I teach in a secondary school in Sanepa, Lalitpur. I have found that many students in the school commit the errors in “subject-verb agreement,” especially that of third person singular, even when they seem to know the grammar rules. Generally, in private schools, students start learning English grammar when they are in Grade Two and they do so throughout the school years. Despite learning and knowing the rules for multiple years, many students come up with sentences like “He have book….”, “Sir have the book……” etc., in both written and spoken form.

I carried out a mini-research from the perspective of  error analysis to find out the reasons why students commit these types of errors (the omission of simple present marker) and, importantly, to propose a remedy for the problem. I conducted this study among the 22 students of Class 9. For the same purpose, I told the students a story titled “Nashruddin and the donkey” and asked them to write the story from their memory. Since my focus of error analysis was to analyze the errors in subject-verb agreement, I told them the story in present tense and asked them to write the story as homework.

(What follows is a stripped down version of the mini-research, without citations and references.)

Error Identification:

After the students submitted their written work, I went through their work line by line and marked the errors in subject verb agreement. My first task was to determine if the errors done by each student were systematic errors or just random mistakes. Since most of the students made the same error consistently, I concluded that those were errors, not mistakes.

Here’s a sample table of the data that I collected.

The above table illustrates that the students commit errors by omitting -s inflection from the third person singular verb in their attempt to make the verb agree with the singular subject like “he kill…” and “he become…”. And, they also add –s inflection with plural subjects.

Explanation of the errors

As you all know, we teach our students that  a verb must agree with its subject. We keep repeating: A singular subject takes a singular verb, likewise, a plural subject takes a plural verb. For instance, the third person pronouns such as “he, she and it” take a singular verb with the -s inflection as in “The boy eats…., She eats….”. Similarly, the plural subject and pronouns such as “I, We, You and They” just take the bare form of the verbs as in “I eat…. We eat….”.

Subject-verb Agreement in English and Nepali:

Subject-verb agreement means the verb will change its form depending on its subject. The subject of a verb may be singular or plural and it may be first-person (I, we) second-person (you – singular/plural), or third-person (he/she/it, they, dog, cats).

In English, in the present tense, a verb changes its form only when its subject is third-person singular (he/she/it). Here’s the confusion and a factor leading to over-generalization. The inflection –s can be used with both third person singular verbs as well as plural noun subjects. Whereas In Nepali, there are different inflectional makers for plural subjects and for verbs.

I walk. // We walk.
Ma hidchu // Hami hidchaun
You walk. // You walk.
Timi hidchau // Timi haru hidchaun
He walks. // She walks // It walks.
Tyo hidcha // Tini hidcha // Tyo hidcha
They walk.
Tini  haru hidchan
Dog walks. // Cat walks.
Kukkur hidcha // Biralo hidcha
Dogs walk.// Cats walk.
Kukkur haru hidchan // Biralo haru hidchan

While it might be hard to generalize, these contrasting rules seem to be causing a lot of confusion on the matter of subject-verb agreement.

Reasons for the errors:

Here are the possible reasons why the students make error in subject-verb agreement of third personal singular.

1)      L1 influence: possibility of structural interference

2)      Overgeneralization: the learner creates a generalized structure on the basis of a single rule of the target language.

3)      Erroneous input: the teacher makes similar mistakes and feeds wrong input to the learners

4)      Lack of enough comprehension of the rules of subject + verb agreement.

In addition to my own observation, I asked the students about their opinion on this type of error. When I explained the error analysis jargons to them and told them the possible reasons, they opined that it is because of mainly two reasons: over-generalization of the rules and lack of ‘conscious’ practice. In other words, they blame their ‘wrong habits’ as the reason for errors.

Here’s how they normally over-generalize. If sentences like I run… We run…. You run… are correct, the students have developed a habit of assuming that He run… She run… Rabi run… are also correct forms.

Plus, it has to do with native language interference as well. Here’s a case of verb “chha”. In Nepali, “chha” is used to express possession (have/has) in present tense. For example:

First person: Ma sanga gadi chha (I have a car.)
Second person: Timi sanga gadi chha (You have a car.)
Third person: Sir sanga gadi chha (Teacher has a car.)
Third person: Madan sanga gadi chha (Madan has a car.)
Third person plural: Sathi haru sanga gadi chha. (Friends have a car.)

The verb “chha” is used invariably with all forms of subjects – first person, second person or third person and with both singular or plural form. Since “chha” means both has as well as have in Nepali, students unconsciously transfer this concept into the production of English language.

A peculiar pattern

Interestingly, some participants not only removed simple present marker ‘s’ in the case of third person singular subject, they also added the same marker in the case of plural subjects as well. Here’s a sample from the Participant 1.

