Interviewer: Bal Ram Adhikari

Professor of English, Govinda Raj Bhattarai’s career straddles English language teaching and literary writing. He has contributed to the field of Nepalese ELT as an ELT practitioner, material producer, and teacher educator.  A former NELTA president, Bhattarai is also synonymous with postmodernism in Nepali literature.  His writing has ushered in the mode of Nepali creative writing, especially Nepalese criticism, essays and fiction, what we call the post-modern era in Nepali literature. He is appreciated and also criticized for the use of subjective perspective in criticism, fusion of facts into fiction in essays, and intertexuality in fiction writing. Here we are trying to explore the dynamic space between postmodern thoughts and ELT practice in Nepal– the areas Prof. Bhattarai has been long associated with.

1 Seven years ago you co-authored an article entitled English language teachers at the crossroads highlighting the possibilities and challenges Nepalese ELT practitioners had ahead. Could you elaborate on your use of English teachers being at the crossroads from the postmodern perspective of the paradigm shift in theory and practice that we have been experiencing in all academic fields?

Bal Ram, as I am representing my nation, that is, a unique   existence made up of a particular history and geography and politics, I am aware of this time and space that is giving voice to my observation into the quantification of a very vague, say abstract, phenomenon. This phenomenon is philosophy, because your question is ultimately related to philosophy.  Therefore, I must ask your permission to allow me to use some extra bites (of space) for my words so that I can make ‘our’ position clear. Extra space because your question demands such an answer as reads like an intertext or transtext that is like a text made up of various texts, and yet no text is written there. This may demand some elaboration naturally.

In pragmatics or discourse analysis, even socio-political beliefs like one’s religion, education, social relations, or any activity one partakes every day are taken as a text. Every moment one lives contributes to a larger text.  That text draws its meaning from innumerable disciplines and natural facts. In fact the world since time immemorial has been governed by one philosophy or the other — of politics, art, literature, culture, science, religion.  In totality, say of LIFE.

Philosophy is like a package program that we require to live this life as a person or a society.  Every such philosophy is supplied by a particular TIME and SPACE.  Every linguistic, cultural or religious group,   a race or nation or any territory cultivates its own philosophy over a period of time that governs the life-cycle of the people. That package has everything for the followers’ education, their literary principles, marriage systems or death rites, interpretation of dream, role of a mother or use of painting for that matter. Sets of philosophy keep changing from time to time.   Sometimes if the ‘consumer’ communities or nations grow weaker, they are forced to ‘buy’ some new sets like modern (or foreign) goods from alien lands. And gradually, people are forced to relinquish their native or indigenous philosophy and adopt or gradually nativize the alien one (s).   A community cannot survive without a philosophy or a set of belief system. Something should occupy its mind all the time.

The Oriental world and our ancestors had their own set of philosophy. It was quite rich, almost incomparable to any in the world, but the outside world (especially the West) encouraged us to humiliate our own mother, and we were forced to adopt a new mother. It was colonization of not only land, but also of our mind and thought, and attitude towards life. This kept destroying us and different parts of the world for more than three hundred years. We were destined to be free, ultimately, but were left dented and semi-paralyzed with a master slave ‘dichotomy’ and a psychosis of ‘we can’t do, we do not deserve, we are inferior’, and worst of all, ‘we don’t have’. Their so called enlightenment rescue project had half destroyed us. Frantz Fanon, in his The Wretched of the Earth (1963 trans.)  has rightly said: Colonization is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it.

Yes, we were perverted in this, as our native philosophy was disfigured gradually by them. And we didn’t know. Our geography was not colonized  but our minds were. Even today, we have no regrets, and feel content to witness an avalanche of irreparable loss eroding us every moment, because we are brainwashed to accept all defeats with a smile. This was the first wave of all driving us away from our own ‘civilization’. This is teaching us every moment to be like them and not us. How ridiculous!

Now I would like to touch upon the second wave in passing that tried to obliterate what was left after the first calamity. The second wave was the philosophy based on sheer materialism that was represented by Marxism. Slogans for equality and material development brought the second wave of whirlwind easily. At that moment man lost his faculty of reasoning temporarily; as a result that swept away much that was left of what human beings possessed as precious values.

The second wave also believed in colonizing crowds of mass   within their own ideological cages, and kept them warring militantly against great nothingness, devastating people in an unprecedented scale. They obliterated a permanent world (of native and indigenous philosophies) with a utopian haven of false assurances. We have seen millions of brothers and sisters being divided into classes, and prepared for unending clashes; gone for this and left in ruins and ravages. This philosophy proved a successful destroyer of native brands of philosophical packages. These are the greatest enslaving campaigns human beings underwent until the dawn of the 21^st century. These two together clouded some centuries of human history. Both these waves were great homogenizing forces.

Have we ever stopped and thought of these forces? These factors deeply disturbed the human mind, especially in our part of the world.    It may take centuries to heal the scar and to repair the moral, or say spiritual, degradation.

We were the great architects of our own education, in fact we had crafted a draft for world education, but since the lock to its entrance was broken with the western key, we have become oblivious of the treasure rooms. Since then we became great followers of the western world.

As we are bereft of everything, we feel so; we possess this sort of inferiority because we do not look at our own faces, so we are following them.  Our gullibility sells at a high price, so we are used to mimicking everything.  Greek philosopher Epictetus had proclaimed: Only the educated can be free, but today we can see in our contexts the reverse seems to be the reality. I can hardly see any trace of our education system based on our values or philosophy of education.

Let me relate this to your concern of a paradigm shift. Modernism was a kind of hegemony that had its roots in the west, and was nurtured by materialism because modern science fed it, though not as sheer as that in Marxism.  In fact the west governed the world of thought, and so of philosophy and art, for about a hundred years, ending in the Second World War in the west. All our activities from writing to teaching were molded accordingly. Colonization transported them very easily. However, history shows that modernism freed the world from the ignorance and brutality of the dictatorial past, but then people wanted more options, newness and greater degrees of freedom.  In apt words, they wanted to keep progress of the world going like new inventions that can never be stopped.

