All posts by admin

Creative Writing for Students and Teachers

Creative Writing, Creativity, Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, ELT Resource, English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous, Scholarly Article, Writing

Alan Maley

U.K.

Why is it that most institutional systems of education develop such narrow and unadventurous teaching procedures?  How is it that joyful learning somehow gets overwhelmed by institutional rituals: the worship of the syllabus, the obsession with ‘covering’ the textbook, the manic preoccupation with the exam, the compulsion to conform?  It seems that only in rare cases, through the determination of individual teachers, is joyful learning achieved.  In most other cases, the language is reduced to drumming in material as if it were a set of mathematical formulae in preparation for the exam, after which it can safely be discarded.  Small wonder that many students simply switch off  and develop a lifelong aversion to the language in question.  What they learn is neither enjoyable nor perceived as useful in the ‘real’ world outside the classroom.

This applies to much English language teaching too: all too often, it lacks a creative spark.  John McRae goes so far as to say,

“In future years, the absence of imaginative content in language teaching will be considered to have marked a primitive stage of the discipline: the use of purely referential materials limits the learner’s imaginative involvement with the target language, and leads to a one-dimensional learning achievement.  Representational materials make an appeal to the learner’s imagination…”  (McRae 1991:vii)

In this article I shall be arguing for the need to develop more creative approaches to writing as a way of enriching the learning experiences of both teachers and learners.

 

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is often contrasted with Expository writing.  I have summarized the principle differences between them in the following table:

   Expository Writing   Creative Writing

 

     Instrumental

 

     Facts

 

     External control

 

     Conventions

 

     Logical

 

     Analytical

 

     Impersonal

 

     Thinking mode

 

    Appeal to the intellect

 

    Avoidance of ambiguity

 

    Aesthetic

 

    Imagination

 

    Internal discipline

 

    Stretching rules

 

    Intuitive

 

    Associative

 

    Personal

 

    Feeling mode (plus thinking!)

 

    Appeal to the senses

 

    Creation of multiple meanings

When writing an expository text we are essentially instrumentally motivated. We have a quantum of facts, ideas and opinions to put across.  Expository writing rests on a framework of externally imposed rules and conventions.  These range from grammatical and lexical accuracy and appropriacy to specific genre constraints.  The aim of expository writing is to be logical, consistent and impersonal and to convey the content as unambiguously as possible to the reader.

Creative writing, by contrast, is aesthetically motivated.  It deals less in facts than in the imaginative representation of emotions, events, characters and experience.  Contrary to what many believe, creative writing is not about license.  It is a highly disciplined activity.  But the discipline is self-imposed: ‘the fascination of what’s difficult’ (Yeats).  In this it stands in contrast to expository writing, which imposes constraints from without.  It often proceeds by stretching the rules of the language to breaking point, testing how far it can go before the language breaks down under the strain of innovation.  Creative writing is a personal activity, involving feeling. This is not to say that thought is absent – far from it.  The ingenuity of a plot, or the intricate structure of a poem are not the products of an unthinking mind: they require a unique combination of thought and feeling – part of what Donald Davie (1994) calls ‘articulate energy.’  An important quality of creative writing however is the way it can evoke sensations.  And, unlike expository writing, it can be read on many different levels and is open to multiple interpretations.

The Case for Creative Writing.

 

It is reasonable to ask however, how we can justify the inclusion of creative writing, in addition to aesthetic reading, in our language teaching practices.  A recent small-scale survey (unpublished data) I conducted among some 50 leading ELT professionals, especially teachers of writing, yielded the following reasons:

1.  Creative writing aids language development at all levels: grammar, vocabulary, phonology and discourse. As learners manipulate the language in interesting and demanding ways, attempting to express uniquely personal meanings (as they do in creative writing), they necessarily engage with the language at a deeper level of processing than with expository texts (Craik and Lockhart 1972).  The gains in grammatical accuracy,  appropriacy and originality of lexical choice, and sensitivity to rhythm, rhyme, stress and intonation are significant.

2. Creative writing also fosters ‘playfulness’.  In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the role of play in language acquisition. (Cook 2000, Crystal 1998)  In some ways the ‘communicative movement’ has done a disservice to language teaching by its insistence on the exclusively communicative role played by language.  The proponents of play point out, rightly, that in L1 acquisition, much of the language used by children is almost exclusively concerned with play: rhythmical chants and rhymes, word games, jokes and the like.  Furthermore, such playfulness survives into adulthood, so that many social encounters are characterized by language play (puns, jokes, ‘funny voices’, metathesis, and so on) rather than by the direct communication of messages. In creative writing, learners are encouraged to do precisely this: to play creatively with the language in a guilt-free environment.  As Crystal states, ‘Reading and writing do not have to be a prison house.  Release is possible.  And maybe language play can provide the key.’ (Crystal 1998:217)

3. This playful element encourages learners to take risks with the language, to explore it without fear of reproof.  By manipulating the language in this way, they also begin to discover things not only about the language but about themselves.  They effectively begin to develop a ‘second language personality’.

4.  Much of the teaching we do draws and focuses on the left side of the brain, where our logical faculties are said to reside.  Creative writing puts the emphasis on the right side of the brain, with a focus on feelings, physical sensations, intuition, and the like.  This is a healthy restoration of balance between the logical and the intuitive faculties.  It also allows scope for learners whose hemisphere preference or dominance may not be left-brain, and who, in the usual course of teaching, are therefore at a disadvantage.

5.  The dramatic increase in self-confidence and self-esteem which creative writing tends to develop among learners leads to a corresponding increase in motivation.  Dornyei (2001), among others, has pointed to evidence that suggests that among the key  conditions for promoting motivation are:

‘5. Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom

6.  Promote the development of group cohesiveness.

13. Increase the students’ expectancy of success in particular tasks and in learning in

general.

17. Make learning more stimulating and enjoyable by breaking the monotony of

classroom events.

18. Make learning stimulating and enjoyable for the learner by increasing the

attractiveness of tasks.

19. Make learning stimulating and enjoyable for the learners by enlisting them as active

task participants.

20. Present and administer tasks in a motivating way.

23. Provide students with regular experiences of success.

24. Build your learners’ confidence by providing regular encouragement.

28. Increase student motivation by promoting cooperation among the learners.

29. Increase student motivation by actively promoting learner autonomy.

33. Increase learner satisfaction.

34. Offer rewards in a motivational manner.’(Dornyei 2001: 138-144)

All these conditions are met in a well-run creative writing class.  This increase in motivation is certainly supported by my own experience in teaching creative writing.  Learners suddenly realize that they can write something in the foreign language which no one else has ever written before.  And they experience not only a pride in their own products but a joy in the process.

6. Creative writing also feeds into more creative reading.  It is as if, by getting inside the process of creating the text, learners come to intuitively understand how such texts work, and this makes them easier to read.  Likewise, the development of aesthetic reading skills provides the learner with a better understanding of textual construction, and this feeds into their writing.  There is only one thing better than reading a lot for developing writing ~ and that is writing a lot too!

7. Finally, the respondents to the questionnaire survey were almost unanimous in agreeing that creative writing helps to improve expository writing too. In fact, by helping learners to develop an individual voice, it makes their factual writing more genuinely expressive.

All of the above factors were mentioned by the respondents to the questionnaire.  Respondents noted that students who become engaged in CW tasks demonstrate a robust sense of self-esteem and are consequently better motivated (Dornyei 2001).  They also become more aware both of the language and of themselves as learners. The virtuous cycle of success breeding more success is evident with such students.  As they become more self-confident, so they are prepared to invest more of themselves in these creative writing tasks.  Above all, students derive not just ‘fun’ but a deeper sense of enjoyment from their writing.

References

Arnold, Jane.  (1999).  Affect in Language Learning.  Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Boden, Margaret.  (1998)  The Creative Mind.  London: Abacus.

Carter, Ronald.  (2004)  Language and Creativity: the art of common talk.  London: Routledge.

Cook, Guy.  (2000)  Language Play: Language Learning.  Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Craik, F.I.M. and R.S. Lockhart (1972)  ‘Levels of processing: a framework for memory research.’  Journal for verbal learning and Verbal Behaviour II: 617-84.

Crystal, David. (1998)  Language Play.  London: Penguin.

Davie, Donald (1994)  Purity of Diction in English Verse and Articulate Energy.  London: Carcanet.

Day, Richard and Julian Bamford.  (1998)  Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom.  Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press

Dornyei ,Zoltan  (2001) Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom.  Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Gardner,  Howard. (1985)  Frames of Mind.  London: Paladin Books

Gleick, James. (1988)  Chaos.  London: Sphere Books

Koch, Kenneth. (1990) Rose, where did you get that red?  New York: Vintage Books.

Krashen, Stephen  (2004 second edition) The Power of Reading.  PortsmouthNH: Heinemann

Maley, Alan (ed) (2007 a)) Asian Short Stories for Young Readers.  Vol. 4.  Petaling Jaya: Pearson/Longman Malaysia

Maley, Alan (ed)  (2007 b))  Asian Poems for Young Readers. Vol.5. Petaling Jaya:Pearson/Longman Malaysia.

Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan.  (eds) (2005 a))  Asian Stories for Young Readers, Vol 1   Petaling Jaya: Pearson/Longman Malaysia.

Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan  (eds)  (2005 b))  Asian Stories for Young Learners. Vol. 2  Petaling Jaya: Pearson Malaysia

Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan (eds) (2005 c) Asian Poems for Young Readers.Vol. 3.   Petaling Jaya: Pearson/Longman.

Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan (eds) (2011a)) Asian Short Stories for Young Readers.  Petaling Jaya: Pearson Malaysia

Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan (eds)  (2011 b)) Asian Poems for Young Readers. Petaling Jaya: Pearson Malaysia.

Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan (2011 c))  Writing Poems: a resource book for teachers of English.  Petaling Jaya: Pearson Malaysia

Maley, Alan and Jayakaran Mukundan (2011 d))  Writing Stories; a resource book for teachers of English.  Petaling Jaya: Pearson Mal.aysia

McRae, John  (1991) Literature with a Small ‘l’.  Oxford.: Macmillan.

Matthews, Paul. 1994. Sing Me the Creation.  Stroud:Hawthorn Press.

Mukundan, Jayakaran.  (ed)  (2006) Creative Writing in EFL/ESL Classrooms II.  Petaling Jaya: Pearson Longman Malaysia

Rubdy, Rani and Mario Saraceni (eds) (2006) English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles.  London/New York: Continuum.

Schmidt, Richard (1990).  ‘The role of  consciousness in second language learning’.  Applied Linguistics. Vol. 11, No. 2 129-158.  Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Schumacher, E.F.  (1974).  Small is Beautiful.  London: Abacus/Sphere Books

Spiro, Jane  (2004)  Creative Poetry Writing.  Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Spiro, Jane.  (2006)  Creative Story-building.  Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Tan, Bee Tin (ed) (2004). Creative Writing in EFL/ESL Classrooms I  Serdang: UPM Press.

Tomlinson, Brian  (1998). ‘Seeing what they mean: helping L2 learners to visualise.’  In B.Tomlinson (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching.  Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.  265-78

Tomlinson, Brian (2001) ‘The inner voice: a critical factor in language learning’  Journal of the Imagination in L2 learning.  VI, 123-154.

Wright, Andrew and David Hill. (2008)  Writing Stories.  Innsbruck: Helbling Languages.

Writers Teach, Teachers Write

Creative Writing, Creativity, ELT Resource, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writing

Kirk Branch

U.S.A.

Over 15 days, I traveled throughout the southern part of Nepal (“I went down,” I tell my friends in the United States, who expect to hear stories of the Himalayas), working with teachers and students – writers – who were looking for ways to incorporate creative writing into their English language classrooms. At the invitation of the U.S. Embassy, and hosted throughout by NELTA representatives in Kathmandu, Birgunj, and Kawasoti, my short trip will stay with me well after my return.

Before every workshop I ran, before the talk I gave in Birgunj, I asked participants a simple question: “How many of you are writers?” Sometimes, nobody raised a hand; occasionally, some raised a tentative hand, nervous about claiming the title of writer but unwilling to say that they weren’t. That question introduced the simple idea at the heart of all the workshops and conversations I had in Nepal: If you are not a writer, you are not qualified to teach writing. How can you teach guitar, if you can’t play guitar? How can you teach volleyball, if you don’t play volleyball? Of course you cannot, or at least you cannot do it very well.

And so, in all the places I traveled, we wrote. We wrote stories, and memoirs, and poems, haikus and slam poetry and fables. I heard stories about family members who sacrificed for their children, poems full of frustration at the current politics of Nepal, diatribes against the bandh. The writings were by turns funny, beautiful, sweet, angry. And we shared the writing, reading aloud, sometimes laughing, sometimes tearing up, sometimes feeling the anger and frustration, always supportive and always curious about what each participant had to say and wanted to explore.