*All villagers calls him a stupid guy…
*…two naughty boys sees that and tries to trick…

And from the Participant 6.

*All the villagers calls him…
*Two naughty boys sees and tries to …

What these errors show is that there is a pattern among the students to do the opposite – i.e., to use the singular marker ‘s’ with plural subjects.

Let me try to explain this pattern, again from the first language interference point of view. In Nepali, when the subject is plural, the marker ‘chhan’ is suffixed with the verb.

For example:

Madan ghar janchha. (Madan goes home.)
Mera sathi haru ghar janchhan. (My friends go home.)

And since, the equivalent plural marker of ‘chhan’ is the suffix ‘s’ in English, students come up with sentences like “All the villagers calls him…..” by adding ‘s’ to the verbs as well. Just as the English rule says, plural subject requires plural verbs in present tense.

This puts the Nepali learners in a very confusing and complex situation. The Nepali rule of adding equivalent plural marker ‘chhan’ on the verb when the subject is plural contradicts or interferes with the English rules of removing plural marker ‘s’ from the verbs when the subject is plural.

Recommendation and Conclusion

I am in line with N.S. Prabhu that there is no best method (I’m applying this in a narrower sense here) . How I think of going about such errors is to have a mixed approach. Whatever works out fine in our individual context is the best way out. Experimentation is the key. In addition to that, it is illogical to assume that this error will be solved within a day or a week or a month. No one can be sure without further research (locally).

However, here’s what I think is a good approach to go about solving  common errors.

• Raise the students’ awareness about common errors. In the present case, letting them know that present tense singular is a very common error and even professors at the university level commit this mistake occasionally might boost the morale of the students.
• Explicit teaching and explicit error correction. Teach them rules and make them practice. Focus on form.
• Implicit teaching. Give them enough comprehensible input, focusing on activities that enhance their understanding of tense and verb system of English
• Provide ‘authentic’ opportunity for practice.
• Mix different teaching methods. Bring varieties into the classroom.
• And, most importantly, CONTEXTUALIZE. If students can relate to what they are learning, their retention will probably very high.

Because of the L1 interference and the tendency of over-generalization, Nepali students find the use of present tense marker complicated. They have to be constantly conscious of the contrasting rules of singular and plural subjects in Nepali and English.

So the first step to remedy this error might be to raise the students awareness about contrasting system of rules. They need to be conscious about these differences in Nepali and English structures, then practice the rules, develop a habit, in a hope that the habit eventually gains automaticity.

Another remedial step might be to implement Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis, which is to provide and expose the students to massive amount of inputs regarding the subject-verb agreement. Thus, the students might be able to acquire (and learn) the rules unconsciously and ultimately produce the correct forms. However, acquiring a language is not enough. The students should be given enough opportunity to practice in an authentic environment. Hence, authentic classroom activities implicitly focused on the form of third-person singular would help students overcome this error in time. We can follow possible steps for other common errors too.

Reflection

In my experience, I have seen students (and many teachers alike) from all level of classes committing this error. Even the students of Bachelor’s level frequently commit this error regarding subject-verb agreement. I was clueless about how to correct the students but now I have realized that teaching them the rules and correcting them is not enough. The students must be made aware of this type of error. And, with student’s conscious participation, remedial steps have to be taken.

I have seen many teachers jump to the conclusion that the students are not intelligent enough or hardworking enough and thus they make the errors. However, intelligence and hard-work might only be two insignificant factors out of so many other crucial variables that affect  second language learning. There are factors like language transfer, interference, lack of enough input, lack of opportunity to produce and use language, context, motivation, and so on. As language teachers, we need to give the benefit of doubt to the learners before condemning them on the basis of their personal ability. In fact, we ourselves are nowhere near competent enough and we commit errors on a different level than the students. (Plus, we are unaware of it.) If we are to expect better language competency from our students, we need to first change our own view towards teaching and learning a second language.

Umes Shrestha
Kathmandu University
www.latebecame.wordpress.com

Laxman Gnawali

Last year I felt a strong urge to plan to attend the IATEFL 2013 Liverpool for several reasons. The main reason was that I had attended the conference before. When you have a taste of something and you like it and know the value of it, you want to go for it again.  So, I made up my mind to submit a presentation proposal and plan for other arrangements. I eventually attended the conference and I am recounting the experience of it.    