It was during 1970s that this desire for progress led man to postmodern convictions. Postmodernism encouraged man to stand boldly for his freedom, and to possess an ever questioning mind to find the truth for him. Let him explore his own personal truths, let him protect his local truths and let him stand for his national truths as well and defend his beliefs. It is therefore that new disciplines like ethnic studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, diasporic studies etc are emerging today. Truth is the ultimate means to happiness and one can gain a new truth by doubting his present condition, his status, or all accepted beliefs and facts. Stuart Sim (2012) regards postmodernism as a rejection of many, if not most, of the cultural certainties on which life in the West has been structured over the past couple of centuries. He regards the Enlightenment as a western project to oppress humankind, and to force it into certain set ways of thought and action not always in its best interests. Postmodernists are invariably critical of universalizing theories as well as being anti-authoritarian in their outlook. To move from the modern to the Postmodern is to embrace skepticism about what our culture stands for and strives for.

At the same time I feel postmodernism is both a liberating as well as, and no less than, a homogenizing force. Contradictorily, it promotes ‘individual’ existence but is yoked to technology in such a way that the latter has been the tool for the promotion of the former. Therefore, postmodern features we experience are characterized by a ubiquitous phenomenon; moreover instead of being a liberating agent, it is in fact an all-homogenizing force.  A sheer hegemony, and another kind of all encompassing techno-driven colony. Postmodern premises defeated one grand narrative of dictatorship and colonialism, and at the same time this cultivated a newer variety (of colonialism) with the help of technology known as postmodern condition in Lyotard’s words. A bigger grand narrative can be seen.  Despite this, the only hope this promises us is local freedoms in different scales, though we cannot breathe without technology and we cannot revive the local power we lost. Let’s move ahead with boons and curses both on our heavy shoulders.  This is our present predicament and sits on our shoulder like a boulder on Sisyphus’ head.

For me postmodernism is nothing more than a search for freedom, freedom from all sorts of bondage, and a deep search for alternatives to the existing values and principles. It is a quest for remaking, resetting, rethinking, revisiting, reinventing– everything that matches the pace of time. It also indicates a faster pace of human progress (or decline) in a completely techno driven world.

Postmodern is a philosophy of options and alternatives, it calls for a break with the structure bound, center seeking modernism. This has had a deep influence all over the world and global forces spread it very fast. We can see traces of this in Indian literature and critical works produced as early as 1970s. Nepal was attracted much later.

I introduced the term Deconstruction as vinirmaan into Nepali for the first time in 1991. (Please refer to Kavyik Aandolanko Parichaya; Introduction to Poetic Movements published by Royal Nepal Academy).  In a span of twenty years now, we have traversed a long route and are near the centre of Nepalese philosophy of postmodernism, which stands first of all for freedom from the fear of dictatorship, because this philosophy empowers the modern man to be free. This may mean differently for the rest of the world.

Against this historical and theoretical backdrop, let me come back to your concern of ELT. Yes, this idea dawned upon me when I became aware of enormous changes being introduced in critical theories of Indian academia. I was also aware of the western publications where the new paradigm had permeated all the fields of academic and scholarly activities. New paradigm had been a buzz word, and they indicated postmodernism as a great change agent. Subsequently I had begun to see new horizons in the Nepalese contexts as well. Gangaram-ji was also aware of this so we drafted that idea and published an article titled English language teachers at the crossroads in 2005 issue of the Journal of NELTA.  However, our ideas were crudely shaped. We were a bit skeptical.

The following year, I had an opportunity to attend the 40th TESOL conference held in Tampa, Florida. It was 2006, I had participated for the first time in such a huge (truly international) conference of ELT professionals. I had never imagined that the President of NELTA would be a non-entity among some 8,000 participants (all leading figures, each leading a world of innovative ideas with the support of technology and paradigm shift). The participants represented different corners of the world.  In fact I was at a loss to see such an immense teaching ‘industry’ that had grown so vast and so fast without ‘our’ notice. It struck me not because the number was large, but because I saw Nepal’s ELT could be plotted nowhere till then. It was disseminating all traditional values based on structuralism.

By writing that article, I wanted ‘my’ language teachers to be aware of the changing world scenario, to be aware of a great paradigm shift experienced in the field of our profession, that is, language teaching. I  use the word ‘my’ as a President of NELTA because my duty was to address all the ELT professionals in the country, to tell them what changes are taking place in the philosophy of teaching and learning, so that they can cope up with the changing situation. In fact, each and every action of life is geared according to some philosophy.

Yes, my intention was to remind them of the ‘postmodern’ turn, or to tell them how things (beliefs and philosophies) have changed in the world and how these have changed our world, that is, language teaching. We spoke out clearly — philosophy of thought and perspectives have changed, teaching methods and learning techniques have changed, teaching materials have changed, we are facing a world governed by drastic changes. If we are not aware of this, our traditional, rule-governed ‘structural’ methods will surely fail us and leave us in a blind alley.

I could tell them the breaking paradigm shifts proudly because I  felt almost ‘desperate’ to see a different world of ELT professionals– the language teachers, materials producers, publishers and technology   at TESOL conference in Tampa .

A fast developing electronic culture is introducing miracles every day.  Words have now got wings, and voices can fly and visually the world is omnipresent– I saw great magical works being performed there.

I had used the word postmodern in Nepali, referring to its critical zones. But I was wary of using this in teaching industry, so we in passing mentioned the word ‘postmodern’ categorically.  Now it has become a buzzword in our academic world, this has been introduced in the syllabus and textbooks as well in research– though this has led to much frustration and confrontations. The use of postmodern may still sound an avant-garde’s effort before a dogmatic noun? However, no other word can capture the aggressive time that was (and is) molding our life at an unprecedented scale.

