The choice as to the best, the most appropriate, or the most effective way of teaching a language

is ‘a clear and classic applied linguistic problem’ (Cook 2003: 38), with important implications
not just for classroom teaching, but for materials and curriculum design, for teacher education,
and for educational policy-making in general. The way that teachers address this problem in
their classroom teaching constitutes their methodology:

Methodology can be characterized as the activities, tasks, and learning experiences

selected by the teacher in order to achieve learning, and how they are used within the
teaching/learning process.
(Richards 1990: 11)

Methodology, then, is the how of teaching. But also implicated are the what, the why, and
the who. That is, teachers’ choices of activities, tasks, and learning experiences will be influ
influ-
enced by their (implicit or explicit) theories of language and of learning, as well as by their
assessment of the needs, learning preferences, and abilities of their learners. These choices
in turn may be constrained by the curricular demands of their institution, such as its syllabus
and targeted learning outcomes, by the teaching materials and technologies available, by the
backwash effect of any tests or examinations that the students may be expected to take, by the
local educational culture, and by the teachers’ own training and experience, not to mention their
personal beliefs and values.

Traditionally, these methodological choices may have been partly or wholly pre-specified and
enshrined in the form of a method. ‘A language teaching method is a single set of procedures
which teachers are to follow in the classroom. Methods are usually based on a set of beliefs
about the nature of language and learning’ (Nunan 2003: 5, emphasis added). Likewise, Kuma
Kuma-
ravadivelu (2006) uses method ‘to refer to established methods conceptualised and constructed
by experts in the field’ and methodology ‘to refer to what practicing teachers actually do in
the classroom in order to achieve their stated or unstated teaching objectives’ (2006: 84).
Bell (2007) helps elucidate the relationship by distinguishing between methods as ‘potential
resources’ versus methods as ‘realized resources’, that is, ‘an emergent set of regular practices
which may be more or less identifiable’ (2007: 142) – what we are calling here a methodology.
As will be argued, it is the situated, dynamic and emergent nature of methodology that is
of greater interest to researchers (and teacher educators) than the somewhat static and pre-
scriptive concept of method. Disillusion with the ‘method concept’ has a long history: over
a century ago Breul (1913) warned teachers. ‘Do not be too confident with regard to certain
new methods, especially do not believe too easily in certain “practical” ones which promise
to teach many wonderful things in a very short time’ (Breul 1913: 7), while Kelly (1969),
in his ground-breaking history of language teaching, was dismissive: ‘Methods are of little
interest’ (1969: 2). But the real break came in the latter part of the 20th century when Stern
(1983) declared that ‘several developments indicate a shift in language pedagogy away from
the single method concept as the main approach to language teaching’ (1983: 477). One such
development was the failure, on the part of researchers, to find any significant advantage in
one method over another. Even distinguishing one method from another might not be as easy
as it seems. As Carroll (1953) long ago observed, ‘any distinction between recently proposed
methods of instruction and the more traditional methods can be made to seem great on paper
but the distinction is not necessarily present to any significant degree in actual practice’ (1953:
169). And the way that methods are actually implemented in classroom settings suggests that
there is as much diversity within a given method’s application as there is across methods. In
short, methods might be, in Johnson’s (2013: 211) characterization, simply ‘plausible fictions’
and, as such, elude analysis and comparison.
This blurring of methodological distinctions is a challenge to the ‘modernist narrative’,
whereby the history of methods is represented (on many teacher education courses) as one of
incremental progress from darkness into light. For a start, changes in methodology have not
happened uniformly nor in unison. For long periods of time different methods functioned in
parallel, and still do. By the same token, features of different methods have often been com com-
bined to create methodological blends and fusions, an eclectic strategy that is probably more
widespread than is acknowledged and, as such, serves to blur the distinctions between one
method and another. As Corder observed, some time back, ‘The development of language-
teaching methods . . . has in fact been empirical rather than theory-directed. . . . The fact seems
to be that teachers have “followed their noses” and adopted a generally eclectic approach to
teaching methods’ (1973: 135–136).
Moreover, recognition of the huge range of contextual variables that impact on second
language learning has challenged the notion of a single monolithic method, particularly one
that is generated apart from the context in which it is implemented. This view has given rise to
the notion of appropriate methodology (Holliday 1994), particularly in relation to the design
of large-scale curriculum projects for non-BANA (British, Australian, and North American)
contexts. Holliday warned that

