Category Archives: Global thought

Mapping “Bottom up” Pedagogy in the Age of Digitally Globalized World

Critical Outlook, English as a Global Language, Global thought

Marohang Limbu

Choutari is a great platform with many outstanding essays in “Nelta Chautari,” but one piece by my friends Prem Phyak and Shyam Sharma, “Teachers’ narrative: Building theory from the bottom up” particularly draws my attention. Prem and Shyam envision the need of scholarship, research, and pedagogy to construct knowledge at the local level. They also observe the “need to start developing new approaches, theories, and methods based on local social-cultural contexts and dynamics” so that “practical challenges of the classroom can be better tackled … theoretically, methodologically, and pragmatically.” In this essay, I am discussing pedagogical theories and practices of teaching English in the glocal (global + local) context in the age of digitally globalized world. My discussion focuses on mapping new “bottom up” pedagogy, significance of “bottom up” pedagogy, and the importance of “bottom up” and cloud computing pedagogy and its future direction.

I, like these colleagues, believe in the philosophical theory and pedagogical practices of “… Building theory from the bottom up,” for I suppose that teaching is to map/remap new knowledge, to disseminate, and cultivate it. Teaching is a powerful force that can construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct realities, and the results we achieve depend upon how we apply theories into classroom practices. Hence, in my “bottom up” pedagogy, I, as an educator, create strategic pedagogical inquiry questions, such as how my teaching/research matters to a student’s individual, academic, and professional life; how I can effectively connect pedagogical theories into classroom practices; why and how I should embrace globalization and new social media technologies (Web 2.0 tools) in my day-to-day pedagogical practices; how I can create “safer spaces” (non-threatening environment) for diverse student populations so that students can bring their cultural narratives and prior academic literacies; and how my pedagogical practices prepare cross-culturally and digitally potential human power for the 21st century digitally globalized world.

As a 21st century educator, I foresee an urgent need of pedagogical practice that Prem and Shyam indicate that we need to develop, as well as new teaching approaches, theories, and methods based on “local and social contexts.” But what does it mean in the context of digitally globalized world? And what prevents us to translate it into classroom practices? And how are we creating our “local” linguistic values and cultural identities in the context of the 21st century global/world Englishes? In our “bottom up” pedagogical approach, rather than mimicking so called the Standard English, our teaching approaches should seek ways of creating spaces of non-native English speaking students inside and outside the classrooms. Our pedagogical strategies should help, not hinder, students create their cultural and linguistic identities from the local perspective and connect them to the global level. We, as non-western educators, should also advocate for the inclusion of multicultural materials, students’ prior academic literacies, cultural narratives, and web 2.0 tools in our curricula, syllabi, and in our pedagogical practices. Our “bottom up” pedagogy should engage students in dialogical environment in both virtual and physical spaces in order to make them critical and analytical thinkers and communicators.

Furthermore, we advocate for the development of “new approaches, theories, and methods based on local social-cultural contexts and dynamics” (Phyak and Sharma). We may be claiming/reclaiming our local linguistic identities and agencies. We may be creating our identity as global citizens, but what kind of impact our pedagogy has at the local and global level. More importantly, we are living in the digitized global village where our knowledge is constantly shifting; that means disciplinary discourse is also shifting, such as analog literacy is shifting to digital literacy, paper to screen literacy, industrial economy to information economy, local culture to global culture, and national perspective to global perspective.  So, as pedagogues of the 21st century global village how our pedagogical approaches address the disciplinary/knowledge shifts when we meet with our students in the classrooms (without modern technologies).

Now is the time, not only do we have to create pedagogical environments that offer students their voices and identities, but we also have to create cross-cultural communication/intercultural communication settings where students learn to contest, question, and negotiate their spaces. As I understand, the notion of “bottom up” pedagogy tends to advocate for “local social-cultural contexts and dynamics” (Phyak and Sharma). That means it also tends to validate students’ (especially non-western and language minority) voices, but we should critically contemplate how we are conforming their voices and identities; how we are supporting world/global Englishes from our local pedagogical practices; and we also should critically evaluate how our students’ voices will be recognized in other discourse communities from the 21st century globalized context.

Furthermore, when our pedagogical strategies come into discussion, we invariably claim that our teaching approaches are “student-centered” ones, but what does “student-centered pedagogy” mean to our day-to-day teaching practices and how we practice it? In terms of my pedagogical practice/s, I teach at Michigan State University, East Lansing where I am, more often than not, likely to meet with students from almost all around the world. In my writing classes, I use Web 2.0 tools (Facebook, blogs, websites, YouTube, videoblogs, and podcasting, etc.); these cloud-computing pedagogical tools tend to be more democratic, inclusive, and representational. I, via these cloud-computing tools, encourage my students to bring their cultural narratives and individual voices. I allow my students to bring/present their cultural literacies and prior experiences in the classroom discussions and in their writing assignments. I highly encourage students to share, collaborate, communicate, create, and publish both in digital (and physical) spaces so that students can share their ideas in a single click. Additionally, my pedagogical practice also does not tend to linguistically and culturally favor one group of students over the others. As a result, students seem to question, contest, and create their spaces in the center.  In this pedagogical setting, not only students learn to collaborate, communicate, and create together, but they also learn to validate other students’ cultural narratives and prior academic experiences.

Although I claim that my pedagogy is “student-centered,” I still may be ignoring a significant number of students in my writing classes because I still handle the classes based on my interest, department’s interest, and university’s interest. Despite my democratic cloud computing pedagogy, I still feel that I fail to observe how my students are constrained by my teaching approaches and pedagogical practices within that small discourse community due to their age, interest, class, gender, sexual orientation, and prior experience. So, as educators, how are you practicing your “student-centered” pedagogy? How are you creating your students’ glocal identities and connecting their local literacies to the global level? How are you validating their voices? And how are you preparing your students for this digitally globalized world? Overall, are we just preaching or are really practicing our “student-centered” pedagogies?

What is the significance of “bottom up” pedagogical theory? What constitutes “bottom up” pedagogy? I know every teaching is different teaching; every pedagogical practice is a different practice. However, we tend to practice more or less similar type of “bottom up” pedagogical approaches, but how we literally practice it when we teach English in Nepalese rural and urban contexts. How do we practice this theory when we teach diverse multilingual, multicultural, multi-ethnic students (in different geopolitical situations)? Additionally, why do we create our syllabi before we actually meet our actual student populations?  Why do we create curricula, syllabi, and so on that do not address the diverse student populations and their interests? If we do not have power to change the curricula and syllabi, how we, including our students, are resisting the conservative ideology and hegemony. Prem and Shyam implicitly observe some “practical challenges” and they believe that those challenges “can be better tackled if we try to theoretically, methodologically, and pragmatically address those issues.” As I mentioned earlier how we are translating these theories into practices; how we are resisting the traditional ideology and hegemony in order to address the interests of multicultural and multilingual students in the context of the 21st century globalized world.

The purpose of English language teaching is not only to make students able to use basic English for basic communication, but it is also to empower them with their voices. Teaching for me is also to support students to globalize their local narratives to the global level. I remember my school level English courses where we were forced to memorize lessons and answers. We also learned grammar, speech, intonation, and some facts and figures. Similarly, when I went to college/university, I learned Western English literature, which literally had nothing to do with my Limbu culture, Limbu literature, and Limbu identity. When I became a teacher/lecturer, I practiced the same teaching approach. In this type of pedagogy, students will not be able to connect local narratives and academic literacies to the global level because cross-cultural communication is ignored; the concept of audience is also too narrow, limited, and localized. The conservative and traditional teacher centered pedagogy implicitly colonizes students. Based on this discussion, my query is how we are applying Prem and Shyam’s “social-cultural … dynamics” and how you are challenging/resisting the conservative, hegemonic, and ideological practices.