It has been more than two decades now that I have been using the term specifically to characterize some of our literary efforts in Nepal. But gradually, I began to feel that there is no field of knowledge or life untouched by a kind of newness. People have begun to feel the expansion of global force and its encroachment into their private world. The giant is all encompassing, and so modern life becomes impossible to survive without succumbing to it. Is it our defeat if the global world flattens us into one? There is no answer in this flat earth, in the words of Thomas Friedman in his The World is Flat (2002).

2. Postmodern thought is taken as the continuous process of suspecting, revisiting and redefining our beliefs in the nature of truth and of knowing, and the nature of reality. What can be the implication of this epistemological and ontological process of thought for teaching in general and English language teaching in particular?

You are right.  In answer to question 1 above, I have made it clear that postmodernism claimed a great shift in total philosophical standpoint.  Like any other philosophies that provided a departure from existing practices, this also brought all encompassing effects.  There is no field of knowledge or skill, the foundation of which is unaffected by this paradigm shift.

In the beginning I concentrated on the principles of writing and criticism, mostly in Nepali literature. A whole decade of my writing was confined to the introduction to and practice of postmodern criticism.  Gradually my duty expanded and my attention drew towards its total effects.  I presented    for the first time a paper entitled Postmodernism in Education in 2008. It was in Sukuna Multiple Campus of Morang. Never before had I faced such a vehement criticism in my academic career.  Some fundamentalist teachers attacked me severely and the dogmatic critics who were backed by dogmatic political beliefs were against my proposal. My points were: doubt your beliefs and works, stop and question your practices, may be you were wrong so far, may be you can discover new unexplored areas which can open up new vistas in teaching.  Philosophies keep changing and so do teaching principles. You put a question: Is my method of teaching appropriate? Are we following appropriate curriculum, or do we need to stop and rethink over it?  All our socio-political values and norms have changed; they are changing so fast, so should not our system of education follow such changes endlessly?

There is no fixed set of values and truths or our perspectives.  In my childhood days the philosophy of education was guided by a maxim (in Sanskrit). It read:

laalayet  bahabo doshaa  taadayet bahabo gunaa

tasmaat putram cha shisyam cha  laalayennatu taadayet

I learned this by rote (it was in our textbook) in grade VIII, so whenever the teacher punished us physically, I thought this is the way how teaching was prescribed in the shastras. This verse literally means: there are many defects in caressing or loving, and many benefits of beating,   therefore, every son as well as a disciple (student) should be beaten.

This philosophy remained our norm for more than three thousand years. At the dawn of the twenty first century, we are shocked to find that this moral principle excludes girl children from education, and moreover this advocates beating the boys severely. But we have realized that this principle was totally wrong, and so female education is given higher propriety. Moreover, teachers and parents are warned against child abuse, which includes beating or corporal punishment or any kind of harassment– mental or physical.  Now our educators are changed and the persons to be educated are changed, so the contents of education, methods and materials of teaching are changing in such a way that we cannot believe what the world is doing today.

We can hear the slogans for girl education, women education, inclusive education, education for the deprived like blind and deaf or prisoners and criminals.  We are correcting our mistakes of yesterday all the time, at every step of life. Our philosophies are temporary, always at a state of flux, keep changing continually.  This is only an instance.

I kept convincing people of the paradigm shift, and gradually I got more support from them, especially from Prof B N Koirala of the M Phil program supported my cause. With his support, I delivered some lectures there, likewise some guest lectures were arranged annually at KU too. In the meanwhile,   an article appeared in Shikshya Journal of Secondary Education board.  My campaign invited me to a country wide tour; I visited from Ilam to Surkhet, Jhapa to Mahendranagar. Postmodernism visited with me in the form of literary principles and writing, of thinking and teaching, and many more. I presented papers, delivered speeches; attended discussion sessions, and the new generation now became quite aware of the nature of the new truth. I wrote not less than 500 pages in a matter of a decade. Consequently, everybody started to realize that the time has changed, our values and beliefs have changed, and the very foundation of existing philosophy is shedding its old leaves.

This foundation of philosophy is called epistemology.  I need not define this concept any further. But then, since we teachers are supposed to earn our living by trading in or dealing with principles of education or teaching we need to know the very meaning of epistemology. It is no more than what we are doing, which education we are imparting, what kind of truth it contains, which truth we consider final, what its foundation is, and the question of whether the foundation is strong or shaking, or has already been demolished in other parts of the world.  This is not specific to teachers only, what happens if a farmer does not know about the new breed of animals or seeds and manures and continues with old practice? He will spoil everything and ruin himself. So we traders of truth should also be aware of the new brands of education on sale in the world market.

As a result of untiring efforts of years, our academicians saw the worth of this element and they allocated some teaching hours to the M Ed Education course.  Likewise, postmodernism has crept into almost all Masters’ level courses. In a matter of a decade we can see a different picture today. Education stands for a whole cycle of processes– from the production of learning materials to their delivery mechanism and the evaluation of outcomes. In each stage we are (and must be) just provisional, tentative, keep our decisions at a state of flux so that we remain open to anything new. This is how knowledge and education widens and broadens.

Postmodern perspectives will help our teachers realize that nothing is final, not even the best principle in practices. No truth is final, no belief and practice.   We must keep on looking for new possibilities. And technology has expedited this in an unprecedented scale.  It is like applying Derrida’s principle of gaps and absences. If you doubt you can find a new truth hidden, unexplored in the gap.  Truth comes from absences. And a final thing is never achieved, we are chasing a mirage because our physiological world also keeps changing, the pace of techno-culture has brought changes at a tremendous speed in our belief system, value system.  It is here that we also apply another postmodern term differance that Derrida coined, which stands for the perpetual difference in meaning, and the nature of truth and reality.  You try to grasp and it evades. This very principle applies to education too.