there is a grave danger of teachers and curriculum developers . . . naively accepting BANA
practice as superior, and boldly carrying what are in fact the ethnocentric norms of par-
ticular professional-academic cultures in English language education from one context to
another, without proper research into the effect of their actions.
(1994: 102)
 Methods, as Pennycook (1989) argues, are never disinterested, but serve the dominant
power structures in society, leading to ‘a de-skilling of the role of teachers, and greater insti-
tutional control over classroom practice’ (Pennycook 1989: 610). Such a view represents what
might be called a ‘critical turn’ in methodology, whose proponents seek to redress social, cul-
tural and/or linguistic inequalities and to (re)instate the learner’s agency and autonomy while,
at the same time, wresting power, control, and authority away from the traditional stakeholders,
such as examining bodies, publishers, education ministries and universities.
This combination of factors prompted a number of scholars to announce the ‘death of
method’ (Allwright 1991) and to herald what is known as the post-method condition (Kuma-
ravadivelu 1994). Kumaravadivelu argues that, rather than subscribe to a single set of proce
proce-
dures, post-method teachers should adapt their approach in accordance with local, contextual
factors while at the same time being guided by a number of macrostrategies that are ‘derived
from the current theoretical, practical, and experiential knowledge base’ (Kumaravadivelu
2006: 69). Two such macrostrategies, for example, are ‘Maximise learning opportunities’ and
‘Promote learner autonomy’. Long (2011) makes a similar claim, extrapolating ten method-
ological ‘principles’ (MPs), or ‘universally desirable instructional design features’ (2011: 376),
from research findings. One such MP is ‘Provide rich (not impoverished) input’; another is
‘Promote cooperative/collaborative learning’ (p. 387).
Other scholars have argued that a concern for methods overlooks the fact that effective
pedagogy is realized less at the macro than at the micro level – that is, not in terms of how
a method is broadly applied but in terms of the moment-to-moment interactions between the
teacher and the learners:

Studies of classroom events . . . have demonstrated that teaching is not static or fixed in
time but is a dynamic, interactional process in which the teacher’s ‘method’ results from
the processes of interaction between the teacher, the learners, and the instructional tasks
and activities over time.
(Richards 1990: 37)