Whether our proposal is accepted or not, the process of writing it as per the guidelines is a learning experience. There are two documents we need to submit: a 50-60 word presentation abstract outlining what we will do during the presentation and a 200-250 word summary briefly discussing what is that we would like to establish. Though I was not working on it all the time, I spent more than a week writing, revising, editing, starting over again and the same process again and again. I also turned to friends for their input.

I was very careful about the proposal for a valid reason: apart from being accepted for a presentation, I also wanted a scholarship.  If the organizers liked the idea and saw that the proposal was not in a good shape, I would probably be asked to revisit it. But in case of the scholarship, there would be no second chance. I had to write a good proposal. So, I worked very hard. When I felt that my proposal was in good shape and would be competitive, I looked up the list and the descriptions of the scholarships the IATEFL was offering.

I had seen the list of scholarships before but had not minutely studied it to see which ones I was qualified for.  So, I visited the website http://www.iatefl.org/ and followed the scholarship link http://www.iatefl.org/scholarships/scholarship-overview There I saw that the criteria for each scholarship were different. Some were for those who had never been to the IATEFL conference, others for those who had never received any scholarship. Some were for teachers and others for teacher trainers. Some scholarships required the applicants to have an extensive experience in a given area and others looked just for an interest in it. Some scholarships offered a small grant and others had a generous amount for the winner. There were some that covered all the costs. Some scholarships required IATEFL membership, others did not. The deadline for all of them was 22 August. I considered them all and I finally submitted my proposal for five scholarships: IATEFL Gillian Porter Ladousse, International House Global Reach, International House Training and Development, Pilgrims Teacher Trainer Journal, Trinity College London Teacher Trainer.

Come the first week of October, I received an email which read:

I accepted the offer right away. Then the preparation started: the registration, the hotel booking, flight tickets, the visa, everything in place. I was at the Arena and Convention Centre in Liverpool on the 8^th of April 2013. There were five of us from Nepal.

The 47th Annual International IATEFL Conference & Exhibition was a great experience: A state-of-the-art venue, world class book exhibition, gathering of 2500 delegates from around the world, about 40 parallel sessions at any given time, five key speakers including Prof. David Crystal, out-of-the-box evening events, networking events, live streaming on http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/, the list goes on.

My presentation was in the late evening and I was worried if I would have participants. To my relief, my session which was on “When Participants Experience, Understand and Articulate” was attended by sizable audience. I was also interviewed for the Liverpool online.

I spent five busy days in Liverpool and returned home re-energized. Two weeks later, I was asked by the scholarship committee to write in 80 words what I achieved by attending the conference, I wrote the following:

“Winning the IATEFL Gillian Porter Ladousse scholarship was instrumental for me to showcase an experiment on teacher training made at my University. Sharing the outcomes of the experiment from Nepal in the IATFL’s international forum was a concrete achievement for me and my University. This sharing enabled me to expand my network with fellow teacher educators from around the world. I also met great ELT names in person and brought home beautiful memories of the interactions I had with them.”

I feel that for ELT professionals, attending international events such as IATEFL has a number of benefits. To list a few: a) It is a great exposure to world Englishes. We experience Englishes from all over the world, b) We meet face to face those writers we have been citing, c) We are updated with the latest development in the field of ELT. We can bring home latest ideas in ELT, d) We can showcase what we have been doing at our workplaces and see where we stand and how others take it. I had all these benefits.

I am grateful to the IATEFL for accepting my proposal and providing me the scholarship. I am also thankful to Kathmandu University, NELTA and the British Council, Kathmandu for other support.

Bishnu Kumar Khadka
Vice-chair of NELTA Surkhet

Like in the previous years, the teachers who have been teaching English at the secondary level in Nepal have already examined the listening and speaking abilities of those students who have appeared in the so-called iron gate examination-SLC. The result is due to be published in a few weeks. Perhaps, most of the students will have very good marks of listening and speaking in their mark-sheets irrespective of their actual listening and speaking abilities, because both the students and their subject teachers expect the monitors to assign very good grades. It is because the marks students get in practical examination can also be of very high importance for the divisions they deserve. This is why it is not a matter of surprise for the monitors to give full marks in the listening and speaking tests, no matter how they perform in the practical examinations. In other subjects-accountancy, health population and environment education, science and even computer science students deserve twenty-five by twenty-five without carrying out specific projects or tasks. Thank god, the teachers of the English language require their examinees to listen to the tape and appear in front of them!

My Reflections as a teacher
When I began to teach English some five years back, like many other enthusiastic novice teachers of English, I was proud. I thought I had done the best job, because I could make all the students understand the text. What I would do was to go thorough reading texts and translate each and every line into Nepali from English and ask the students whether or not they had understood. The students would also reply that they had understood. Their affirmative nodding made me feel happy. I also did not think the other ways, because that was how I was taught while I was studying at schools and even colleges. I am deadly sure that teachers in govern-funded schools in Nepal have been doing so, for the one or another reasons, such as students do not understand if teachers teach them in English only or there are more than one hundred students in their classes and so on.