The second point is ontology, a branch of philosophy that discusses how truth is tasted, or what is it that exists? This also leads to the question of ‘existence’ or ‘being’ and its classification. This forms the content of knowledge.  This allows us insights into the nature of objects and existence and ways of measuring the same. We need to know this because we need to define air, water, mass, solid, feeling, anger, and sleep, or anything that we are supposed to teach.

Our experiences related to ontology are not final either. Therefore, knowledge system is not decisive, and we need to believe in the fast changing nature of everything including philosophy. And this applies to education. The pace of change was quite slow in the past, now it has become tremendously fast.

The whole of education system is manifested physically in curriculum, textbook, evaluation cycles, yet its soul is the content, what we teach.  We need to leave our whole education system open ended, and in a state of flux. ‘Open ended’ will be a better word so that you can add or delete or modify the particles of truth with the change in our belief.         As a result, some outdated beliefs will be deconstructed and replaced with new ones, the way a cycle of gradual decay and regeneration is unendingly active in nature. So, education system as a whole should be like belief system in eastern epistemology of revolving in chakra, that is, the cycle.

In the absence of doubting mind and skepticism, education will be devoid of creativity, innovation and regeneration. ELT is not an exception.  Every thing comes under these philosophical premises. Actual students, their teachers and those who confine themselves to the functional or performance level may not perceive its underlying level. This calls for the critical and reflective eyes to see the undercurrent.

When we come to a deeper level of philosophy, we come face to face with a problem that forces us to think about what we are doing, and to question whose philosophy is guiding us. Not only ELT, the whole of education system is based on western epistemology, or ontology for that matter, ours is completely different and fully ignored. I regret this state (of our epistemology and ontology) being ignored. The whole of our education world is misfounded on ‘their’ system or pattern.

Whatever may that be, the performance level cannot notice this. A core, national body of educationists should oversee and take diversions and decisions, which is not easy either. We don’t have a separate philosophy for language teachers. But then, I made it clear before, the postmodern turn has a deep influence over our total system of thought and function. Now the world should accept the existence of margins. Which means there is no ‘only one’ English, there are multiple varieties, each seeking their identity and recognition. Secondly, we no longer stick to a prescriptive viewpoint and accept or reject a piece of text accordingly.

Nepal is also producing its own variety which may be colored by its sound, vocabulary system, and sentence structure. Every native variety is sure to be colored by it language and color. So we must be liberal   towards this to some extent, this will be ratified by the principle of multiple centers, or decentering of a grand narrative– that we cannot produce perfect English. We are spending more than 30 percent of our budget allocated to English education. What is the use of this if we fail to reap the harvest of our investment? Innumerable factors are sure to make our variety a different one. So we speak English the way we do, read it the way we do, and write the way we can. This does not mean that we will be happy with its creolization or pidginization. My point is, let us not worry too much, let us not feel humiliated and debase ourselves.  We do learn it for functional values, which stands for communication needs of different types. Writing represents the core of Nepali variety. We should not hesitate to welcome creative writings in different genres.  We have produced a quite substantial number of books in both literary and technical English. Creative writing should be regarded as a variety of Nepalese literature. Ours has been excluded so far. And we cannot wait until we produce the English of British or American or even Australian variety. Among world varieties, Nepali will be one, though each of sub-centers will have one epicenter that will regulate our English to a large extent, not to a full extent, however. I have explained to you why we think so. We have planted this tree, and it has started bearing fruit which will help us grow globally.

I welcome firstly all translators of Nepal to come boldly ahead and play a more vibrant role in the enhancement of knowledge industry; I suggest them to use untranslatable native terms and concepts instead of losing our sense or choosing a circumlocutory path. Let the world know we do a namaste and not good morning.

I welcome secondly all writers from the Nepali Diasporas to use untranslatable Nepali terms as they are in their English texts. Don’t try to make your texts read as if they were written by a perfect British or American writer. This applies to all creative writers using English as a medium and writing about Nepal, wherever they are.

Dr  Shyam Sharma
Stony Brook University, New York

Choutari is now in the hands of a brilliant new group of NELTA scholars, and I am excited about that. The old and new teams who are working hard to make this conversation under the shade of this forum even better went through a somewhat difficult time during the month of January—it’s a story that may be worth someday, perhaps years from now, and it’s a good one—but we had a wonderful opportunity to further realize the tremendous value of promoting professional conversation in this great community. With the talent and enthusiasm of the new team, I am sure that we are going to see in the years to come great strides in the work of welcoming, encouraging, urging, prodding us to give back in the form of ideas and inspiration to our society. This work is extremely important to us as educators in a struggling nation right now and it will be, for different reasons, for generations to come.

Among the reasons we started this blog, we wanted to make our professional conversations serve as useful resource. We wanted to make our conversations open and more far reaching in space and time. And that’s what I want to write about in this reflection today.