Van Lier (1996: 158) takes a similar view, arguing that ‘curriculum innovation . . . can only
come about through a fundamental change in the way educators and students interact with one
another. . . . Reform thus occurs from the bottom up, one pedagogical action at a time’. As we
shall see, the focus of classroom research has likewise been redirected away from a concern
for the top-down application and comparison of methods to a focus on ‘one pedagogical
action at a time’. In similar vein, Atkinson and Shvidko (2019) foreground the role of interac-
tion, but go further, putting the case for a ‘natural pedagogy’ that not only pre-dates ‘method’
but is a deeply evolved and largely instinctive human behaviour: ‘The continuing emphasis
in TESOL on artificial methods and approaches may suggest a lack of pedagogical imagina-
tion about teaching outside the usual lines and borders’ (2019: 1106, emphasis in original).
Nevertheless, and despite the criticisms levelled at it, the ‘method construct’ has proved remark-
ably resilient, evidenced, for example, by the frequent occurrence of the word method in the online
marketing of language courses, typically collocating with adjectives such as unique, effective,
new, and modern. This no doubt reflects the popular belief that there is a ‘scientific’ solution to the
intractable problem of second language learning. As Nunan (1998: 228) reminds us, ‘for much of
its history, language teaching has been obsessed with the search for the “right” method’.
Furthermore, a great deal of teacher training, particularly at the pre-service level, is predi-
cated on the belief that the acquisition of a set of techniques, typically associated with an
established method, is a prerequisite for effective teaching. As Richards and Rodgers (2014:
349) argue, methods ‘solve many of the problems beginning teachers have to struggle with
because many of the basic decisions about what to teach and how to teach it have already been
made for them’. Hence, ‘methods are probably necessary’ (ibid.) even if they are subsequently
adapted or even abandoned.
Equally importantly, methods tend to be instantiated in the materials teachers use, especially
their coursebooks. Whether overtly or covertly, coursebooks subscribe to a configuration of
pedagogical options derived from a particular methodological orientation, such as the exclu-
sive use of the target language or a deductive approach to grammar teaching. For example,
Nitta and Gardner (2005), in an analysis of nine current coursebooks, found that ‘each one is
based on a Presentation-Practice approach to grammar teaching’ (2005: 3). On the other hand,
Anderson (2020), argues that current coursebook design favours a text-analysis-task-explo-
ration (TATE) sequence, whereby the linguistic syllabus is typically mediated through whole
texts rather than isolated sentences. The extent to which teachers align their classroom practice
with such models – and with the principles that underpin them – is of course an empirical ques-
tion. Nevertheless, in many EFL contexts, as Akbari (2008: 647) argues, the textbook is the
method: ‘What the majority of teachers teach and how they teach . . . are now determined by
textbooks.’ This is perhaps unsurprising, given the global marketing of textbooks. As Kuma Kuma-
ravadivelu (2003: 255) reminds us, ‘because of the global spread of English, ELT has become
a global industry with high economic stakes, and textbook production has become one of the
engines that drives the industry’. And, arguably, one that drives and reproduces the method that
the textbook embodies.
In short, any discussion of methodology must take into account the notion of method and
the way that this notion is perpetuated in teacher education and in published materials. There is
not space here, however, to review the history of methods (but for comprehensive accounts, see
Howatt and Widdowson 2004 and Richards and Rodgers 2014). Suffice it to say that – whether
a method or a methodology – communicative language teaching (CLT) is generally considered
the current ‘orthodoxy’ and the ‘method’ to which most practicing teachers currently subscribe.
Credited with ‘replacing’ audiolingualism, itself a legacy of the direct method,

the proponents of CLT sought to move classroom teaching away from a largely structural
-
municative orientation that relied on a partial simulation of meaningful exchanges that
take place outside the classroom.
(Kumaravadivelu 2006: 61)

However, CLT may have been less revolutionary than initially conceived, and many of its
foundational attributes, such as a semantic syllabus or a task-based lesson design, were sub-
sequently weakened or even abandoned (see Thornbury 2016), such that Howatt (1987) was
to argue,

Most of the essential features of direct method and structural language teaching have
remained in place in CLT, largely unexamined and undisturbed, just as they have been for
a century or more. CLT has adopted all the major principles of 19th century reform: the
primacy of the spoken language, for instance, the inductive teaching of grammar, the belief
in connected texts, and, most significant of all, the monolingual (direct method) principle
that languages should be taught in the target language, not in the pupils’ mother tongue.
(1987: 25)
Nevertheless, ‘the general principles of CLT are still widely accepted in language teaching
today’ (Richards and Rodgers 2014: 81). Within Europe at least, there has been a notable
degree of harmonization in terms of how CLT has been integrated into mainstream language
education due largely to the Council of Europe, who have been instrumental in promoting
both a communicative methodology and a common, non-language-specific ‘framework’ for
description and assessment (see Council of Europe 2011). Arguably, however, CLT has made
less of an impact, or even zero impact, in educational cultures that value accuracy over fluency,
literary texts over authentic texts, and teacher-fronted pedagogies over more learner-centred
ones (Yu 2001; Bax 2003).

‘If an approach such as this [i.e. CLT] is used effectively . . . it may be the core of a true com-
municative revolution in teaching method,’ wrote Brumfit (1978: 44), one of CLT’s first advo-
cates, at the time. But for all its superficial novelty, CLT may not have been as revolutionary
as claimed: as McLelland (2017) observes,

The turn to communicative language teaching of the last half-century or so is not, as it is

sometimes portrayed, the first moment of enlightenment, emerging from the darkness of
grammar and translation. Rather, it is in some ways merely a return to how things were before.
(2017: 123–124)

This perspective reminds us that the history of methodology is less a history of individual
methods than the recycling of a relatively small set of ‘big ideas’: ‘Old approaches return, but
as their social and intellectual context are changed, they seem entirely new’ (Kelly 1969: 396).
In similar spirit, Pennycook (1989) writes,

While it is clear that language teaching has undergone many transformations over the
centuries, a thorough examination of the past suggests that these changes have represented
different configurations of the same basic options rather than some linear, additive prog
prog-
ress towards the present day, and that these changes are due principally to shifts in the
social, cultural, political, and philosophical climate.
(1989: 608)

What, then, are these ‘basic options’, and in what ways might they be differently configured?
According to Richards and Schmidt (2002), methods can be characterized in terms of how
they are positioned with regard to the following key issues:

a the nature of language

b the nature of second language learning
c goals and objectives in teaching
d the type of syllabus to use
e the role of teachers, learners, instructional materials
f the activities, techniques and procedures to use
(2002: 330)

These choices are configured differently for different methods (in the prescribed sense),
according to where each method positions itself in relation to a number of key parameters, or
dimensions. The notion of dimensions draws on the work of Stern (1983, 1992), who in turn
built on earlier work in the area of ‘method analysis’ (Mackey 1965). In proposing a more flexflex-
ible alternative to the ‘methods construct’, Stern identified three ‘central issues of language
learning’ (1983: 400), from each of which he derived a continuum of strategic and procedural
choices. These he labelled the intralingual-crosslingual dimension
dimension, the analytic-experiential
dimension, and the explicit-implicit dimension. Expanding on these options so as to be able to
map them on to the six domains identified by Richards and Schmidt (2002), and updating them
in the light of recent educational, theoretical, and even ideological developments, we find at
least ten dimensions to the concept of method (as traditionally conceived), which can be co-
opted as a purely descriptive rubric for characterizing an individual teacher’s or an institution’s
methodology:

The nature of language

• The formal-versus-functional dimension: ‘the methodology construes language as a struc-
tural system, internalised as formal operations or rules’ versus ‘the methodology construes
language as ‘meaning potential’, internalised as a system of semantic choices’

The nature of second language learning

• The analytic-versus-experiential dimension: ‘the methodology prioritises formal instruc-
tion and intentional learning’ versus ‘the methodology seeks to replicate naturalistic,
informal, experiential, or incidental learning processes’

Goals and objectives in teaching

• The product-versus-process dimension: ‘the methodology focuses on the teaching and
assessing of pre-specified linguistic goals’ versus ‘the methodology aims at developing
and assessing the learner’s capability for language learning and use’
• The accuracy-versus-fluency dimension: ‘the methodology aims at achieving formal
accuracy, particularly of grammar’ versus ‘the methodology aims at achieving communi-
cative fluency, particularly at the level of discourse’

The type of syllabus to use

• The systems-versus-skills dimension: ‘the syllabus is organized according to linguistic
criteria (e.g. grammar, phonology)’ versus ‘the syllabus foregrounds language skills or
competences’
• The segregated-versus-integrated dimension: ‘the target language is taught apart from
other subjects in the curriculum’ versus ‘the target language is integrated into other cur-
ricular content’

