)- Direct Method, the Grammar-Translation Method, the Audiolingual Method, the Interpersonal Approaches
Clarke (4 ), McArthur (5), Stern (7), Larsen-Freeman (8), Richards and Rodgers (8)

Chomskyan Revolution in 60s
Audiolingualism vs. Cognitive Code Method

What and how do teachers choose one method out of many?
Disparity between academic thought and textbook publication, and the knowledge produced by teachers in their daily practice.
Based on educational experiences, personalities, particular institutional, social, cultural, and political circumstances, understanding of particular students’ collective and individual needs.

3. Knowledge, Texts, Teachers, and Power

Knowledge & power
If all knowledge is interested, what interests are served by particular forms of knowledge?(p.609)
Knowledge (re)produced should be seen within its political context, and in its relationship to the political economy of textbook publishing, the hierarchical nature of knowledge production, the gendered issue of teaching practice, and educational imperialism in the teaching of English as an international language.

Texts & power
The definition and academic legitimation of methods is beneficial to the publishing industry.

Teachers & power
-Method may be seen in the context of the gradual de-skilling of the teacher’s role
-The method concept has played a major role in maintaining… a hierarchically organized division between male conceptualizers and female practitioners(p.611).
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Chapter 2 in TQ

1. Amy Cecilia Hazelrigg Reaponds:

- The demand of “those-who-do-not-nod” is a solution to the problem of teaching ESL(Method!). - Most of them are not aware that the approaches have names and specific ideologies with origins in time, place and value system.
- “the dominance of the notion of Method… has had the effect of limiting our understanding of what language teaching is all about” & “ it applies inappropriate positivist solutions to complex human issues and ignores the sociocultural context of language teaching.”
- The Method textbook : an account of the process of L2 developments, not language teaching. Ex) Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL

2. Jim Sayers Responds

- conflicts between the English and Navajo languages, and power relations between student and teacher, between home and school.
- “It’s necessary to negate the political nature of pedagogy to give the superficial appearance that education serves everyone, thus assuring that it continues to function in the interest of the dominant class.”
- Critical pedagogy is “simultaneous development of English Communicative abilities and the ability to apply them to develop a critical awareness of the world and the ability to act on it to improve matters” (Crookes & Lehner, 1998)
-Do we have to select between developing a critical awareness and ability to act (meaningful education) and taking action (the teacher as a type of educational guerrilla)?
- Compassion: one of the qualities a teacher must have

3. Alastair Pennycook Responds

- On gender issue, it’s not on literal or numerical terms but on the nature of knowledge.
- teaching and teacher education are often constructed as atheoretical domains -> need to battle this view!(Caution is needed! The argument is about the imbalance between theory and practice not about the abandonment of theoretical domains).
- no one theory is going to provide us with useful answers to the multifaceted contexts of language teaching(p. 31).
- critical work may involve as much humor, gentleness and generosity as any other pedagogy .
- How could and should we explain the normative base of Critical Theory? : It’s compassion in a sharp critique of inequality.

4. More problems of Pennycook(1989) by Pennycook

1. Filled with the voices of others
2. A bit of a theoretical hodgepodge: theoretically inconsistent
3. What does it mean to “validate other, local forms of knowledge about language & teaching”?
4. “the author gives us no principle way to choose what to teach and how to teach it” (McCall, 1990)

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Q. What is difference between Method and method, which we see Amy’s response’s title? If you choose one of them, which one do you like to pick up and why?
Q. In Amy’s review, she asks, “what will offer them a tapestry of choices for assessing their world and creating possibility through the making of meaning?” What would be your answer?
Q From which level of school or educational situation (home? kindergarten, elementary?) do we(teachers) let our students have critical view on knowledge, texts, and so on. What if they or their parents don’t want it, what do we have to do for that?
Q. Do you agree with Pennycook’s base of critical theory (compassion)? Why and why not?
Q. One of Pennycook’s questions is “how long does it take for us to start to sound different form the voices that people the texts we read? “ How long did/will it take for you to have it?