My happiness lasted until I began to think critically on my own teaching. When I was in my third year of teaching, I began to ask a number of questions such as-‘ Do I really help my students in learning English?, Why do I practice teacher centered techniques of teaching though I know that in order to facilitate learners in learning language I should adopt learner centered ones?, Why are there such incompatibilities? and so on. Having pondered in the answers of these questions, I thought that I should change my teaching activities in the classrooms. Since then, I have been trying my best to play the role of a facilitator or co-worker of students. But I faced and even have been facing a lot of challenges. For reading lessons, I ask students to read in groups or individually. While students busy themselves reading the texts, I go around them and support if they have some challenges. Once they have finished reading the given texts and doing the exercises, I ask them to go for the next lesson. Often some of the students say to me, “Hami lai yo path padhaunuhunna sir? (Don’t you teach us this lesson, sir?). Students have stereotypical feeling that if a teacher goes in front them and tells everything in Nepali then only they think that they have learned and the teacher has taught.

In my contexts, teaching English means teaching reading and writing skills only. For these two skills also, learners are confined to the texts or exercises given their text books. Theoretically, I know that teaching language means teaching all language skills and aspects, but practically, I cannot help confining myself in teaching reading and writing only. Listening and speaking are the primary or natural skills of language and therefore teaching and learning of these two skills equal to preparing learners to understand others who use English and make others understand by using English. Despite the importance in real life communications, these two skills are often neglected in our classrooms, may be because we can mange students get good grades even if they perform very poorly in the practical examinations.

My Reflections as a monitor
After getting the monitor training provided by District Education Office for conducting listening and speaking test, I and Parbati, my life partner got the responsibility to conduct the test in one of the SLC examination centers of Surkhet. When we reached the exam center, the administrative personnel of the examination were eager to welcome us and most of the students were waiting there without having lunch. No sooner did the students see us, they hurried to say ‘Namaste’. I found them to be eager to return their homes. They did not seem to be worried about their practical examinations at all. I thought that the test I and Parbati were going to administer had no face validity, because it did not appear to be like a test to the students.

While conducting the listening test, first of all, we gave them a set of instructions on how the students were supposed to take the test. Having distributed question papers and answer sheets, we played the tape. The students looked at us without considering the questions. After playing the tape for the first time, we asked them to write down the answer of the first question and after five minutes we again played the tape for the second question and finally, we played for the third time for proving students with an opportunity to review their answers. But to my great surprise, most of the students had not written the answers of the listening text; rather they were just looking at one another’s face and waiting someone to do something for them. I asked them to write the answer soon considering the time. They shared their inconveniences that they had not listened to any listening texts during their school life and they didn’t understand anything about the text. They said to us, “How could we write the answers if we have not understood the text?” Their question reminded me of my own ELT classes without any practice of listening and speaking skills, meanwhile I missed my students who were expecting high marks in the listening and speaking test. Then, we read out the scripts for the students slowly so that the students could answer the questions.

After completing the listening test, we immediately started to take the speaking test. I asked simple questions starting from the name, address, number of the family members, name of English teacher etc. but most of the students found these questions difficult to respond in English except their names and their English teachers’ names. There were few students who tried to respond in English. When I asked them to describe the pictures, then most of the students started to look at my face rather than at the pictures. I created a fun during the time saying that, “I am not as handsome as the man in the picture “. I asked you to describe the picture not my face. Therefore, please describe the pictures given to you. Most of the students nodded their heads and some of them tried to describe in English and some others replied in Nepali too. I was in moral crisis to circle the marking score because both the students and teachers had expected me to assign high marks in the test. When I checked the answer sheets of the listening test, their scores were very low. Since I was familiar with their listening abilities, I had assigned high scores in speaking test disregarding their performances so that they would get at least pass marks in aggregate. One thing for sure is that they will certainly curse me when the result is out.

Here, my serious concern is not for their performances but for the lack of practice of listening and speaking. Both teachers and students know the fact that they should teach and learn these two skills not only because they are very essential for genuine piece of communication but also for the practical examinations to be administered at the end of an academic session. Undoubtedly, the result of the poor performances in listening and speaking is caused due to the lack of exposure in these skills. Of course, it is we teachers who have to manage the necessary exposure to our students. If we don’t provide exposure and only test the learners in these two skills, it is a kind of injustice to the students. How do we expect the learners to demonstrate their performances in listening and speaking skills without providing them ample opportunities to get exposure? Did we achieve the goal of communicative competence as envisioned by the secondary level curriculum of English?