Since I promised the editor of this month, my friend Bal Ram Adhikari, that and entry for the issue, I’ve been trying to write about something that has kept me professionally “awake” so to say since I started teaching in a primary school in Butwal, continued to ask when I taught for the next six years at the school level, and also continued to ask when I started teaching at TU and when I decided to switch from English to Writing Studies. And that something is a whole range of questions, which used to often discourage me while I taught at home: Why am I teaching what I am teaching? Does teaching grammar help students learn language? Why are we asking students to speak in English only? The teaching of literature seems to contribute to their personal development quite a bit, but how far does it contribute to their social and professional lives and the society at large? Why do we do little more than giving lecture in the name of “covering” the content of the course and helping students prepare for the exam—and what if there are better ways to achieve these goals and also make education more worthwhile? What do we mean by “English education”? When we started Choutari, I was happy because I was now able to ask questions like these within a meaningful professional conversation among hundreds of other scholars and teachers who may have similar questions, different perspectives, and better answers. In this post, I want to build on a recent conversation that took place (and at this time is still ongoing) inside the Yahoo mailing list that many of us are subscribed to. I responded briefly there, as it fit the medium, and I want to delve the issue further here, from broader educational, professional, and social perspectives. I request you to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

A fellow NELTA member, Umesh Shrestha, asked in the mailing list recently whether we should require/encourage our students and ourselves to communicate in English beyond the classroom and school. This was a very thought-provoking question (and among other colleagues, Suman Laudari has responded with some great ideas on the list). Let me get into the relaxing mood of Choutari and share some thoughts—for the beauty and fresh air of early spring is returning to the hillsides and I am truly excited by the arrival of a whole group of gaunles under the shady tree.

The question of whether we, even teachers of English, should speak English everywhere, as well as ask our students to do the same is an old one. And I happen to have strong views not only about whether even our students (forget about us) must be made to speak English at all times in school (if not beyond it!) but also about whether we should use English as a medium of instruction and for what purposes, if at all.

Let me take a step back and ask a more basic question: “Why” is it that English is the increasingly dominant, increasingly popular, increasingly unquestioned medium of instruction in Nepal? Is there a straightforward “ELT” answer to this question? Does the use of English as “the” medium of instruction raise the standard of our education overall? Does it make classroom teaching and classroom learning more effective?

First, if the answer to questions like the above is more of a “no” than “yes,” then should we make it our professional lives’ priority to make the answer “yes”? Or, should we instead pause and think why the answer is “no”? That is, if using English rather than Nepali and/or other languages of instruction—at least in certain subjects, grade levels, regions, etc—does not have an “ELT” answer (which I presume it doesn’t), then why are we insisting that “English Only” must be the medium of instruction? If imposing English as the only medium of instruction does not raise the standard of our students’ education, then how have we come to embrace the delusion (sorry, but that’s what I think it largely is) that English “is” education (as in the phrase “English education”)? Is there, in the world of reality, such a thing as English education– or have we just created a feel good phrase to describe “English language education/learning” by dropping the key word in the middle?

To stay on the yes/no questions I asked above, no, there is absolutely no doubt that IF requiring only English as the medium of instruction, communication, and just plain being in school had ZERO SIDE EFFECTS, then the benefits are so many, so significant, so long term, so attractive… that we wouldn’t need to have this conversation. I’m not joking about this, but IF our students were to come out of high school speaking fluent English while ALSO writing effectively (whether that’s in English or not, please note), demonstrating critical thinking skills at par with their peers in other nations, being able to pursue and generate new ideas on their own, excelling in math and science and technology, etc, and IF the “medium” of English was a significant reason for the students’ elevated standards in all the above areas, then YES we would not have this conversation either. But that’s not the case. We know for fact—and we have been in denial for a few decades now—that the English medium that we have imposed in the name of improving the “quality” of education VISIBLY affects the effectiveness of just too many teachers’ teaching, thereby their students’ learning, the learning of math and science and social studies and economics and environmental studies and agriculture and you name it. The English medium is only justified for teaching the English language—although I have a hard time understanding why we teach it for 12-16 years and still don’t have students use the language at the proficiency level of my Christian missionary friend who has been in Nepal for eleven months—and it is in this context that we as English teachers should be having the curricular, pedagogical, and educational discussions. But where do we, English teachers, get this idea that we are entitled to tell our colleagues teaching social studies and math and physics and chemistry and their students who are solving algebra problems or playing khopi or eating samosa in the canteen that they must use English because— oh, wait, I forgot what I was about to say! English, you know, English, and like English education. Like globalized world.Opportunities.The internet. Facebook…. I can’t think anymore. Let me tell you a story.

I have a Chinese student in my “intermediate college writing” class (in the State University of New York) named Bao). During the first class meeting in a one-month long intensive writing workshop, while I was describing one of the assignments, a “rhetorical analysis” of a text that students chose, Bao raised his hand, with his face looking like he was terrified of something, “Professor, I don’t have the ‘professionalism’ to criticize the author’s writing style….” Bao’s English language “speaking” proficiency was so low that I couldn’t help thinking how many of the international students (15 out of 20, from 6 different countries, with different lengths of exposure to “native” English speaking communities) are going to pass. But Bao’s case was special: he not only struggled to express himself, as a student who had just come from a sociocultural background that doesn’t value “challenging” or even “analyzing” the ideas and expressions of established writers and scholars, he was saying that he neither could nor would like to “criticize” how a scholarly article was written. I gave a short answer and invited Bao to my office for further discussion. The first discussion started with Bao “confusing” his language proficiency with the lack of “knowledge” about what “rhetorical analysis” means, so I gave him a text (an excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech), a sample rhetorical analysis he and I found online, and a long list of questions that broke down the assignment and served as supplement to the assignment for the class. Long story short, the rhetorical analysis that Bao wrote within the first week of class (before the class moved to another project) was in many ways better than the writing of most other students in class, including the native English speaking students (some of whom, by the way, implemented what they had already learned in high school and turned in their papers, and their papers showed little new learning).

So, it was not the “medium” but the “powerful ideas and the ways that they were so powerfully expressed” that Bao was able to recognize and describe and assess in the text—things that he was not only already somewhat capable of doing but also capable of learning much faster—than learning new expressions and syntaxes, which it seemed could on catch up rather slowly—as he imitated and echoed and adapted and ventriloquized sentence structures and phrases and worlds from the samples that he gathered from all kinds of sources—it was the ideas and how they were expressed that became the basis of Bao’s incredible one-week long learning journey. When I read Bao’s final draft, I was amazed. I questioned many of the conventional teaching wisdom that only rare situations like this can so powerfully blow up in the air, making me rethink my teaching once again.