My theoretical and philosophical thoughts on “bottom up” pedagogy are we should address glocal (local + global) issues. We have to globalize our local narratives to global level and our new pedagogy should lie in the fast changing global village saturated by cloud computing technology because glocally/cross-culturally and digitally literate students can create their identities better; they can produce more effective, accurate, and high quality texts; they can effectively communicate with students/people from different cultures. Moreover, if we apply “bottom up” pedagogy from the 21st century context, it not only seems to illuminate the geopolitical blindspots, but also reduces cultural and linguistic gaps, which are better pedagogical elements of the 21st century digital global village. We have to create new “bottom up” pedagogy saturated by technology to engage students in different digital, multimodal, and cross-cultural writing projects that will provide them valuable future career preparation. Many of the traditional pedagogies we still practice do not necessarily address needs and expectations of the 21st century digitally globalized world and audience; there is a need of retheorizing and remapping our pedagogical theories and practices. Therefore, “bottom up” pedagogy is a pursuit of pedagogical transformation in the context of the 21st century global village.

Finally, in terms of theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic issues and future directions, teachers (as activists of the global society) should map/remap pedagogy from glocal perspective. This pedagogy will introduce horizontal spaces, languages, subjectivities, speeches, and writings, and these situations lead the “bottom up” concept of free playing field from the “local social-cultural contexts.”  In this process, we, along with our “now students” and our “future colleagues,” will continue to enact an epistemology of representation that will guide present pedagogical practice and will shape future pedagogical approaches. In this journey, we do not perpetuate the traditional hegemonic and ideological pedagogy as they have always been practiced, but we will map/remap democratic pedagogical theories and approaches as they will have been practiced in the future.

——

Dr. Limbu is assistant professor of English in Michigan State University, Michigan USA. You can find more information about the author here.

Sounds and Images… Thinking about Teaching

Global thought, Miscellaneous

To the diversity of ELT khuraks of this month, let me add a different kind of material, a few inspiring web videos, with some reflections and questions on the issue of education in our time.

As a teacher, I believe that we must not just go to class with a lesson plan but we must have a broader understanding of the goals of education, a sense of how our education relates to the challenges of the larger society as well as our students’ futures, and the willingness to engage our students in thinking about larger issues than the textbooks provide–whenever and wherever possible or appropriate.

And as an English teacher, I believe that there is more to teaching this “global language” than language itself; for instance, we can teach English as a means for intercultural communication and understanding, as a means to access and contribute to global platforms of knowledge, and so on.

We need to think how we can adapt our teaching and make it more relevant to the changing needs and realities of our students’ and society’s present and future. If your bandwidth allows, let’s start by watching a video in which a British educational philosopher discusses the changing paradigms of education.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U]

In the video, the scholar, Ken Robinson, says that the current education system(s) in the world–which Nepal has adopted and often lags behind in adapting to the society’s ground realities–was conceived of and developed in Europe in the age of Enlightenment, or the age when positivist science including rather simplistic developmental psychology, industrial progress, and a class division were the order of the day. For example, the very word “class” that we use for describing a group of students tells something about the structure of our education: students move, from year to year, in a linear manner, towards a “higher” grade, until they are ready, like coke bottles in a conveyor belt at a bottling company, to exit on the other side of the educational factory. We can see that this structure was modeled upon efficiency of the industry, and we should ask how it can be updated to fit the information society and the knowledge market where we should be training our students as producers of knowledge, capable of networking with intellectual and professional communities  on a global scale, and so on–and not just train them  with basic literacy and professional skills that the industrial model did. The structure matters, underlying epistemological worldviews matter.

The industrial/enlightenment model of education–which is physically structured like the conveyor belt and is philosophically based on the nineteenth-century European enlightenment values/beliefs–is highly efficient in some ways. But this model seems to also have outserved many of its original purposes. We need to think about what it still does well and what it does not. For instance, what if one student who has the potentials of Einstein in science or that of Picasso in art fails in math or English?–actually what about thousands of SLC students across the country who continue to fail in English, and therefore in “education,” as we watch or talk about “enlightenment bases” of modern education? What can we do at the level of the lesson plan, the exam we are giving tomorrow, the curriculum that we have the power to change as members of a university department’s curricular committee, or at the level of discussions among NELTA members in on and offline venues?

Again, if your connection is not bad, here is another video on the theme that shows how even in the “advanced” societies the persistence of the conventional model of education has clashed with the reality of who the students sitting in the classroom are, what their life is like, [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o]and what their and the society’s changing realities and needs may be–and I am not thinking about changing education by adding technology or anything here, but instead rethinking education in terms of our local socio-cultural as well as material conditions.

Finally, here is another video–I’ll just link and not embed this one, but see the next one–in which another educational thinker, Mike Wesch talks about re-conceiving education from the perspective of what new technologies allow us to do. In our case, not many of Wesch’s ideas will apply very easily or directly; but maybe some of the developments in the fields of communication and information should make us think about how we can utilize those changes towards more locally adapted modes of teaching.

If you watched the three videos embedded or linked above, you might be thinking that we can’t do all those big things, that there’s not much benefit to just thinking and talking about those abstract things because you have to prepare students for the final exams within a system that you can’t change anything about… well, but watch the small things that these big thinkers do in their classrooms.

So, here’s Mike Wesch, the scholar with the big ideas in the video linked above, talking about some really small changes that he makes in his class, changes that we too can always make in our classrooms, not matter how well-resourced our classrooms are, no matter how capable we are making impacts/changes in the larger system of education. Certainly, this is not a community that lacks such simple ideas about improving teaching styles–I’ve learned thousands of things from the NELTA community since I joined it in the mid ’90s–but the changes in classroom teaching that Wesch is talking about here, and which I want to highlight in this entry, are changes that are connected to the larger questions of the goals of education, the need to make education relevant to students’ lives and societies, the changing paradigms of education  as they matter to our local conditions and realities. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alhDCwRSHC4]

I will be delighted to read your response about anything. Thanks for reading.

Brief Experience of Teaching English in Nepal

English as a Global Language, Global thought, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

Alban S. Holyoke

 When I started college I never envisioned myself teaching English, much less in Nepal.  In all honesty English is not my strongest subject; my friends often joke with me about my poor spelling.  When I applied for a Fulbright grant to teach English in Nepal I thought of it as a long shot.  When I received an email telling me that I won the scholarship, I realized that I would have to put my words into actions.  Fortunately, I have some very incredible mentors in the US that got me excited about the prospect of not only traveling to a vastly different culture, but also the joys of teaching.

When I came to Nepal I had little experience of teaching in a formal setting, and none in an English classroom.  During my first month in Nepal I received a crash course in teaching methodology, which bolstered my confidence somewhat.  But when I visited my first Nepali school, my spirits sunk.  I was standing in the middle of a room of screaming kids, with all the classrooms around me.  I sat at the back, observing the class from a dark corner, making notes about the classroom, the teacher’s methodology, and how the students responded.  That night I talked to my parents in the US and told them I didn’t think that I was up to the challenge of being an English teacher.  I had anticipated it being difficult, but nothing like I had seen in that first school.  Our teacher training ended, and I was sent to my school.  Set free to teach as best I could, hopefully to do more good than harm.