The role of teachers, learners, and instructional materials

• The cognitive-versus-affective dimension: ‘the methodology prioritizes mental effort
and cognitive processing’ versus ‘the methodology prioritizes affective and holistic
engagement’
• The transmissive-versus-dialogic dimension: ‘teaching is viewed as the transmission of
discrete units of knowledge’ versus ‘teaching is viewed as an interactive process in which
knowledge is collaboratively constructed’
The activities, techniques, and procedures to use
• The deductive-versus-inductive dimension: ‘the methodology favours the explicit presen-
tation of rules (e.g. of grammar)’ versus ‘the methodology expects or invites learners to
discover the rules for themselves’
• The crosslingual-versus-intralingual dimension: ‘the methodology acknowledges and
exploits the learner’s L1’ versus ‘the methodology rejects or discourages a role for the L1’

The first thing to note is that there is considerable correlation across these dimensions. For
example, a methodology – such as CLT – that adopts a functional view of language is likely
to articulate its goals in terms of communicative fluency. Likewise, an analytic approach to
language learning – such as grammar-translation – is likely to be realized in a transmissive
teaching style and the use of a crosslingual activities (i.e. translation). But as has been noted,
individual teachers will probably make their own choices as to where they position themselves
on each dimension, consistent with their teaching context (Bax 2003) and their own values and
beliefs and, crucially, their ‘sense of plausibility’ (Prabhu 1990).

At least three significant developments in methodology mark the period since this Hand-
book’s first edition, and each continues to stimulate new directions in research. The first of
these is what has been called ‘the multilingual turn’ (May 2014) and relates directly to the
crosslingual-versus-intralingual dimension mentioned in the previous section. Stern (1992)
himself noted,

This strategy pair has resulted from one of the most long-standing controversies in the
history of language pedagogy: the role of L1 in L2 teaching. . . . For many teachers, the
crosslingual strategy is no longer considered a point for discussion; in theory language
teaching today is entirely intralingual.
(1992: 279)

Stern went on to suggest that it may be time to reconsider this option. Writing over 20 years
later, May (2014) complains that not a lot has changed and that instructed second language
acquisition is still treated ‘as an ideally hermetic process uncontaminated by knowledge and
use of one’s other languages’ (May 2014: 2). This is reflected in methodology guides which
pay scant attention to crosslingual activities in the classroom. However, the tide may be turn-
ing. A search of the archives of ELT Journal from 2014 to 2021 shows 35 articles mentioning
the term translanguaging (‘the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic
features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maxi-
mise communicative potential’ [García 2009: 140]). This compares to only two mentions in
the seven years prior to 2014.
The second significant development has been in technology-assisted learning. Even before
the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 precipitated the entire world into ‘emergency remote teach-
ing’ (Hodges et al. 2020), language instruction in many contexts had already moved partly
or wholly online, in the form of ‘blended’, ‘hybrid, or ‘flipped’ models of curriculum design
(McCarthy 2016; see also Kern, this volume). An immediate research concern is the extent
to which classroom methodologies – such as task-based language teaching – can be adapted
to an online environment (see, for example, Chong and Reinders 2020), as well as how such
definitive communicative practices as fluency-focused pair and group work can be supported
using conferencing platforms like Zoom (see British Council 2021). In a timely study of
online teachers’ professional ‘vision’, Meskill et al. (2020: 121) found ‘a vibrant picture
of professionalism’, suggesting that online teaching need not be ‘second best’: respondents
reported ‘valuing authentic and multimodal affordances, opportunities for tailored instruc-
tion/feedback, and highly productive interactions with students, interactions otherwise not
feasible in live classrooms’ (ibid.). Nevertheless, some sceptics have argued that the commu-
nicative approach – already ‘weakened’ by a reversion to synthetic syllabuses and granular
learning outcomes – is further undermined when the contexts of language learning are disem-
bodied and deracinated.
It is recognition of this embodied and situated nature of language use – and, by extension,
language learning – that motivates a third significant development in both methodology and
research – what might be called the ecological turn. This has roots in the concept of ‘situated
learning’ (Lave and Wenger 1991): ‘In contrast with learning as internalisation, learning as
increasing participation in communities of practice concerns the whole person acting in the
world’ (1991: 49). From this perspective, classrooms are nested within institutions, and these
within communities and cultures: teaching is only fully effective and only fully understood
when these contextual factors are taken into account. As Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008)
insist, ‘we thus cannot separate the learner or the learning from context in order to measure
or explain it. Rather we must collect data about and describe all the continually changing
system(s) involved’ (2008: 238).
Consistent with this ecological turn, proponents of usage-based instruction advocate a
model of instruction that incorporates ‘learning in the wild’ experiences, in which classroom
learners prepare for real-life encounters and then participate in, record, and document these
encounters for subsequent debriefing back in the classroom (Wagner 2015; Lilja and Piirainen-
Marsh 2019). ‘The goal is to view classroom and non-classroom not as compartmentalized
contexts but as contiguous, porous spaces for L2 learning’ (Tyler and Ortega 2018: 13). This in
turn has impacted on the way research studies are conducted: Baynham and Simpson (2010),
for example, make the point that

