tesol methods changing tracks, challenging trends教学方法变化轨迹，具有挑战性的发展趋势.pdf

59TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 40, No. 1, March 2006TESOL Methods: Changing Tracks,Challenging TrendsB. KUMARAVADIVELUSan José State UniversitySan José, California, United StatesThis article traces the major trends in TESOL methods in the past 15years. It focuses on the TESOL profession’s evolving perspectives onlanguage teaching methods in terms of three perceptible shifts: (a)municative language teaching to task-based language teach-ing, (b) from method-based pedagogy to postmethod pedagogy, and(c) from systemic discovery to critical discourse. It is evident that duringthis transitional period, the profession has witnessed a heightenedawareness municative and task-based language teaching,about the limitations of the concept of method, about possiblepostmethod pedagogies that seek to address some of the limitations ofmethod, about plexity of teacher beliefs that inform thepractice of everyday teaching, and about the vitality of the macrostruc-tures—social, cultural, political, and historical—that shape the micro-structures of the language classroom. This article deals brie?y with thechanges and challenges the trend-setting transition seems to be bring-ing about in the profession’s collective thought and this state-of-the-art essay,1I trace the major trends in TESOLmethods since the 1991 publication of the 25th anniversary issue ofTESOL shall, therefore, refer to two overlapping periods oftime: before 1990 and after. To somewhat pre-empt my central thesis: Ifthe ?rst period is called a period of awareness,the second may be called aperiod of focus on the nature and scope of the transition fromawareness to awakening, along with the contributions and consequencesassociated with it. For the sake of synthesis, organization, and presentation,A state-of-the-art essay is mostly a summary statement of instant history with all its attendantsubjectivities. A subject like TESOL methods, with its multiple issues and multiple players, isbound to carry mu