That first day when I arrived at my school, there was a snaking line of smiling faces, all thrusting flowers into my overflowing arms.  Their smiles said it all, “we’re happy you’re here!”  I sat in the staffroom with  other teachers while they tried to make me comfortable by making small talk in Nepali, most of which I didn’t understand.  That first day was exhausting, and when I went home after school I lay down on my bed and thought about how tired I was, and I hadn’t even taught.  My first week went by in a blur.  I went from classroom to classroom introducing myself, and having a hundred different kids introduce themselves to me with little hope that I would remember any of their names.  Then came Dashain holiday, and I  had yet to actually teach a class.  Most of my time was spent in the staffroom, or observing other teachers’ classes.  My anxiety about teaching only multiplied over the holiday, and when the school resumed I was certain that my first class would be a failure.

My classes arranged, I went to the school with very low expectations.  I would be teaching class 7, first period.  Although I had prepared for class, I was startled by what actually happened.  I went to class being anxious about how I would do, but to my surprise, staring back at me were twenty smiling faces.  I was amazed at how receptive they were and excited to learn.  When the bell rang for the second period I was surprised at how effortlessly the time had passed.  I smiled and said goodbye, and the twenty smiling faces echoed their own goodbyes in response.  I had done it, one class down.  It wasn’t so hard, and I was surer of myself in the second, third and fourth classes of the day.  The day, just like my classes, passed quickly and before I knew it I was back on my bed reflecting on my first day of teaching.  I was exhausted, but happy.

Over the course of those first few weeks I began to learn my students names, their strengths and their weaknesses.  They very quickly welcomed me into the school community.  At the same time, I was trying new teaching methods that they had never encountered before.  I tried to challenge not only in English, but also to think in progressive, critical ways.  Though all this, they stuck with me. I thought a lot about how mature, and intelligent my students were compared to me when I was their age.  But I learned quickly that I shouldn’t be suppressed by my students’ capabilities.  At the very moment that I would start to think of one of them as a poor or lazy student, they would baffle me and their peers, with an incredible dialog, or answer.    It was this uncertainty, and spontaneity that kept me on my toes, and excited to come to school.

Everyday after school I would go home exhausted.  After a few months I met another teacher and told him how tired I was after school each day.  He insisted that I must have been doing something wrong, that I shouldn’t be so tired.  In reply I said that I was fine being tired, in fact I wanted to be tired.  If I had gone home and felt anything other than exhaustion, I would feel as though I hadn’t accomplished anything that day.

That’s how time passed until a few weeks ago.  It was all of a sudden that I realized I wasn’t a new teacher anymore, and then it was time to go.  I had done it, and enjoyed every minute with my students.  My fears from the beginning were never realized.  I found that I was a pretty good teacher, perhaps not because of superior teaching or English skills, but because I cared about my students.  On my last day of school another teacher told me that the students “really love Alban sir, really really love Alban sir.”  It touched me that she would give me such a compliment.  I would have been flattered if she would have said “the teachers really love Alban sir,” but that wouldn’t have meant as much to me.  I knew that she was right, that my students really did love me.  And I, in return, loved them back.  Perhaps that’s why we had such a good rapport, they knew I cared about them, and they about me.  That also may be why they worked so hard for me, humoring my spelling mistakes, and new teaching methods.

As I sat on the stage at my farewell ceremony I could see those one hundred faces that I met eight months before with little hope of learning their names, smiling back at me.  There was Pratima, Monoj, Swastika, Sajan and so many others.  I can honestly say I have never felt such an outpouring of love as I did that day.  As they left I said goodbye and hugged as many of them as could fit between my arms.

While I may not have been a perfect teacher, certainly making mistakes along the road, I’ve very happy the way things turned out.  I’m going to miss my students when I return to the United States, but I will always remember them and teaching English in Nepal.

Within and beyond classroom for teaching English

English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

Simon Taranto

 [In his narrative, Simon Taranto shares his experience of teaching English in a public school in Nepal.- Editor]

Family/Village Life Situation

Living with a Nepali family was a challenging but very rewarding experience for me.  There were many cultural, societal, and language differences that I had to get used to when living with my Nepali family.  I could not speak Nepali in the beginning. But my Nepali language skills improved slowly over the last 9 months to the point where I am now able to hold conversations and joke around in Nepali.  During the first few months of my time in the village and at the school getting over the language barrier took a significant amount of energy.

The Khadka family provided me with a very comfortable room, clean water to drink, comfortable facilities, and outrageously delicious food.  Uttam-ji, Manju-ji, Ujjwol-ji, and Hajurama-ji, were incredibly warm, welcoming, and helpful throughout my stay.  They really made me feel welcome into their family.

I met many people who live in the village and over the past many months I was able to foster relationships with many of them.  From the teashop owner to the recent college graduate and from the bicycle mechanic to the fitness center owner I really enjoyed speaking with and getting to know people.  The village is very quiet and pleasant but also located very close to Patan city so it was easy to move in and out of the city to attend meetings and other events.

School Situation

Rimal sir was an outstanding, ambitious, and energetic teammate to work with.  He showed me the ropes when I first arrived, organized an ornate welcoming ceremony, and made sure that my teaching at the school was run smoothly.  Shambhu KC, our school’s principal, was also a key asset that allowed me to work within many classes at the school of 350 students.  I regularly taught Grades 7-10 and frequently filled in for absent teachers in other lower classes.  The students and I got along well and we were able to share cultures and languages easily.  Whenever time allowed I chose to work outside of the textbooks so as to show other teachers some new teaching ideas and to give the students a broader learning experience.  The school does suffer from volatile teacher attendance and fluctuating student attendance rates.  With a new principal coming in next year and a new school building nearing completion, I expect that the future of Siddhi Mangal is brighter.

NELTA/Fulbright Cooperation

I am very grateful to the immense amount of work, time, and energy that is dedicated to NELTA by its numerous volunteer members.  NELTA’s cooperation with Fulbright is a good relationship that I hope continues far into the future.  Many of the trainings that were run by NELTA members were very impressive and helpful for teachers.  The network that NELTA provides to English teachers is an excellent resource that members should take advantage of.

It would be helpful if NELTA were able to alert ETAs with advance notice of upcoming events so that ETAs could plan accordingly.  In addition, with school selection for the next batch of ETAs I would recommend that NELTA cast its nets wider so as to include schools outside of the Valley and with schools that don’t have a traditional NELTA presence so as to spread the excellent benefits of being a part of NELTA.

Teaching Exercise/Lesson Plan

I frequently found that students were very adept at answering questions they were used to but struggled with slight variations of those same questions.  For example, ‘How are you?’ is question that can easily be answered by students.  However, how’s it going?’ or ‘How was class?’, all of which require the same kinds of answers, are very difficult for students to answer.  With that in mind, the following exercise can help students to be more linguistically flexible, feel more comfortable in unknown language territory, and be more confident.

One of my favorite exercises to run with both students and teachers is titled ‘You Can’t Say Fine.’  This exercise teaches students different ways of asking ‘how are you’ and an array of adjectives that can be used to respond to these questions.  There are many ways to run this exercise.  I am a proponent of getting children out of their seats and outside of the classroom.  With that in my mind, this exercise can used while walking around the school or while on field trips or picnics.  Below is one way to run this activity while inside of the classroom:

  1. Ask students, ‘How are you?’  They will likely robotically respond, ‘We are fine.’
  2. Write ‘fine’ on the board and then put a large X through it.
  3. Tell students they are not allowed to say ‘fine.’
  4. Ask them again, ‘How are you?’ and write all the different responses you get on the board.  This may require the teacher to ask hinting questions about other adjective that be used.  Examples of good adjectives are: excellent, outstanding, fantastic, great, very good, good, okay, alright, bad, terrible, miserable etc..  These responses will likely come from the students in an arbitrary order.
  5. Have the students work in groups and put the words in order from best to worst and write the results on the board.  Have the students copy this down into their notebooks.
  6. Next, the teacher will help the students to practice using these words by introducing other ways of asking ‘How are you?’  Some examples include: ‘How are you doing?’ ‘How are you today?’ How is your day going?’ ‘How’s everything?’ ‘How are thing?’  There are many more but this is a good start.  Write these on the board and have students copy them also.
  7. Show an example of how this works by asking a volunteer one of the above questions.  The volunteer must respond with an adjective and a reason why.  For example,
    1. Teacher: How are you?
    2. Volunteer: I am excellent because I am a volunteer.
    3. Teacher: That’s great.  Thank you.
    4. Have students work in groups to practice these different questions and responses.


