In Part 1, I shall raise some issues about the status of ‘method’ in our time. After revisiting Richards and Rodgers’ definition of method in terms of approach, design, procedure, I shall discuss the views of Prabhu (‘There is no best method: why?’) and Stevick in his ground-breaking book ‘Memory, Meaning and Method’. The views of Kumaravadivelu on ‘the post-method condition’ and Underhill on the unpredictable ‘dark matter’ of classroom encounters will also be discussed.
In Part 2, I will give a critical overview of traditional methods (often unjustifiably dismissed), of the many alternative methods which surfaced in the 1970’s and 1980’s, such as the Silent Way and Suggestopedia, and the current method-inspired approaches, such as Dogme and CLIL.
In Part 3, I shall argue that methods (and indeed materials) are far less important than the making of meaning in classrooms with a focus on ‘what goes on inside and between folks’ (Stevick). A major question then arises as to how we can prepare teachers for the unpredictable context of moment-by-moment teaching.
