RESEARCH PROBLEMS RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
14 The late 20
th
and early 21
st
centuries have remarked the advent of postmodern era. It is noticeable that postmodernism has influenced several variety
of disciplines, such as literature, architecture, journalism, marketing, law, and most importantly, education Fahim Pishghadam, 2009; Rajshree, 2012. In
fact, postmodernism emerged as a movement, intentional to oppose the modernist approaches that put authority, industrialization, and capitalism as the dominant
notions Rajshree, 2012. The modern civilization used to put the focus on the pursuit of a single objective truth and maximum efficiency under the control of
the powerful authority. On the other hand, the recent postmodern society believes in plural and relative truths that represent the multivocality of all human beings
even the powerless Breen, 1999, p. 49-50. Here, humanity values and individual diversity are the aspects the postmodern society has the highest respect for. This is
in line with Rajshree’s notion that postmodern education is an academic movement as a reaction to modernism in the humanities 2012, p. 1.
There are, in fact, general claims that postmodernism is a movement of anti-modernism or against modernism. However, instead of totally rejecting the
values of modernism, this study still embraces postmodern education as a one-step more advanced underlying philosophy toward human progress, which will enrich
as well as complement this study objectivity. Postmodern education has also influenced the world of language teaching,
with Kumaravadivelu 2003, 2006 as the leading pioneer who coined the term of “postmethod pedagogy”. For many centuries, language teaching was
predominated with the quest of for the best teaching methods as well as PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
15 techniques for widely varying audiences that would successfully teach foreign
language learners Fahim Pishghadam, 2009, p 37. The suggested teaching methods such as audio-lingual, silent way, and total-physical response were
popular between the 1950s to the 1980s, so that this period of time was called “the method era”, which marked the reign of modernism in language teaching, as they
were based on objectivity in the realm of science Fahim Pishghadam, 2009. Several characteristics represent the modern language education, as elaborated by
Fahim and Pishghadam 2009, p. 38 and Kumaravadivelu 2006. The modern language teaching focuses on finding the best method of teaching English, which
would help yield the best results of learning outcomes in a particular period of time. As those teaching methods are regarded to benefit all, they are manifested in
procedures, which are prescribed for all learners around the globe without taking into account
both learners’ and classroom context differences, as well as different teachers’ perception. The implementation of these teaching methods in the
classroom is teacher-centered, where students are regarded as knowledge receivers.
Fahim and Pishghadam 2009 report that postmodernism started to influence TESOL from the 1990s when for the first time the concept of method
was put into question. At the end of 80s, a number of TESOL practitioners objected this practice of modernist view on language education. Further, Fahim
and Pishghadam 2009, p. 38 mentioned at least six educational experts including Pennycook 1989, Long 1989, 2003, Prabhu 1990, Stern 1991, Richards
1990, 2003, and Kumaravadivelu 1994, 2003a put the method validity and PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI