Let us welcome the New Team!

Praveen Kumar Yadav is a Development Coordinator at the Child Rights and Youth Promotion Projects in Community. A near-graduate from Tribhuvan University’s M.Ed program (plus MA in Rural Development), Praveen is a self-motivated, enthusiastic, creative scholar in English language education, a subject that he creatively combines in his work in community development and social mobilization. Praveen is working on his M.Ed thesis which happens to be on the subject of “professional development in Nepalese ELT through blogging” and he focuses on this blog, Nelta Choutari. Praveen has organized a variety of events in both fields of ELT and community development. He is a technologically savvy worker and scholar in both fields. Some of the many other experiences that Praveen was involved in during his highly productive professional career include teaching at the Institute of Community Health and Technology, grade schools, and the Consular Office of India. Praveen has a number of publications to his credit.

Madhav Kafle is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Applied Linguistics at Pennsylvania State University in the United States. He was quite fascinated with the previous issues of Choutari as they cater to multiple tastes that he wishes to rejoice to. The quality of the scholarship and the commitment of the current editors to the profession has amazed and encouraged him to join the ongoing conversation. He thinks that building on what has been already established is quite crucial. He has been on both local and international ELT rivers for at least 10 years. He is a member of Penn TESOL East, Big TESOL, IAWE, AAAL, & NCTE. His major professional interests include globalization and ELT, academic literacies, and critical pedagogy.  He is also interested in language policy and education, and advocacy for minority students. Currently he is exploring how international students in the US negotiate vernacular and academic literacies. When not doing academic work, he loves to go trekking and interact with the people in the rural areas of Nepal. Although he is currently studying abroad and might not be quite familiar with the contemporary state of ELT knowledge in Nepal, he still believes that we can come together in Choutari to show the rest of the ELT world that we DO exist. He hopes that despite various challenges, people across different regions of Nepal as well beyond will exchange their tales and travails so that we can, as Shyam sir says, grow collectively.

Lal Bahadur Rana is a lecturer of English language education at Surkhet Campus (Education), Birendranagar, Surkhet. He has been teaching English at the campus over the last seven years. Besides teaching, he is interested in trekking. He was involved in NELTA from 1996, the time when he was studying at campus in Surkhet as a general member and from 2004 he has become the life member of NELTA. Mr. Rana is also a life member of Goreto Nepal and CT Society Nepal, both of which have been established in Nepal with a view to imparting quality education through critical thinking.

Suresh Kumar Shrestha is From Birgunj, Parsa. He has been a language instructor for over 18 years and is currently teaching at Birgunj Public College, Birgunj as an English teacher and at Birgunj Access Center as an Access teacher, too. He is a B.Sc. (Maths), B.Ed.(English), and doing an M.Ed.(English/ thesis in process). He has done two online English courses from UMBC and attended different training courses, local, regional and international conferences held by NELTA. He is an executive member of NELTA Birgunj , as well as a member of the editors’ team of ‘ELT Today’, an annual journal by NELTA Birgunj He has written several articles for ELT Today and Nelta Choutari and presented a paper in NELTA’s 17th International Conference in Kathmandu.

Ushakiran Wagle is a graduate of Kathmandu University. She is teaching English at National School of Sciences (NIST) Lainchour.  She has the experience of teaching English—and of being a member of NELTA—for three years. She loves to apply new ideas to her teaching, especially by finding out new ideas and issues from her students. Teacher development and the issues related to it professionally attract her to the field of teaching. She has published one article in Nelta Choutari and conducted research studies for her academic work, including an action research whose result was highly beneficial to the students and teachers of a school where the study was conducted. She has also been presenting at NELTA Conferences, as well as working as a volunteer during this conference. Beside the NELTA she is also a member of IATEFL. Usha was drawn to Nelta Choutari because she not only found a lot of useful information about NELTA and issues about ELT on this site, she could also use materials in it for her academic work. She observes a lack of sufficient venues for students and scholars to share their ideas with broad communities in Nepal; so she finds Choutari a place where younger scholars can share their ideas. She looks forward to stimulating the conversation on the blog as she takes on the responsibility as one of the editors.

Bal Ram Adhikari teaches at Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tribhuvan University where he has been teaching for the last seven years. He is a graduate with MA and MEd from Tribhuvan University. He joined NELTA as a life member in 2000. To his credit, there are a dozen publications in English grammar for students and teachers, and translations in English and Nepali. He has contributed to textbooks prescribed by the University for its B Ed and MEd students. His research-based articles have appeared in Nepalese Linguistics, Journal of NELTA and Nepalese Art, Literature and Cultures published by Nepal Academy. His areas of interest include teacher training, translation and editing and creative writing. Chautari has been a locus of his interest, especially because of its role in providing a forum for Nepalese ELT practitioners in sharing their experiences and knowledge. How we can bind varied Nepalese ELT experience and knowledge with theoretical strands will be his prime concern. He thinks that we need more readers and critical observation from them to make the Choutari initiation more relevant and success.

(compiled and edited by Shyam Sharma)