Reading the question about how great it might be if we too were speaking English all the time, I was almost depressed to think about the state of our education—I mean about the learning part, the part where the nature and content of education matters, the part where our students are being prepared (or not) to become intellectually and professional capable of navigating (and indeed competing in) the complex, connected, global world that they live in and need to be even better prepared for.

Let’s think about the larger question of education, not just English language, for the larger purpose of teaching English is—or should be—that large framework within which what we do, the questions we ask, and the answers we seek, must make sense.

And to connect that to what I was saying about the importance of joining and promoting such conversations like this in Choutaris like this, I have the same old, humble request for you. Dear colleagues, after you read a post, or two, maybe all, please do not forget to add a line, or two, or many lines, sharing your idea, experience, feedback… as encouragement to the writers and good example for other readers.

Renuka Dhakal, KU

renudhakal@gmail.com

 Celce- Murcia and Hilles (1988) define language as “a type of rule-governed behavior and it is a subset of those rules which govern the configuration that the morphology and syntax of a language assume”. It is obvious that grammar is the clusters of rules which govern and which shape the language. It is well known to all that grammar is one element that gives a shape to language. In this article, I am reflecting on the strategies that I used while learning grammar in school and current pedagogical practice I adopt as an EFL teacher. It expresses my understanding of grammar teaching and learning from my school days to the present professional life as a teacher and a university student.

Teaching grammar communicatively in the EFL setting like ours is an interesting topic. I would like to reflect on it as it is associated with my academic and professional endeavor.  Learning grammar struck me from my school days. In school I couldn’t perform well in grammar in Nepali and English both. I, therefore, would hesitate to speak and write in English. Even after so many years when I as a teacher look at my students’ performance there has been little improvement in this area.

In school grammar teaching was based on rote learning: drilling and memorization. My teacher taught us grammar through the use of the deductive method. He would write a set of rules on the blackboard and we were expected to memorize all patterns at all cost. Let’s imagine how horrible it might have been! Despite being able to produce almost all grammatical rules, I was unable to produce sentences. When I compare the way we were taught with the way we are trained to teach these days, I feel that this practice of imitation, repetition and memorization has become outdated, especially in this globalized context where learning English for communication has got the top priority .

It is still fresh in my memory how puzzled and confused I was when I could not produce meaningful sentences out of the practiced structures. My teacher once asked all the students to make sentences using the present perfect tense.  I came up with a sentence like, “I have writing a letter”. It was one of the common mistakes other friends also made. Later I realized that students pick up the progressive form more quickly than the perfect form. The errors like this can also be attributed to the lack of adequate exposure, and practice and production opportunities.

The question can be raised, “Why students often have the habit of using the progressive form where the perfect is required?”  As my understanding says, the progressive form is easier to make since it implies +-ing and more flexible than the perfect form. The perfect tense involves more complex grammatical operation. I think our teaching should be informed by the most commonly committed errors like this.  Only correcting them on the surface level without reaching the root cause fails to yield any fruitful result.

I am teaching English to lower secondary students.  I have been facing the same problems on the part of my students too. Recently I spent 10 days to teach the different forms of tense and its use in sentences. I found that my students were making the errors similar to those I would make in school. They could produce correct structures but when it came to their use in speaking and writing, their sentences were replete with errors. The insights that I have got from this is that the problem lies in our traditional concept of teaching grammar, that is, teaching grammar means to have students learn the rules rather than use them in their speech and writing. If we use the same methods, problems are never solved. Teachers and students both should realize the fact that grammar is more than a set of formal rules. It is inseparable from meaning, function and context.

No doubt, there are different ways of teaching and learning grammar. Among them the communicative way can be the best one. Therefore, these days my main concern is how the communicative method can be best employed to teach and learn grammar. I find the similar concern in Master and Liu (2003) who conclude that the need to teach grammar has not really been a question for most teacher educators, how to teach grammar has been a great challenge due to the complexities of the subject matter and the difficulties in approaching it. As an English language teacher, I also feel that grammar teaching is a daunting task because I was taught grammar through traditional way but I have been studying that it should be taught through the approaches such as Communicative Approach and Task Based Approach.

In the EFL setting like ours, grammar should be taught for and through communication. As a result, learners can develop all components of communicative competence in a balanced way.   Grammar teaching should value the role of games, songs, stories and dialogs,  realia, problem-solving activities, and communicative techniques such as role-play, simulation, and strip stories and so on. While doing so, such resources and techniques provide learners with opportunities to integrate grammar with vocabulary and all language skills.

REFERENCES

Master, P. & Liu, D.(2003). Grammar teaching in teacher education.

Murcia. And Hills, S. (1988). Techniques and resources in teaching grammar. China: oxford university press.

                                                                                                                       Gopal Prasad Bashyal

As I reflect on the year 2012, it turned out to be a wonderful one. It was not a giant leap, though. I think I am self-consented with my ambitions, some fulfilled, and some waiting in the lobby or some others thrown into the dust bin. Perhaps everyone enjoys such diverse currents in their life. From the point of view of my professional growth, the year could record some historical foot prints, and also brought some bitter realities of life. It generally happens to all, I guess. Then, why am I going to share them with my respected Gurus and colleagues? Certainly, I do not have any magic thrills. Yet I want to share the moments I cherished in the year.