Testing of listening and speaking skill should be considered as integral parts of teaching learning process and these skills need to be tested on regular bases and the tests should reflect the real life listening and speaking events. These two skills often go together except in very few situations. Therefore, these two skills should be taught and tested in an integrated way. For example, we can make our students listen to the news, sport reports, chatting at a party, hearing announcements over the loudspeaker, interviewing, hearing speech/lecture etc. and let them speak about what they have heard As our present secondary level curriculum suggests, we need to test our students in the use of language functions and this can be done best if we give them situations and ask them to perform in them. If the goal of teaching and learning English is to enable the learners to use English, teaching and testing activities should also be geared towards it.

It is the fact that language is for communication; language means primarily speech and speech means listening and speaking. If we don’t teach listening and speaking, then how can we enable our students to make the users of language? If the students cannot produce single simple utterances in English having been taught for ten years, it is a matter of shame for us. It’s high time to think what we have done so far to support learners in learning English. Therefore, it is mandatory to give due emphasis on teaching listening and speaking in our EFL classrooms. The provision of testing of listening and speaking should not be made just the formality; rather they are to be made an integral part of teaching.

Maheshwor Rijal, KU
maheshwor.rijal@gmail.com

There are several issues related to testing and evaluation in our education system in Nepalese context. Some of those include carelessness in marking systems, delay in examination results, abolishment of entrance exams, habit of reading guess- papers and designing question papers. As a student of Kathmandu University, I accomplished different practical assignments. The educational standards of Kathmandu University (KU) have broadened my horizon of thinking, particularly in terms of almost all the aspects of testing and evaluation including general principle of testing, evaluating test item, designing and conducting test, alternative approaches to students’ evaluation and so forth. However, there are some issues related to testing and evaluation which touched my heart and I have made an attempt to explore current realities of testing particularly research assessment through this blog entry. I believe that my reflective understanding will be one of the lessons for improving and minimizing aforementioned issue allowing conducive environment for learning.

A couple of months ago, while I was busy in finalizing the first draft of my research proposal for my supervisor, one of my friends came into my study room. Observing my hard work and time I was putting into my research proposal endeavor, he was amazed to see piles of reference books on educational researches and EFL pedagogy. We had a long tea-talk until I came to know my friend’s secret suggestion to purchase a ready-made thesis paper. “Oh my God, What a terrific and shameful crime!” I replied to his suggestion. On hearing that, all of my enthusiasms and vigor were gradually going down and down.

Some days later, while I was on my way to Tribhuvan University to search for reference materials in the library, I saw an advertisement of thesis writing services, which was an utter surprise to me. The ad was pasted in the electric pools and walls with contact address and phone numbers of the service provider. It read;

“Available!! Available!!! Thesis of M.A. M.Ed. only for 7000 rupees”

The fact that was more astonishing to me was the contact number of the advertiser explicitly printed on the ad. I moved with my camera and captured the photos of those ads hanging on the electric-posts. I could realize the disgraceful and pitiable fate that is waiting ahead of us. Who is responsible for this? Where is law and order to stop this kind of sinful business? Then, what is the value of testing and evaluation? Such kinds of questions are roaming in my mind even now.

In Kathmandu University, I learned that a research should aim at transforming a society towards further progress. If so, can this type of activity really contribute to the debunking of the existing myth of the society? It is difficult to believe how education can be an efficient instrument for reshaping the quality of the individual, society, and nation at large. I was overwhelmed and stressed even though I am carrying out on my research activities very seriously. Based on my observation and experience, I have found there is no reading habit developed among the youths. Majority of them nowadays hardly go to libraries since majority of them are habituated to pass exams without rigorous studies.

Making educational and intellectual exercises profit oriented cottage industries like selling the thesis is undoubtedly a criminal act. These kinds of crimes should be identified as sharp indicators of overall social degradation, particularly among intellectual circle of the society. Such activities will have negative backwash in teaching and learning. There will certainly be no value of testing and evaluation in terms of dissertation writing and other types of examinations. Unless these heinous and deplorable activities are stopped, there will be no efficiency, validity and reliability of testing, assessment, and evaluation. It will generally affect entire education system.

The famous leader Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which can use to change the world”. Does such issue of testing and evaluation prevailing in our education system be the powerful or destructive weapon to change our society?

It is high time the concerning authorities need pay attention to the prevailing issue or it will adversely affect the whole education system; input, process and output at large.