Method and Postmethod: Are They Really So Incompatible?

n TESOL methodology is said to have moved “beyond methods” (Richards, 1990, p. 35) to the “postmethod condition” (Kumaravadivelu, 1994, p. 27). Although “postmethod pedagogy” (Kumaravadivelu, 2001) has freed us as TESOL professionals from many of the constraints of the concept of method and invigorated our practices by providing new options to the classroom teacher, the postmethod condition has brought with it its own constraints on our thinking, not least of which is the claim that methods are dead. Contrary to this claim, some consider the term method to remain an apt description of what teachers do in classrooms. Block (2001) argues that