As a NELTA activist, I began the year with some preparation for the 17^th International Conference of NELTA. I planned to present a paper on “Autonomous Learning: Enabling Learners.” I am always worried about growing carelessness on the part of learners. They want some ready made junk food-type of knowledge, easy to prepare and tasty. Perhaps, guess paper writers and sellers are making their fortune in such an environment. I’m convinced with the idea that learners must take responsibility for their learning process. If they do that, they will enjoy learning more and that learning becomes more sustainable. Furthermore, if one produces something being fully engaged in it interactively, the product gives better taste. With these assumptions, I wanted to share some principles and ways of leading students towards being autonomous in their learning. The presentation was satisfactory, as the participants said. At the same time, Prof. Jai Raj Awasthi made the third volume of English Language Professionals, the journal of NELTA Palpa, public among the global ELT experts. The journal consists of different articles by local and national authors. Even the Master’s level students have started reading it for their examination and thesis writing. It is a great achievement of NELTA Palpa. Later, when General Secretary posted the Conference report, one of the photos showed me so well that it drew the attention of my five-year-old daughter. These days whenever I set out for Kathmandu she asks me if it is to NELTA.

The year 2012 brought me some other happy moments too. For example, I could present myself as a co-author of Optional English Series, grade 1 – 5 from a private publication. The series is especially for community schools, full of integrated activities. I applied for the Teaching Excellency and Achievement (TEA) program, a one-and-a-half-month course in the US, which is sponsored by the US Government. I got the information of being shortlisted for the interview when I was conducting training for teachers at Rampur RC. When I received a phone call from the US Embassy, all the teachers congratulated me and whished further success. Perhaps due to their good wishes I could answer well in the interview. There was a great storm outside that day. But the storm brought me happy news that I was selected for further competition. It was the TOIL test. Despite two Master’s degrees in English literature and education, I was much worried about the test. Mr Ganga Ram Gautam and Mr Hemanta Dahal were encouraging me to do well. I stepped at the doors of Dillibazaar and Putalisadak, Kathmandu to find the place for verbal test but they didn’t have that service. I gathered all my strength and went to the test. The behavior of the staff at Fulbright Commission helped me to cool down and I could take the four-hour test well. It was really an exciting moment. Despite all confusions and fears, I could enjoy the test and could obtain marks that allowed me for the further competition. It was a global level competition, as I was told. I was quite hopeful that my dream to visit the US would come true. Finally I received a letter from the US Embassy about my selection for the program. This is a great achievement in my life. I’m eagerly waiting for the lessons in the US.

Likewise I fought for a professional development course in MASHAV, Israel. I was selected and I confirmed that I would join the course. I regret to say that I could not enjoy this opportunity, since I couldn’t collect money for transport fare. I was really sorry for missing it. I apologized to the State of Israel and its Mission to Nepal. I realized the pain of being poor. If I had got money for the plane fare, I could have enriched my professionalism. I now feel I should earn some money so that I shouldn’t miss such an opportunity. I went to some doors stretching my hands for help, but I had to drop them down every time. This is one of flows among the ebbs and flows in my life and I cannot excuse myself for this misfortune.

It was in 2012 that I was selected as one of the trainers for ETTE + project. The British Council and NELTA are jointly working for this project in Chitwan. Mr Hemanta Dahal asked me to allocate some more time for NELTA and I dropped my ambition to be the head teacher of my school. I got five-day TOT for ETTE + organized by the British Council. It was really a wonderful time though I had already worked as Super ETTE in 2009 and 2010, and also conducted similar training in Lamjung in 2011. I learnt lots of creative techniques from Adele, Khalil, Christine and Aarish. The peer teaching and the balance between theory and practice for conducting training to teach young learners were really unforgettable. I’m eagerly waiting for the moment to work with teachers in Chitwan.

At the end of 2012, I applied for my professional journey to Dhaka for taking part in the 6^th International Conference of BELTA. My proposal of presentation on teacher education has been accepted and now a team of 8 people, including myself, is preparing for the Dhaka visit scheduled the third week of January 2013.

Finally, in addition to ELT, the year 2012 was satisfactory in the areas of literature. I could write a few poems and critical comments in the Nepali language. Some of my poems in English when shared in different forums drew beautiful comments that encouraged me to write more poems in English. I want to publish an anthology of my English poems. Hopefully, it will be materialized in 2013. I conducted two workshops on creative writing. The Bachelor’s level students in Palpa produced some poems beyond my imagination – a simple guideline could help them so much. In NELTA  Nawalparasi Conference, teachers continued composing poems till evening. I came to the conclusion that everyone could write poems. A very significant program held in Palpa last year was the two-day workshop on Expanding Horizons in English facilitated by Mr Ganga Ram Gautam and Dr Barbara Law. NELTA helped with books to different eight community schools as well as Tribhuvan Campus. Similarly, one-day workshops were organized time and again, and NELTA colleagues presented their papers and conducted workshops. Those programs helped in promoting the sharing culture, developing presentation and communication skills. Because of such fruitful endeavors  NELTA is gaining momentum in the areas of ELT.

                                                Prof  Dr Tirth Raj Khaniya

I would like to begin […] with a statement made by Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize Winner, “We cannot predict the future, but we can prepare it”. To add to what he has said, it is through education, we prepare our future. Putting it another way, our future is largely dependent upon what kind of education with what vision and delivery mechanism we offer today.

It has been seven years since the 21^st century began. Almost all countries widely discussed the beginning of 21^st century, and several preparations were made in the name of preparing for the 21^st century. Some countries started talking about the 21^st century, and making preparations for it almost a decade before 2000. For them, the 21^st century began long before the beginning of 2000. Perhaps, they could have thought that the more they talked about the 21^st century, and got prepared for that, their efforts in the future would be more productive and contributory to the advancement of their society.

When we talk about education in the 21^st century, generally the question that comes in our mind is what it is that makes the 21^st century different from the 20^th century in terms of education. When did it begin? What did the discussions on it entail when people talked about the 21^st century? Was that merely the passing of time or the adoption of new processes of work or the development of new contents and areas of study or the change in the methods of teaching and learning or in life style of the people? One would have wondered what the world would be like in the 21^st century.  What is the demarcation line between the 20^th and the 21^st century? Was that just the end of December 1999 and beginning of January 2000 or was there something more? One would argue that talking about the 21^st century and preparing for it is a visionary way of thinking about our future. As a corollary, when we discuss educational issues in relation to the 21^st century, basically, we are envisioning our future education in light of the education we have at present. In order to support the visioning, we should be prepared to evaluate our existing system of education based on the past efforts and their impacts on what we accomplished so that we could consolidate what we accomplished and continue working on improving it in line the major changes taking place in different parts of the world.