classroom-based research . . . has tended to insulate the classroom itself from its surround-
ing context, defining its object by looking inwards at the routines, activities, and interac-
tions which constitute the classroom. Here we propose the need to situate the classroom
itself in social and in multilingual sociolinguistic space.
(2010: 425)

Attempts to compare and contrast methods (when the ‘method concept’ was still popular in the
latter part of the last century) triggered a number of research studies, the predominant focus
being on comparing communicatively oriented approaches with more ‘traditional’, primarily
audiolingual, ones. On the whole, most of these studies have been inconclusive, and ‘there is
no clear evidence, for example, that CLT is more effective than more traditional methods that
emphasize formal accuracy’ (Ellis and Shintani 2014: 49).
Comparative methods research lost traction in the latter decades of the 20th century, partly
because of disaffection with the method concept itself, but also because of the impossibility of
controlling all the variables at play in any one teaching situation.
 Moreover, as Waters (2012) notes,

because the world of classroom teaching is largely invisible, detecting patterns at this level
is difficult. Even when classroom observation is possible, it is likely that what is seen will
differ from what normally happens, due to the ‘observer effect’. Furthermore, there is the
issue of variability across the myriad situations in which EFL is taught around the globe.
(2012: 440)

In the same spirit, Ur (2013) highlights ‘the sense of dissonance between the method-based
approach that appears to predominate in the ELT theoretical literature on the one hand, and the situ-
ated methodologies that are implemented in many (probably most) places in practice’ (2013: 473).
Nevertheless, there are some scholars who would argue that comparative method analysis
is still of potential value, especially given the claims (based largely on theoretical grounds)
being made for task-based language teaching, in particular. As Ellis and Shintani (2014) argue,

as long as the method construct is alive – and there is no real sign of its demise – there is a
need to evaluate the claims made by different methods. What is needed is not the abandon-
ment of method studies but better designed studies.
(2014: 49)