In the process, I hope that the participants began to understand how to think like a writer. Writers know a few things about writing that non-writers don’t usually understand. Perhaps most importantly, writers understand that the rules provided in textbooks and in official curricula are usually too simple and often are just wrong. Some writers use an outline when they write, but most don’t. Some writers create texts with only five paragraphs, but most don’t. Some writers have a topic sentence at the front of every paragraph, but most don’t. Teachers who write as well as teach writing are better able to help other writers find things to write about and support them as they create a text, not by giving them strict rules, but by offering knowledgeable support.

All writers know that writing is hard, that becoming a more proficient writer requires regular practice, that even people who write for a living struggle with openings and agonize through several drafts to reach a level of satisfaction with their work. All writers know that at some point, they have to share their work with an audience, that their main job is to connect with that audience, and that all the questions they have about style and structure matter not because they are “rules for writing” but because style and structure are the ways the ideas of a writer become accessible for that audience.  All writers know that the work of learning to write never stops, that a piece of writing can always improve, that writers need support and encouragement as much as they need criticism and commentary.

By the end of the workshops I ran, by the end of my trip, more people raised their hands when I asked “Who here is a writer?” I hope that even more would raise their hands now. Being a writer, identifying as a writer, requires only that a person write, commit on a regular basis to the work of sitting with a piece of paper or in front of a computer screen and filling it with words, with language. I hope that these newly identified writers in Nepal experience the joy of discovery, of writing something they didn’t know they thought, of surprising themselves with a beautiful image or important idea or funny description. And I hope they share their writing with other writers and inspire them as well with their ideas.

Mostly, I hope these new writers – these writers who teach writing – use their experiences as writers to help their students engage with the task of writing and reading. I hope all the writers who are also teachers of the English language in Nepal will harness the creative power of their students to inspire each other and embrace the joy of creation, to write texts they care deeply about and want to share with other students.

Like teachers all over the world, teachers in Nepal must follow official curricula, must prepare students for tests required by the government. Like teachers everywhere, teachers in Nepal sometimes become frustrated by these requirements because they do not allow enough freedom for teachers. I hope that by joining with other teachers, by learning the power of creative writing, of helping students learn language – any language – by helping them become excited about what they have to say, teachers in Nepal can start to have more voice in shaping a curriculum they are excited to teach!

I end this piece with a poem I wrote during a workshop at the NELTA headquarters in Kathmandu, with a group of teachers and students who walked as much as 12 kilometers over the course of a 2-day bandh, to participate. I dedicate this poem to them, and to all the other participants I met in Birgunj and Kawasoti, who inspired and excited me to do my best teaching, who took my challenge to become writers, who I hope I will see again. It’s dedicated to all the people at NELTA who made my trip so wonderful and engaging. I hope I have a chance to meet some of you again. I promise I will never forget you!

Whose language is this, English?

Can I call it mine,

this language of my childhood stories,

my mother’s soothing,

my father’s rebukes,

my brothers’ tauntings,

my teacher’s lessons,

my lover’s caresses?

Yes, it is my language!

Does that mean I own it?

Do you own the water you hold in your hands?

Do you own the air you breathe into your lungs?

Do you own the spirit that animates your soul?

What Writers Need to Know about Starting and Then Getting Better at Writing

Creative Writing, Creativity, ELT Resource, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writing

Jayakaran Mukundan

Malaysia

Most people think they cannot write and when they start having these thoughts they will never begin writing. It is not easy to write a poem or a story if you haven’t done much of it but if you start and if it isn’t good at least you have tried. Once you start, get someone who writes frequently to look at your work. Get advice and then re-work your stories and poems. Once you finish start on new work so that you get “addicted” to it. Here below is some advice on how to get started and how to keep the momentum:

  1. If you have written a story or poem and after a while you don’t like it, don’t throw it away. Get some advice from people who write often and ask for help on improvements. Rework the poem or story and then show the expert to see if he/she likes it after the changes
  2. Sometimes no matter how much you try your writing stalls and this is referred to as “blocking”. You may then be, without your conscious knowledge, a “blocker”. People who are blockers are usually writers who are too afraid of making mistakes. If you are this sort of person, learn to relax and have a positive attitude towards your writing. Just keep writing and tell yourself you will change course or look at errors after you have written a page or two. If you worry about bad ideas or errors you may never get to start!
  3. Read more stories and poems and get ideas from professional writers. The more we read the more we are aware of how other people write their stories. We cannot copy these stories but we can learn some strategies so that our stories get better.
  4. If interested in writing poems but you have no idea as to how to start, get a reference which deals with scaffolding strategies that help learners become beginner poets. All you have to do is to learn some of the patterns (for form poems) and then you are on your way!
  5. In order to boost your confidence try publishing your work. The Regional Creative Writing Group does publish the work of amateur writers. Even if you don’t join the group, you can send in work (there may be a representative of the group in your country!)
  6. When you go to places like your ancestral village listen to what elders would say. Keep a record in your notebook. These may become ideas for new writing. When you are free try recalling some things at school like a teacher who is funny or a teacher who constantly forgets. Try writing poems about these people. In fact try writing about people in your family.
  7. Photographs are a good way to start writing. When at home sit with an older person; your father or mother and grandparents. Go through the family album with them and try getting as many stories about people and places from them.  Family albums are a great way to start writing stories and poems.
  8. Last but not least never say you can’t write. Most people who say this end up being good writers after some practice!

Some observations on Nepali teachers writers during the recently concluded Creative Writing Workshops

Generally different people have different personalities and individual preferences, hence write differently. Generally Nepali teachers are very enthusiastic. When at first they were taught scaffolding techniques they began to realize that they could write. This took place when they were taught some scaffolding templates for developing form poems. These exercises soon raised their eagerness to experiment, manipulate and essentially “play” with the language. When they started playing with language the creativity of these teachers soon began to show!

The writing trip was another instance where they learnt to write creatively “after making close observation”. It was good opportunity for them to realize that writing was not just confined to classrooms. The entire space that surrounds them can be inspiration for their writing. Many of the participants confirmed that they would also be working on creative writing projects with their own students after the workshops. That was indeed nice to hear!

Birgunj Truly Represents Nepal

Creative Writing, Creativity, ELT Resource, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writing

-Vishnu S Rai

Place: Kailash Hotel, Birgunj

Date and time: March 8, 7 PM.

We are standing at the threshold of the hotel to greet the members of the Asian English Teachers’ Creative Writing Group (AETCWG). There is excitement in the air. People are expectant: cameras ready.

A Hias approaches us slowly and stops. The doors open and produces Jay from Malaysia, Iqbal from Pakistan, Kanokon from Thailand, Li Wei from China and Moti, Sarita, Tapasi and Maya from Kathmandu in a row. Then, slowly from the open door emerges the saintly figure of Alan Maley from the UK. Cameras start clicking, there are handshakes and the sounds of pleasures, “Nice to see you again’, ‘Welcome to Nepal’ are heard. The group is joined by Kirk from the USA and the group slowly enters the hotel.

They are the members of the AETCWG who have come to Birgunj from different parts of the globe to meet at their annual meeting and produce creative works that can be used in ELT classrooms on one hand, and to help develop creativity in those English teachers of the region who aspire to be creative. They are here to break the myth that only the god-gifted people can be creative.

Man is not anything by birth

He is what he makes himself

By passion,

Diligence, and

hard work.

9th March: Workshop Day 1

The first day of the workshop starts with introduction of the new members from Birgunj. They are Sajan Kumar, Suresh Shrestha, Ram Abadhesh Ray, Praveen Yadav, Kamalesh Raut and Jyoti Tiwari. The best thing of AETCWG workshop is that there are no formalities of opening, etc. It starts its works like a big family. There is no President or General Secretary and there is no membership fee. Anyone can be the member of the group provided that they, from the bottom of their heart, want to write.

Alan does some warm activities and then the members start looking at each other’s writings for the sake of discussion, constructive comments and feedback. They work for the whole day until it’s time to stop. One example is given below which is based on the painting ‘Nighthawk’.

Empty city

With light and all

Preoccupied people

With lost soul.

Lots of food

But no apetite

Lost in thought

Tongue tied.

Eerie feeling

Gloomy atmosphere

Empty heart

Nothing to share.

Neither they want

to show nor to be seen

In this very world

We pay for our sin.

10th March: Workshop Day 2

The group is ready to go for a writing trip. Each member has been asked to observe things on the way and make notes which can later be developed into poems and haibuns.  The group reaches Trikhandi –the crystal clear water of the river is hurrying down like someone who hurries to meet their love. People are bathing in the river and the goddess watches them benevolently from her little temple perched on a rock just over the river.

The group later visits the martyr park and pays their homage to those brave sons of Nepal who sacrificed their lives for us so that we could breathe in the free and fresh air of democracy. The group returns to Kailash at 6. An example from the writing trip is given below in the form of a haiku.