Notes:

1. The title is given by the Editor.

2. The author would first like to thank NELTA, the Fulbright Commission in Nepal, Shree Siddhi Mangal Higher Secondary School, and the Khadka family for making my stay in Nepal possible.  I am very grateful for all that you did to make me comfortable.  I hope that cooperation between all these hard-working groups continues.

3. The author is a Fulbright ETA-2010 in Nepal.

Encouraging Creative Production

English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

Luke Lindemann

 During my ten-month stint teaching English in a public secondary school in Lalitpur district, my greatest difficulty was in encouraging creative production to my students. The students found it very difficult to create spontaneous speech acts, to speak and write in an unprompted and unscripted way.

With regards to reading and writing, I found that most of my students had a good command of English vocabulary and could answer questions as long as they were not open-ended. They were very good at answering fill-in-the-gap questions, in which they must find a particular name or action in the passage and write it down as the answer to a question. But they had enormous difficulty when asked to summarize a passage or write down their own emotional response to a passage. The students were having difficulty with creative production.

As to speaking, I found that my students were used to being called upon individually to answer a specific question from the text. These questions were typically close-ended: there was only one correct answer. If they did not know the correct answer, they would look for a fellow student to answer for them, they would claim ignorance and quickly sit down, or they would stand in silent discomfort. Aside from one or two confident students in every class, the majority of students stood up to answer questions with a look of mild dread, and then answered as simply, quickly, and quietly as possible.

I believe that one solution to this problem is to give students many opportunities to practice speaking English without being put on the spot. This means creating activities in which students work in pairs or in small groups to practice dialogues, write and perform their own dramas, or play simple question-and-answer games. Students who are too shy to answer direct questions during a lecture are much more willing to speak English to their friends during group activities.

It is also necessary to foster the ability to give spontaneous answers. For this it is crucial that students learn to say the same thing in multiple ways (“How are you?”, “How is it going?”, “How are you doing?”, “What’s up?”, “What’s new?”, “Are you well?”, etc.). Speaking practice should not be about carefully translating the one correct answer from Nepali into English without any flaws in grammar or pronunciation. It should be about developing the ability to communicate.

As a student learning the German language, my teacher introduced me to the German word umschreiben. Whenever I was speaking in class and I was stumped by my inability to remember the German word for something, instead of giving me the vocabulary word I needed she would tell me that I must umschreiben. This means to paraphrase, to circle around the elusive word, to use all of the words in German that I did know to describe the word that I did not. This is a very valuable skill because it develops creative production and the ability to communicate even when knowledge of vocabulary fails.

One way to encourage spontaneous speech in a class where students have little speaking practice is to play language games that require students to quickly think of something to say. For example, with many classes I played a collaborative story game. The first student in the first row would yell out the first word of a sentence, the next student would yell out another word that adds upon the sentence, and so on down the line until the sentence is complete and a student yells out, “Full stop!” These sentences can be remarkably creative and are frequently hilarious.

Turning briefly to reading and writing skills, I found that my students needed a lot of practice to produce completely novel sentences on their own. I lead some projects in story writing, letter writing, and cartooning, in which each student was required to put his or her own thoughts on the page. We would brainstorm topics and structures as a class, and then each student would have to write their own stories or letters or cartoons.

The goal of all of these exercises is for students to learn to do more than just rearrange the words and concepts that are given to them, or that they have memorized as a sequence of simple scripts. They must learn to use English to express their own ideas and concepts, to go beyond simple reaction to creation.

If we can foster that ability, examination scores will be much higher and students will have more confidence in speaking and writing. Creative production is essential if we wish our students to learn English as an actual language, a useful tool for communication and business, and not as a mere academic exercise.

Luke Lindemann was a 2010-2011 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Shree Udaya Kharka Secondary School in Chapagaon VDC, Lalitpur. Before receiving this grant, he worked as an English teacher for Bhutanese refugees in the United States. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from Pomona College, and his primary interests are language issues and education.

 

 

Review article: Shall We Separate Boys from Girls?

Global thought, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

–Uttam Gaulee

 “How can I sit on the girls’ bench?”his eyes staring at me, as if I had forced him to do something very objectionable. All the students in the classroom burst into laughter. This was a sixth grade boy at an English medium school I was teaching in West Nepal a dozen years ago. I showed the only available seat for him to sit.This boy had arrived late in the class, and afterperforming a customary “May I come in sir?” at the door, had entered the class. I expected him to take the only available seat but he wouldn’t sit down. I felt obliged to show him the only available space for him to sit and I encouraged him to sit there. The bench was shared by four other students–all girls! He would rather stand up for the entire period rather than condescend to sit on the bench with theother sex.Why would he? Wouldn’t he be insulted by all other friends afterwards? Anyway, I smiled to myself, feeling proud as his English teacher, because he spoke out his feeling so nicely in English.

We are all familiar with the typical Nepali high school classroom: girls flocked together at one side of the class in a couple of benches, and boys taking up all the rest of the available seats. Girls are often a minority and they feel secure when together with other girls. How do you arrange boys and girls in your classroom? Boys and girls alternatively, or all the girls together at one side and all the boys at the other? Or do you teach only boys and/or girls in the “boys-only” or “girls-only” schools? We do have some Kanya schools in Kathmandu such as Ishwari Kanya and Balkumari Kanya Vidhayalaya. Why did St. Xavier’s switch to co-ed at the turn of the century after serving as the “boys-only” school for half a century?Are there schools still in place where only boys are taught, perhaps in some Sanskrit or army schools? What is the rationale behind single sex education? How do these schools compete with their co-ed counterparts?Do boys learn differently than girls? Do boys and girls distract each other in learning process? Shall we rather separate boys and girls in schools or even have entirely different schools for boys and girls, so that they learn better? In this piece, I review an interesting article and present an interview that I conducted with one student as a way of testing the article’s arguments. I would be glad to hear what fellow Nepali teachers think about the issue of gender in education in general and teaching English in specific.

In “Single-Sex Classrooms Are Succeeding,”[1] Michael Gurian, Kathy Stevens, and Peggy Daniels say “yes” to the questions I asked above. The authors argue that their institute, the Gurian Institute, has trained thousands of teachers from a wide range of schools from fifteen countries, including more than two thousand schools and districts of the USA. Hence, they claim that having worked with all kinds of schools; they have seen “what is working and what is not working around the globe.”  As strong advocates of single-sex education, the authors have been able to argue very convincingly that single-sex classrooms are succeeding and that the phenomenon has been gaining popularity again. This popularity is happening despite many legal and attitudinal barriers over the past decade, particularly after the announcement of a change of regulation by the US Department of Education in October 2006.

One of the main reasons cited for promoting single-sex instruction is that boys and girls have both brain and learning differences. Putting forward their argument of single-sex instruction, the authors state that such instruction “offers specific gender friendly opportunities”  for expediting learning by the use of their resources and techniques, which many schools featured in the article have found helpful in setting up and maintaining successful single-sex programs. The article features a series of stories about single-sex education piloted by many different schools in the United States that have utilized the single-sex program model and verified its success. Also, they have experimentally verified the results in different modalitiesranging from whole single-sex academies to single-sex core programs andoptional single-sex classes.

There have been widespread successes in single-sex classrooms throughout USA. After single-sex programs were implemented, usually by teachers of the same gender as their students, but not always, achievement on state assessment tests greatly improved, causing some schools like Roosevelt Middle School in Oklahoma, to be taken off the “at risk” list. Some schools, like B.E.S.T Academy, focused on reading instruction for boys and technology instruction for girls. Moreover, a public high school in Arkansas specifically worked with struggling boys who were failing in various subjects and having problems with the transition to high school. Within two years, the high school found that very few of the boys failed. But not only this, discipline referrals also went down by one third. An independent college preparatory school in North Carolina implemented single-sex instruction and found many advantages in four years’ time, such as stronger mentoring relationships, more trust and feelings of attachment between the students and teachers, more stress reduction, anda greater production of new energy for the teaching and learning environment.

Success testimonials from principals, teachers, students, parents and even counselors all chime in to the wonderful achievement stories of the new initiative. One of the counselors writes to the authors, “There is something incredible taking place …a contagious excitement in the air that goes down to our students. It’s not just me – I am hearing it across divisions – I’m glad to be a part of it too.” While the authors cited many glowing examples of schools implementing and finding success in single-sex programs demonstrating that teachers and students found that the classroom environment and academic achievement improved, very few details were given about how boys and girls learn differently. Also missing from the article were instructional strategies teachers could use to better teach these genders.

I interviewed a person who had had some experience of both single-sex and co-ed schooling and interestingly, she is herself a part-time teacher currently teaching boys and girls in 6th grade. She went to an all-girl Catholic high school for grades 9-12, but she was in a co-ed elementary school for grades up to the 8th grade. I think she can be another testimonial for the authors.  Reflecting on her experiences, she remembers in 7th and 8th grade at a co-ed Catholic elementary school she was “a lot more interested in boys.”  However, “…at the high school, I could focus more on learning and was not afraid to participate in class.” She did take Honors Physics and A.P Physics, as well as Calculus for college credit, due to the suggestion of her Chemistry teacher, who was a male. She doesn’t remember favoring female teachers over male teachers, though. “Actually my History and Chemistry teachers (both male) were my favorite teachers because of their kindness, ability to make the class interesting, and their positive feedback.” Her physics teacher, also male, was not her favorite teacher but she did enjoy the challenging work and high standards for organized notes and classwork that he expected.

When I asked if she would have advanced in the math and sciences if Oakland Catholic would have had boys too, she answers, “Hard to say, I might have been more self-conscious and less focused, but truly hard to say.” She believes that in those years where she was forming her identity, she needed to not be distracted by the opposite sex and concentrate on growing academically, and even taking leadership roles at the Catholic religious retreat, “Kairos.”

As a current six grade teacher, she is very surprised to read of a gender achievement gap. She had worked for four years at a predominantly African American school where the racial achievement gap was discussed and shown in presentations.Asked for her thoughts on the reduction in the disciplinary referral for boys, she also wonders if teachers who only taught one gender were fairer if their student population shared their gender. Were female teachers fairer with girls and male teachers fairer with boys? Would co-ed classes show that male teachers disciplined girls differently and female teachers discipline boys differently? “Are we more open-minded with students who are more like us because we understand them?” She wants to learn more about it too.

While she thought more of brain and gender differences in terms of boys being more active and less willing to sit and study than girls are, as well as the stereotypes of boys being more interested in Math and Science while girls prefer Language Arts, she never really heard much thought about other ways they could be different. She is definitely interested in learning more about these differences now. “I briefly looked at an article about gender learning differences, and while I didn’t understand the Math concept, as it was higher Math, I could see how the teachers tapped more into the boys’ interests by just diving right into the material, while with the girls, their emotions were tapped into in regards to their curiosity about the mathematician, stories that surrounded the concept, real-life application, where they brought flowers and other objects in to use for the lesson.” The article for that suggested using “story problems” for girls because they want more of the real-life application than boys do.

She is intrigued by the section of the article that points out that due to single-sex education, the classroom environment improved, where teachers and students felt more connected to each other, and there was a greater sense of trust. Continuing this thought, my subject wondered when teachers “start from scratch” and not stick to the same routine and classroom set-up, if that helps them be creative and enthusiastic, and the students, sensing that, are more motivated to learn as a result.

The article sounds like a promotion of the authors’ institute in the beginning for a couple of reasons. First,  the authors own the institute themselves. Second, they have made a lot of claims bolstered by lots of evidences and testimonials. As much as they seems to be set out to sell their products in describing how their professional development plan for the teachers have been highly effective, they do have compelling elements in in the article.

After the discussion with my subject, another skeptical thought came to my mind. Every new idea comes with a promise and enthusiasm, such as a newly released film, and the charm wanes gradually with time.Did the teachers become more creative and/or students more motivated simply because it was just another “new idea?”  This notion of ephemeral fascination cannot be generalized to all innovations though, as there are someeducational reform movements like B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism, that have perpetual influence in the educational field, even after losing dominance for a long time.

There aretwo most compelling argumentsin the article: (1) the brains of girls and boys develop along different trajectories, and (2) thefactor of being conscious towards the opposite sex during the onset of puberty causes underachievement. However, details regarding these statements are not discussed much in the article. The interview with my subject also prompted me to reflect my own high school days. Boys and girls never sat on the same bench. Actually, all the girls flocked together in a couple of benches set to one side of the classroom while boys were on different rows. In spite of this arrangement of seating, we boys used to be very conscious about the girls’ presence in the class. It was a big distracting factor for most of us, not only in high school, but also in elementary school often times. Most of the boys were hesitant to speak out their thoughts in class because they feared the embarrassment that would entail in front of the girls if what they said was not accepted by the teacher—and the chance of rejection was always high as the teachers were too much obsessed with right or wrong and little did they care about accepting different thoughts.

While this reappearance of single-sex education has attracted the attention of educators, policymakers and parents, Dr. Leonard places a caveat on the possible global acceptance of single-sex education, though she doesn’t say anything about the success in school, per se. Her findings have ‘fuelled claims from teachers’ leaders and education psychologists that boys brought up in a single-sex environment are less able to relate to the opposite sex than those taught in a co-educational school. There is no such effect on the girls as “Girls seem to learn what the nature of the beast is if they have been to single sex schools whereas boys taught on their own seem to find girls more puzzling.” [2] This leads me to conclude that although co-education has a promise to foster natural human development, and that there are a host of other factors such as motivation contributing to the success of education, the modality of single sex classrooms does seem to have many advantages to consider and their book, I am sure, has a lot to offer for the teachers while opening an important issue for further research in different contexts.

I would like to hear what fellow Choutari readers think about this issue in the case of Nepal. Where are we in terms of single sex and co-ed discussion? Do we need to have it?

 Notes:

[1] The article that the author is reviewing in this work can be viewd at: http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ849022.pdf

[2] Professor Diana Leonard, from the Institute of Education, University of London at a conference at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge.

[ 3] See http://www.singlesexschools.org/research-learning.htm for single sex issue

 

The Post Modern Langauge Teacher

Global thought

The postmodern language teacher: The future of task-based teaching

Andrew Edward Finch, Ph.D.

Kyungpook National University

Republic of Korea

Introduction

“We are living in a time of rapid social change. … such change will inevitably affect the nature of those disciplines that both reflect our society and help to shape it. … Modes and categories inherited from the past no longer seem to fit the reality experienced by a new generation” (Hawkes, general editor’s preface, in Hutcheon, 1989, p. vii).

We live in an environment that is continually changing. It seems that rapid change is our only constant. We are faced with an entirely new situation in which the goal of education, if we are to survive, is the facilitation of change and learning. … The only person who is educated is the person who has learned how to learn; the person who has learned how to adapt and change; the person who has realized that no knowledge is secure, that only the process of seeking knowledge gives a basis for security.” (Rogers, 1969, pp. 151-152).

“… education is itself going through profound change in terms of purposes, content and methods … [education] is both a symptom of and a contributor to the socio-cultural condition of postmodernity” (Edwards & Usher, 1994, p. 3).

Changing definitions

“Indeed, many would argue that this very lack of agreement is in itself one of the distinguishing features of the ‘postmodern’” (O’Farrell, 1999, p. 11).

“Postmodernism is a phenomenon whose mode is resolutely contradictory as well as unavoidably political” (Hutcheon, 1989, p. 1)

“… sense of fluidity and open-endedness” which “resists being conveniently summarized in easy ‘soundbites’ and refuses to lend itself to any single cut and dried definition” (Ward, 2003, p. 1).

Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to say that the postmodern’s initial concern is to de-naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as ‘natural’ (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal humanism), are in fact ‘cultural’; made by us, not given to us. Even nature, postmodernism might point out, doesn’t grow on trees. (Hutcheon, 1989, pp. 1-2)

Ward (2003) suggests that postmodernism can be seen (among other things) as: i) an actual state of affairs in society; and ii) the set of ideas which tries to define or explain this state of affairs (2003, p. 5). From this point of view, postmodernism is a set of concepts and debates about what it means to live in our present times. These debates have a number of common themes:

  1. They propose that society, culture and lifestyle are today significantly different from what they were 100, 50 or even 30 years ago.
  2. They are concerned with concrete subjects like the developments in mass media, the consumer society and information technology.
  3. They suggest that these kinds of development have an impact on our understanding of more abstract matters, like meaning, identity and even reality.
  4. They claim that old styles of analysis are no longer useful, and that new approaches and new vocabularies need to be created in order to understand the present. (Ward, 2003, p. 6)

Postmodern categories include:

  1. Crossing of borders (breaking down of barriers)
  2. De-colonization (diversification and regionalism)
  3. Decentralization (lateral, rather than hierarchical decision-making)
  4. Deconstruction (questioning traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth)
  5. Eclecticism (the borrowing and mixing of features from different systems and fields)
  6. Pastiche (imitating the previous works of others, often with satirical intent)
  7. Relativism (conceptions of time, space, truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them)
  8. Self-contradiction (duplicity; the conscious making of self-undermining statements)
  9. Self-reference and self-reflexiveness (use of meta-language and self-constructing forms)

 

Changing sciences

‘Metanarratives’ of the ‘modern’ Age of Reason included i) progress; ii) optimism; iii) rationality; iv) the search for absolute knowledge in science, technology, society and politics; and v) the idea that gaining knowledge of the true self was the only foundation for all other knowledge (Ward, 2003, p. 9).

Science (which replaced religion in the ‘modern’ era in terms of being the subject of unquestioning faith) was seen from this standpoint as: i) progressive (moving towards a state of ‘complete knowledge’); ii) unified (all sub-disciplines shared the same goal); iii) universal (aiming at total truths which would benefit all of human life); and iv) self-justifying (since it was obviously intent on the betterment of the ‘human race’).

These were theoretical warnings about the demise of the modern project, and the onset of a relativistic postmodernism, but the warnings soon received reinforcement, when the myth of benign, philanthropic scientific enquiry was found to be practically inadequate, or even inaccurate. This collapse of faith can be traced to a number of reasons:

  1. the contribution of science to ecological disasters (e.g. pollution, greenhouse gases, acid rain) and mass killing (nuclear, chemical and biological weapons);
  2. the commercialization of science (e.g. the withholding of permission by pharmaceutical corporations in the US to make cheaper, generic versions of their life-saving drugs in underdeveloped countries – an issue recently addressed by the WTO Doha declaration [World Trade Organisation, 2001]);
  3. the loss of faith in the ability to measure reality (due to findings in the sciences of complexity, ‘chaos theory’, quantum mechanics, etc.); and
  4. the division of science into a mass of specialisms (a multitude of disciplines and sub-disciplines now follow their own agendas and speak their own languages).

Was a devastated natural environment the only outcome of the scientific search to improve our physical living conditions? Clearly there was something very wrong indeed with the whole idea that unaided Reason and rationality could save us. (O’Farrell, 1999, p. 14)

Changing worlds

Socia upheavals as evidenced in:

  • an erosion of conventional distinctions between high and low culture;
  • fascination with how our lives seem increasingly dominated by visual media;
  • a questioning of ideas about meaning and communication, and about how signs refer to the world; and
  • a sense that definitions of human identity are changing, or ought to change. (Ward, 2003, p. 11).

Postmodernism (in addition to rejecting the logical/rational foundation stones of the Enlightenment), chips away at the three main cornerstones of modern politics: i) nation; ii) class; and iii) belief in the wholesale transformation of the world (Ward, 2003, p. 173).

Changing educations

A schooling system which promised social equality and enlightenment for all has done little more than reinforce social division and entrench new forms of conformity, ignorance and exclusion. Was this the happiness and social harmony promised by the Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and nineteenth century economist Karl Marx? (O’Farrell, 1999, p. 13)

Hutcheon situates the postmodern “squarely within both economic capitalism and cultural humanism – two of the major dominants of much of the western world” (1989, p.13), and education in the postmodern world has accordingly been made accountable to capitalist market forces.

“In short, knowledge is no longer assessed in terms of its truth or falsity or its promotion of justice, but in terms of its efficiency at making money” (Lyotard, 1984, p.51).

In the Korean context, the excessive attention paid to high-stakes testing has produced a particular variant of this phenomenon. Rather than asking the extrinsic “Will this English lesson help me to learn English for use in the global village?”, the reflexive “Will this English lesson help me learn how to learn English?”, or even the intrinsic “Will this English lesson help me to maximize my love of language and show me the beauty inherent in language learning and cultural exchange per se?”, high school students in Korea typically ask (and are supported by their parents in doing so) “Will this information be on the CSAT?”[1] If the answer is not “Yes,” then there is (in their perception) no reason for acquiring the information, and students turn their attention to more obviously instrumental learning texts, such as the Educational Broadcasting Service (EBS) CSAT Preparation books, which form the unofficial syllabus of most 3rd-year high school English classes in Korea (cf. Finch, 2004a).

A further example of the commercialization of education in Korea can be found in the proliferation of private language institutes. These institutes exist to help students pass the CSAT,  TOEFL,[2] TOEIC, TEPS[3] and even high-school-entrance tests. In the words of Kim See-bong, the owner of such an institute,

“Children from nursery school to high school go to five or six hakwons [private institutions] a week. Some take in as many as nine. When they come back home, they still have to prepare for the schoolwork” (Kim, 2005).

Seven out of 10 students are receiving tutoring, with private education expenses taking up an average of 12.7 percent of the household expenditure” (Korean Educational Development Institute, Soh, 2004).

It is evident, therefore, that education in the postmodern era can no longer see itself as independent of historical, economic and cultural contexts, and that schools (especially the many private secondary schools in Korea) must instead attract ‘clients’ and money through persuasive images (simulacra) in brochures, prospectuses and websites

  1. Education should be more diverse in terms of goals and processes and consequently in terms of organisational[4] structures, curricula, methods and participants.
  2. Education should no longer function as a means of reproducing society or as an instrument in large-scale social engineering. It [should] become limitless both in time and space.
  3. Any attempt to place education into a straitjacket of uniform provision, standardised [sic]curricula, technicised teaching methods, and bearer of universal ‘messages’ of rationality or morality would be difficult to impose.
  4. Education in the postmodern, cannot help but construct itself in a form which would better enable greater participation in a diversity of ways by culturally diverse learners.
  5. Education in the postmodern is likely to be marked both by a general decentring and a general loosening of boundaries. (Adapted from Edwards & Usher, 1994, pp. 211-212)

Changing Englishes

TABLE 1: Contrasting modern and postmodern educational concepts

Modern metanarratives Postmodern metanarratives
High-stakes, standardized testing (Absolute measurement; focus on the product of learning) Classroom-Based Assessment using portfolios, journals, formative self- and peer-assessment (Relativistic focus on process; deconstruction of the standardized testing paradigm)
Competition (aggression, competitive individualization, survival of the fittest, first-past-the-post) Collaboration (Social learning, teamwork) balanced by a new form of individualization – autonomous learning and self-access learning
Studying English through its ‘highest achievements’ i.e. elitist English literature (Strict boundaries; restrictions of genre) Learning English through pop-culture, comics, the internet, etc. (Plurality of genres; crossing boundaries; eclecticism)
Linguistic imperialism (Colonialism)The English ‘native-speaker’ Postcolonialism (Use of diverse Englishes as variants of a lingua franca, providing a means of expressing local cultures; death of the ‘native speaker’)
Structural syllabi (Totalization) Process syllabi, task-based and project-based learning (Deconstruction of propositional language learning concepts)
Quantitative, experimental, ‘objective’ research (Absolute measurement of rigorously isolated and independently observed ‘truths’) Qualitative, subjective, action research (Relativistic description of perceptions; systems analysis of group learning environments)
Behaviorist view of learning as predictable and independent of emotions Recognition of affective and social filters (language learning as social, cultural, emotional and unpredictable)
Standardized, Western English (Totalization) Regional Englishes, dialects and pronunciations (Decentralization, Regionalization, Diversification)
Linear, sequential learning, language as code (Absolute, grammatical ‘truths’) Self-reflexive use of meta-language and learning strategies in a non-linear learning format
Teacher-centered learning (Centralization) Student-centered learning (Decentralization)
Teacher-controlled learning (Totalization) Student autonomy, self-directed learning (Decentralization, regionalism)
Studying the culture of the target language (Centralization, colonialism) Studying regional and global cultures through the target language (Regionalism and globalism).

 

The learning task provides a framework for meaningful interaction to take place, using “purposeful” (or meaningful) situations which refine cognition, perception and affect (Breen & Candlin, 1980, p. 91)

It is a tribute to the efficacy of task-based instruction (TBI) that this method has become the one of choice in the best government programs. Since the 1980s, nearly all government institutions have used TBI in their foreign language programs. (Leaver & Willis, 2004, p. 47).

Tasks can be seen as tools for constructing collaborative acts. (Ellis, 2003, 178)

These tasks can cater for learning by providing opportunities for learners:

  • to use new language structures and items through collaboration with others;
  • to subsequently engage in more independent use of the structures they have internalized in relatively undemanding tasks;
  • to finally use the structures in cognitively more complex tasks. (Ellis, 2003, p. 178)

Tasks thus combine (or encourage) many of the postmodern features of TEFL theory and practice: collaboration, autonomy, student-centeredness, and negotiation of meaning. Tasks involve the students in their learning, and in so doing, promote active decision-making, problem-solving, critical thinking, and responsibility of learning. Furthermore, they included formative self-assessment in this new approach to learning, by requiring learners to set goals, assess their achievements, and reflect on their needs.

When this approach is extended by letting tasks grow into projects, a form of TEFL emerges which can be said both to be a result of, and to contribute to, effective and meaningful language education in the postmodern era. Rather than expecting everyone to acquire the same language at the same time and at the same rate, and then giving everyone the same test (totalization), a project approach recognizes the diversity of learning needs, learning styles, language proficiencies, beliefs, attitudes and levels that exist in the typical EFL multilevel class, and allows students to study what they want, in the manner that they want. By putting students ‘in the driving seat’ (decentralization), the project syllabus fosters active communication skills (cooperation, discussion, negotiation, etc.) as well as problem-identification, goal setting, self-assessment and reflection (Legutke & Thomas, 1991, p. 160). The role of the teacher in this new situation is to facilitate learning by being a language resource and providing guidance (linguistic, emotional, cognitive and social) where appropriate.

… we can neither claim that learning is caused by environmental stimuli (the behaviorist position) nor that it is genetically determined (the innatist position). Rather, learning is the result of complex (and contingent) interactions between individual and environment. (Van Lier, 1996, p. 170)

The educational context, with the classroom at its center, is viewed as a complex system in which events do not occur in linear causal fashion, but in which a multitude of forces interact in complex, self-organizing ways, and create changes and patterns that are part predictable, part unpredictable. (Van Lier, 1996, p. 148)

In giving equal value to the self-reflexive and the historically grounded, “postmodernism ultimately manages to install and reinforce as much as to undermine and subvert the conventions and presuppositions it appears to challenge” (Hutcheon, 1989, p. 2), so it is interesting to note that the project approach focuses on holistic learning (education of the whole person), and develops autonomous (intrapersonal) and group (interpersonal) responsibility, while promoting critical, informed problem-solving and accountability – goals that the propositional paradigm and the ‘modern’ education movement ostensibly aimed at but subverted through centralization and totalization.

Conclusion

Postmodern TEFL theory presents English as a lingua franca with regional variations – a global language in which there are no native speakers, no standard pronunciations or grammars, and no target culture. Western-oriented practices (and politics) of language teaching are being reinterpreted in the light of indigenous learning needs and sociopolitical factors, and the mutually exclusive goals attainment (MEGA) ethic of classroom competition and high-stakes testing (Kohn, 1992) is being discredited by more effective and socially desirable collaborative studying models. ‘Learning to learn’ is being seen as a lifelong process, in which language is used as a means of learning language, and the mass media has successfully colonized the profession, bringing its global messages of financial accountability, consumerism, and the ‘image’ as reality.

In this situation, TEFL as a profession cannot make any modernist claims to be progressive, unified or universal in its approaches or practices, though it is a postmodern contradiction and ‘doubleness’ that various establishments and schools of thought (e.g. the “peace as a global language” movement) continue in this endeavor, and that postmodern approaches include both neo-liberal and neo-conservative views on education reform. Perching on this metaphoric border between order and chaos, and “to the extent to which any of us is clear about anything” (Postman, 1995, p. 87), the postmodern perspective does, however, hold out hope for the future as well as describing the disillusionment with the past. As O’Farrell concludes:

If education can be a machine for social conformity, it can also be a machine for the investigation of new horizons and new possibilities. The proliferation of ‘difference’ and uncertainty in the postmodern world, far from being a problem, is a constant invitation to imagine the unimaginable. (O’Farrell, 199, p. 17)

The postmodern TEFL situation can be seen as heralding a number of deaths; i) the death of the ‘native speaker’; ii) the death of structuralism; iii) the death of imperialism; and iv) the death of the ‘teacher.’ However, this presentation suggests that by shifting responsibility for learning and assessment to the learner, by focusing on the acquisition of learning skills and social skills in a group context, and by offering the opportunity to learn in self-directed learning projects, TBLT, and project learning in particular, can provide a feasible approach to language learning in the 21st century “through an awareness of how we use language, how language uses us, and what measures are available to clarify our knowledge of the world we make (Postman, p. 87).