Such studies would need to control for extraneous variables, avoid testing procedures that
might be biased towards a particular method, and, through classroom observation, ensure that
the methods under analysis are being consistently applied.
In place of method comparison research, there has been a revival of interest in the history –
or the historiography (Smith 2016) – of language teaching methods and their associated texts,
with the aim of using primary sources to problematize the ‘potted’ accounts of language teach-
ing methods, perpetuated on teacher training courses, and by ‘situating shifts in language
teaching theory and practice . . . within broader social, political, economic and cultural trans-
formations’ (Howatt and Smith 2014: 93).
The shift away from a preoccupation with (top-down) methods in favour of a concern for
(bottom-up) methodology has moved the focus of classroom research on to the moment-by-
moment interactions between teachers, learners, and materials, opening up new directions in
classroom research. Interaction analysis, discourse analysis, and conversation analysis are
three related methodologies that, in conjunction with classroom observation, have been used
as a means of obtaining objective and quantitative data as to what really goes on in classrooms.
In interaction analysis, researchers typically employ a checklist of categories in order to cap-
ture and code observable classroom behaviours, especially the interactions between teachers
and learners and between the learners themselves (see, for example, van Lier 1988). Discourse
analysts and conversation analysts share an interest in fine-grained analyses of classroom talk,
the former ascribing specific functions to different utterances (such as initiation, response,
and follow-up), and mapping these on to a hierarchically structured system of ‘ranks’. In an
extended study of classroom talk, Johnson (1995) uses an eclectic methodology to demonstrate
how ‘the patterns of classroom communication depend largely on how teachers use language
to control the structure and content of classroom events’ (1995: 145). Likewise, Walsh (2006),
using a ‘variable approach to investigating L2 classroom interaction’ (2006: 55), including
discourse analysis, identifies four ‘modes’ of classroom interaction, each with its distinctive
discourse features, which provides a framework for self-evaluation and teacher development.
More recently, classroom research – situated primarily within a conversation analysis (CA)
framework – has amplified the scope of classroom interaction to include not just verbal data
but gesture, gaze, and proxemics (Hall and Looney 2019); multimodality (Jacknick 2021);
movement (Jakonen 2020); and the affordances offered by the material ‘things’ in the teaching-
learning ecology (see, for example, Guerrettaz et al. 2021).
Working within either a cognitivist or a sociocultural paradigm, researchers have looked at the
way learners co-construct learning during the performance of tasks and at how teachers structure
and ‘scaffold’ teacher-learner talk in order to maximise learning opportunities (see Tsui, this vol
vol-
ume). Research into task-based language teaching has produced a number of experimental studies
aimed at identifying the effect of task design and implementation on such learning outcomes as
accuracy, fluency, and complexity: see Bryfonski and McKay (2018) for a review.
An ethnographic approach to classroom research ‘attempts to interpret behaviours from
the perspective of the participants’ different understandings rather than from the observer’s
or analyst’s supposedly ‘objective’ analysis’ (Chaudron 1988: 14–15). Rather than apply pre-
determined categories to the observation data, the researcher (who may also be a participant)
simply describes and draws connections between, classroom processes, ‘not as these processes
are depicted in methodology texts and position papers, but as they are experienced and under-
stood by language learners and teachers’ (Bailey and Nunan 1996: xi). One approach to ethno-
graphic classroom research that has gained momentum in the last decade is narrative inquiry
(Barkhuizen et al. 2013), whereby teachers’ stories provide rich data about the complexity of
classroom life. Two developments, both consistent with an ethnographic approach, are the use
of research models derived from an ecological perspective (van Lier 2004) and from com-
plexity theory (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008), both of which ‘regard the educational
context as a complex, messy system’ (2004: 204). Furthermore, in the belief that language
learning is fundamentally usage-driven (Tyler and Ortega 2018), usage-based approaches to
classroom research have adopted a variety of quantitative and qualitative approaches (such as
case studies, corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, and ethnomethodology) designed to
capture developmental processes and correlate these with previous or concurrent opportunities
for exposure and socially contingent interaction.
Ecological, dynamic systems theory and usage-based approaches situate language class-
rooms in their local contexts; critical approaches to classroom research (Pennycook 1994) do
the same, but foreground the view that ‘all knowledge production is also situated in a particular
social, cultural, and political context’ (1994: 693). As Auerbach (1995) observes, ‘once we
begin looking at classrooms through an ideological lens, dynamics of power and inequality
show up in every aspect of classroom life’ (1995: 12). Liddicoat (2009), for example, describes
how, when some learners challenge the heteronormative construction of their identities, they are
assumed to be linguistically at fault or are simply ignored. Chun (2019) uses an ethnographic
case study of an EAP classroom to track the way the teacher co-constructs alternative represen-
tations of Islam. And in a review article on race and language teaching, von Esch et al. (2020)
report research showing how language teaching practices and materials privilege Whiteness and
‘Anglonormativity’ at the expense of racially and ethnically minoritized learners.