Some people associate the 21^st century with time and some people with excessive use of technology and knowledge (e.g. knowledge economy).  Whatever the case, what is emerging, in fact, is that the 21^st century is going to be more technology and knowledge-based than ever before. Because of this reason the world is going to be more globalized that ever before. Failing to appreciate this fact will lead us to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. In this context, the first thing that we need to consider in order for us to be able to cope with the needs of the emerging societies is how to bring about changes in education so that our youths become competent enough no matter how competitive the world becomes. We need to understand that education is changing, and the education we received and the skills and abilities we gained some years ago may not be sufficient to enable us to cope with the requirements of the changing world. Today education is not like receiving once and using it for ever. We cannot utilize the knowledge and skills we have gained through education in the past unless we update them in light of the present needs. Therefore, our education has to be examined in light of the changing context of the world.

Education deals with human beings. We should know what skills and abilities we intend to inculcate in our youths in the 21^st century so as to enable them to cope with the needs of the emerging society. At the same time, we should be able to determine what our people need to acquire in order to cope with the time to come. Education binds together the past and the future of our societies. It is through education we sustain our culture, values and beliefs, and inculcate ideas in our youths. If we incorporate the contemporary skills and abilities in our system of education, we can equip our future generation with the necessary skills and abilities to cope comfortably with the emerging societies without causing much harm to our tradition.

One of the reasons for talking about the future is that we are trying to make people aware that we have experienced so many things in the past, and based on those experiences, we can anticipate what the world would look like if the present pattern of development of the world continues. We are also telling people that they should be prepared for the emerging society in a different way than they were prepared in the past. We believe that in the future the world will be more competitive than it was before, there will be more use of technology in many aspects of life than before, and there will be a growing feeling of globalization. The argument is that our people in the future will need to be more competent, more skillful, more knowledgeable, more informed, more flexible, more creative, and more responsive to what is happening around as well as in other parts of the world. It is also our feeling that we have to be prepared to cope with the new way of life with the skills and abilities necessary for the emerging society if we want not to be left far behind the mainstream of world development. One way of addressing this challenge is to bring about necessary changes in our education system which is the main source of human resource development. For that purpose we were trying to visualize the future, in my opinion, when we talked about the preparation for the 21^st century. Putting it another way, talking about the 21^st century is a way to play a proactive role in the preparation for the future. That is why the countries which initiated early preparations stared the 21^st century long before it actually began in other countries. The reason is that doing this helps us prepare ourselves for the future. This is important in order for us to be able to face the emerging societies which are dominated by technology and knowledge.

My understanding is that science and technology have transformed this world so rapidly that our economy and democracy have also been affected by those processes. The result is that future works will require much technical competence and a great deal of flexibility. The dynamics of the society is that one set of skills already acquired which used to be adequate in the past will not be sufficient for the future. Education is becoming not only a package of learning a set of skills; rather it is becoming a process of arousing in the learners a real thirst of learning.

The way the world is becoming open for access and communication, it becomes clear that the 21^st century will invite every individual irrespective of place and citizenship to come forward and compete with the rest of the world for opportunities. For that purpose, every individual is expected to develop necessary skills and intellectual ability. In addition to necessary skills, a person, therefore, is expected to be able to analyze problems and issues, examine the component parts, and reintegrate them into either a solution or into a new way of stating the problem or issue. In this way, it is necessary to develop thinking skills. An individual should be able to express and understand others’ expressions through diverse media. These skills of self-expression and hearing include writing, articulating verbal expressions, and familiarity with symbols and basic vocabularies of arts, mathematics and the sciences. These skills are necessary for an individual when the world becomes a global village. To have a meaningful life in the global village, our future generation will have to accept work as both the means of economic survival and an important source of one’s identity. Because of interaction with the rest of the world, our people will be careful with career and occupation options, not feeling bound by restrictions of race, gender, language, color, ethnicity, etc. Each individual will have to understand the fact that education is a prerequisite for becoming competitive in the adult workforce. This thinking certainly puts pressure on each country to bring about changes in the system of education by incorporating the elements of education necessary for the contemporary society. It becomes, therefore, obvious that we must make our education system competent enough to enable our future citizens to possess the skills, abilities and competence needed to cope with the emerging needs of the 21^st century.

In the field of education, like many countries in this region, Nepal faces challenges in two ways: on the one hand it has not been able to make a good progress in education in the past (e.g. low pass rate, high drop out rate, low participation of girls, low rate of enrolment, under-achievement of the learning outcomes by the students, irrelevant education, no collaboration between education and service and productive sectors, etc.) despite mobilizing adequate external and internal resources, and on the other hand, now it has to use information technology in education, and upgrade the overall contents and processes of educational delivery.

Education has always been associated with social advancement, economic prosperity and employment. The relationship between education and these factors is going to be even stronger in the future. For making a system of education work better, it is necessary to have a clear picture of what we want from the system as an outcome of the process. Nepal, therefore, will have to be clear about what kind of people with what skills and abilities for what purposes are needed for its overall development. Once we make our priorities and choices clear, the system of education should be directed towards accomplishing them. This is what we need to do first. Therefore, we need to revisit our system of education in order to make it serve our present and future needs.

It has been quite some time since some changes were made in the present system of education. It is believed that it is only through education Nepal can equip its youths with necessary skills and abilities to cope with the emerging societies.

Source:  New Horizons in Education in Nepal, 2007