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[2] TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language

[3] TEPS: Test of English Performance Skills

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Linking global with local

Critical Outlook, English as a Global Language, Global thought, Native Perspective

Linking global with local

Prem Phyak
Department of English Education
Tribhuvan University

I cannot say what exactly happened. I cannot say who said what. I cannot elaborate all important things discussed there. That was all about sharing professional ideas and experiences among ELT practitioners. This was voluntary aspiration and effort for the professional development of English language teachers in Nepal and around the globe in general. Moreover, that was all about breaking the barriers between the so-called dichotomies of senior and junior, novice and expert/experienced, researcher and applier, teacher and learner/student, native and non-native speaker and so on. In essence, that was a successful effort to establish a mutual bondage between local and global ELT practitioners.

The above background sets the foundation for sharing the experience of NELTA’s 15th International Conference held in Kathmandu on 19-21 February (I am sorry I could not go to Surkhet. We would be grateful if Surkhet friends can share about that). About 800 ELT practitioners from home and abroad not only attended the conference but also share many valuable ideas of teaching English. In fact it was a professional rendezvous place which provided English teachers a platform to generate and construct new knowledge. With the success of that mega gathering, I do not hesitate to say that English teachers have given a big lesson to the country, that is, if there is a benevolent collaborative effort, like we are doing, we can generate a lot of knowledge which can be used for the better future of not only English teachers but also of human kinds in general. Prof. Tirth Raj Khaniya, Honourable Member of National Planning Commission, in his speech said that NELTA is successful to make a significant political implication in Nepal. He reiterated that NELTA is not doing any direct political activities by following any political party’s agenda but it has become successful in giving a good lesson to all political parties. It has taught them how hardships and professional vigour can be translated into meaningful power in a difficult circumstance collaboratively. He highlighted that NELTA is successful in doing purely an academic and professional politics of English teachers. At the same time, Prof. Jai Raj Awasthi focused that we teachers should not put the hat of a teacher but that of a learner. He argues that teachers are always learners. We should learn, unlearn and relearn through sharing and collaboration. This implies that professional collaboration is needed without which learning may not become meaningful.

Let me highlight some significant issues which emerged during the conference. I will start with Rt. Honourable Chair of the Constituent Assembly (CA), Mr. Subas Chandra Nembang’s speech. I know, he was born in the Limbu community (one of the indigenous communities in Nepal) and his mother tongue is Limbu. Moreover, being the Chair of CA, all participants had expected that he would deliver his speech in Nepali as other leaders do. But beyond that expectation he addressed the ceremony in English. His speech in English has reflected his multiple identities constructed through the English language. He did not only deliver speech in English but also raised some crucial issue that we, English teachers, have to discuss. He said;
The importance of the English language has become universal. Undoubtedly, it has been widely used in the present day. Without the knowledge of the English language our access to more than half of the world would become inaccessible. Our ability to communicate with a large part of the world and do business with them would be extremely limited. We will miss al the nice opportunities that more than half of the world offers to us for our all-round development. Therefore, it is not wise not to have good command of English for all of us.
He focuses that we need to learn English in order to communicate with people from other parts of the world. This implies that our relationship (professional, business, political etc.) is based on the way we communicate in English. The tragedy of not learning English is hard to imagine. This idea is telling us that our linkage with the global community is possible only through the English language. At the same time, speaking English stands for the symbol of the civilisation on the basis of which a society progresses further. However, he contented;

I frankly want to tell you the fact that I am not satisfied with the knowledge or the skill that the majority of students acquire the English language out of their 20-year long studies in Nepal.

Of course this is true. And this leaves a significant implication for the mission of NELTA and our future initiatives. The issue which emerges from this is: How should we work to improve the standard of English in Nepal? This leads me to raise some other questions: Do we need to assess the method of teaching English we are adopting for our students? What methods fit in our context? Should we follow only one method or many methods? Are we promoting a sustainable learning or spoon-feeding students? Do we promote critical thinking skill? Do textbooks address learners’ identity, culture and values? Are we teaching the English language in isolation or making students able to link local with global issues? I am not answering these questions here because they do not have absolute answers and they cannot be measured in terms of a product. However, these questions may lead us to a process which helps us to lay a strong foundation to develop our students’ English ability and make them able to digest conflicts and differences.

David Graddol, one of the key speakers of the conference, said that “…two billion people [will] be speaking or learning English within a decade.” He highlighted that with the spread of globalisation, which includes technological advancements, global flow of people, multinational business etc., English has become a global language. He further said that the number of non-native speakers of English is increasing rapidly. However, he also mentioned that, the global spread of English… will lead to serious economic and political disadvantages in the future…. A future in which monolingual English graduates face bleak economic prospects as qualified multilingual young people prove to have a competitive advantage in global companies and organizations. This clearly indicates that monolingual knowledge of English will not be helping us to cope with the future need of the complex multilingual world. If I relate Graddol’s idea with the theme of the conference, English in Diversity, I could say that we should also make our students competent in other languages along with English. The importance and existence of English is realised vis-à-vis other languages. This argument is related to what the Chair of CA said, “Nowadays knowing only one language is not enough for our all-round development. We have to learn more than one language.”

Dr. Numa Makee, another key speaker, highlighted that not only the population of English speakers is increasing but also the varieties of English are increasing rapidly. This implies that the distinction between native and non-native speakers of English is breaking. We have different varieties of English in different countries and within a country. In this regard, Dr Markee highlighted the implications of World Englishes (WE) in the context of Nepal. “In the complex linguistic, geographical, ideological, and sociocultural ecology that characterizes WE, Nepal is in perhaps a uniquely difficult position,” he said, “Geographically, it is a small, under-developed country which is sandwiched between the world’s largest emerging economic super powers of the 21st century, India and China, respectively.” This indicates that the variety of English we are speaking should either be influenced by Indian English or Chinese English. Moreover, he raises a question: whether we have Nepalese English variety? How feasible is it to use as a medium of instruction in schools? These are important issues we Nepalese English teachers should explore. At this moment, I can only make a hypothesis that, based on the notion of WE, one day we will have a separate variety of English, Nepalese English. This may emerge with the publications of textbooks and materials in Nepal by local authors instead of importing books from India and other parts of the world.

Likewise, Markee’s presentation indicates that we, English teachers, do not only have the responsibility of teaching English but also have a key role in formulating the language policy in order to promote the status of English. At this moment I would like to put what Markee exactly said;
Nepal is in the process of developing a new constitution. Nepalese applied linguists and ELT teachers should take a leading role in framing the discussion of language issues that is bound to ensue. In particular, what (quasi) official role (if any) should English play in relation to indigenous Nepalese languages, and in particular sectors of the economy, education, science, business, and tourism?”
This profound observation has added another great responsibility among us. This indicates we do have responsibility of discussing the issue of language policy which guides the whole profession of ELT. But we need to contemplate on some other questions which are embedded in the issue raised above. Should we take this role? Are we ready to take this role? How can we be successful in taking this role? In addition to this, Markee discusses another responsibility of Nepalese ELT teachers. He asks a question: What steps should Nepal take to maintain its linguistic and cultural heritage from the potential “killer” characteristics of English? This question has a great implication not only for ELT but also for the whole notion. This indicates that being ELT practitioners we should also look after a unique linguistic and cultural diversity we have. This is our responsibility to address the values, skills, attitudes, and cultures of people while teaching English. In that sense, English becomes a tool to empower learners and maintain social harmony. When we empower children they know the local issues and build a strong base for exploring global ideas. What do you think?