For many scholars, language teaching methodology will never merit serious attention until it
aligns more closely with the results of research, and specifically research into second language
acquisition (SLA). Until such time as language teaching is ‘evidence-based’, it is argued, it will
constantly be at the mercy of folk theories and faddishness. As Long (2015) argues, ‘since SLA
is the process LT [language teaching] is designed to facilitate, the relationship between the two,
and understanding the effects and effectiveness of instruction, and constraints on instruction,
is of considerable interest’ (Long 2015: 29). But he adds that ‘the problem is, the relationship
between SLA and LT has not always been a positive one, such that SLA-based proposals will
not necessarily be welcomed with open arms’ (ibid.).
Why might this be the case? One reason is that, even when teachers are aware of the research
findings (which is not necessarily the case: see Borg 2009), they are not always convinced of
their relevance or generalizability. As Han (2007: 392) puts it, ‘researchers need to be ever
mindful that as much as their studies are generalisable, pedagogy is largely local’.
Nor does the lack of consensus among the researchers themselves inspire confidence: ‘We
are now in a situation where there is a plethora of SLA theories, all of which have some merit,
but which also in some respects offer fundamentally different accounts of L2 acquisition’ (Ellis
and Shintani 2014: 323). Even with regard to such basic considerations, such as whether or
not to adopt a crosslingual strategy or whether or not to teach grammar deductively, the jury is
still effectively out. Teachers’ guides, while providing teachers with accessible interpretations
of research findings, are necessarily selective and – like the training courses for which they are
often the core text – may well be skewed in the direction of a specific method (see Thornbury
2019).
In the end, the individual teacher’s ‘sense of plausibility’ (Prabhu 1990), and hence, their
classroom practices may be grounded as much in their experience and the resultant intuitions as
in what they might infer from research. As Johnson argues (1996), ‘what teachers know about
teaching is not simply an extended body of facts and theories but is instead largely experien
experien-
tial and socially constructed out of the experiences and classrooms from which teachers have
come’ (1996: 166–167).
Rather than dismissing such a view and further exacerbating the ‘dysfunctional discourse’
between researchers and practitioners (Clarke 1994), those whose job it is to train, advise, or
assess classroom teachers might wish to pay more attention to what teachers themselves have
to say about their teaching, in all its myriad complexity.

This brief survey of research into language teaching methodology demonstrates how much
more complex the situation is than a traditional ‘methods’ view of teaching might suggest.
Classrooms are indeed ‘complex, messy systems’ that resist neat classifications. Factoring in
the huge range of context variables – centre versus periphery, EFL versus ESL, child versus
adult, native-speaker teacher versus non-native-speaker teacher, public versus private sector
education, online versus face-to-face, integrated versus segregated curriculum, and so on –
produces a situation that would seem to defy any attempts to define a set of core principles
for language teaching. At the same time, walking into a language classroom in any part of
the world, the visitor will be struck by just how much is shared across all these different con-
texts. Testimony to this fact is that, more than ever, teachers from different contexts regularly
exchange experiences and beliefs about their teaching in online discussion groups or, directly,
at conferences. They are trained in the same or similar methods, use the same or similar text-
books, read the same or similar teachers’ guides, and use the same downloadable resources
from the Internet. They also encounter the same or similar constraints in their local teaching
contexts and work at overcoming them using similar strategies. Language teaching methodol-
ogy seeks to identify and describe these global commonalities while at the same explaining and
vindicating diversity at the local level.
language teacher education; technology and language learning; language learning and lan-
guage education; classroom discourse

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