A chimney and a

Hospital stands side by side

Demand and supply

11th March: Workshop Day 3

The group members present their creative ideas and activities that can be used in the actual classroom situation. For example, the members were asked to pick up a stone which they liked and observe it carefully: its colour, shape, size, touch everything, and then write about it in the first person as if the stone was telling its story. The same could be done with the students. I picked up a small stone which was smooth by touch and had the shape of a heart. Here is what I wrote about it. Other members also wrote about their stone and each writing was different

I’m a stone.

I’m the heart stone.

You might think how could there be a heart stone.

But I am.

I’m the heart stone.

No, seriously.

Look at me!

You see my shape? It’s like a heart.

Touch me!

Do you feel my softness?

No, no. Please don’t rub me with your rough fingers.

Put me onto your cheek and then you’ll feel how soft a heart is.

I’m not a heart made of stone.

I’m the heart stone.

Would you pick me up?

I suggest you should.

You can take me to your love, to your sweetheart.

They will be so happy.

A heart stone as a souvenir from a river of Nepal.

And what’s better than making your love smile which brightens your own heart.

Would you now pick me up?

Gently please!

For I’m the heart stone.

The workshop ends with the discussion of publishing the workshop products and the next meeting of the group in some other country.

12 March: Conference Day 1

The conference starts one hour late which is unusual to the foreign guests. Some muttering and grumbling are heard but later they realize that it is not a big deal in Nepal to be late.

How time flies for non-Nepalis

When they are having fun

It travels slowly for Nepalis

Like a penguin walks in the sun

The conference was inaugurated by Prof. Dr. Gobinda Raj Bhattarai which was followed by the presentation of the keynote speaker Prof. Alan Maley. Next: Dr. Kirk form the US gave his plenary talk which was followed by the concurrent sessions.

It was a pleasant surprise to find participants in such a great number from the adjacent districts viz. Dhanusha, Mahottari, Bara, Makwanpur and as far as from Kailali.

13th March: Conference Day 2

The second day of the conference started with the plenary from Prof. Dr. Bhattarai, followed by Dr. Vishnu S Rai and Prof. Dr. Jayakaran Munkundan. After the lunch break concurrent sessions started.

One of the special features of the conference was that at the end there was poetry recitation programme for one and a half hours in which poets recited the poems in five different languages viz. English, Nepali, Bhojpuri, Maithili, and Punjabi. Here is a poem recited in the ceremony.

My Child’s Eyes

I walked through the windows

Of my child’s eyes

Into a world of wonder

Where the grass is always green,

No sky is ever anything but blue,

The sun shines eternally from one corner,

Houses puff dainty smoke for ever –

And people never cry.

A land of bright-eyed foxes,

Breathtaking birds,

(Occasionally flying upside-down),

Daddies and mummies,

And people who never die.

And then I walked out again,

Crying for the innocence she’ll lose.

I walked through the window of my child’s heart –

Trying not to break it.

Birgunj hospitality

The members of the group were overwhelmed by the generous hospitability of the host. They were taken to different local members’ home for dinner to taste typical hill and Terai dishes of Nepal. They ate Gundruk and Dhindo, Dahibada and Kadhi,  Mohi and Lassi and what not. Nepal is a multilingual, multicultural country and the work/conference reflected it in its papers, its poems, its food and its cultural performances. This was a great experience. Birgunj truly represents Nepal –a town where Hills and Terai and their different cultures and languages meet together and turn into a mosaic.

My Reflection on Birgunj Conference

Creative Writing, Creativity, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips,

Kanokon  Opasmongkonchai

Thailand

One of my great experiences which I’d like to share with you was to attend the conference that took place in Birgunj, Nepal on 12 -13 March 2013. It was Asian English Teachers’ Creative Writing Conference (2013), in which apart from gaining knowledge from expert creative writers, Prof.Alan Maley, Prof. Jayakaran Mukundan, Dr Kirk Branch, Prof. Dr. Govinda Raj Bhattarai, Dr. Vishnu Singh Rai and other scholars, I also obtained friendship with warm hospitality, as well as Nepalese cultural learning.

In fact, I had been there in Birgunj in a team four days before the conference. We had a three-day pre-conference session of only core group members. In the session I got acquainted with some new faces. We shared our poems and stories and had peer-editing that offered an ample opportunity to understand and learn how uniquely we take up creativity. The second day was much more memorable. We had a trip to Trikhandi on a bus. It was about three hours to the south of Birgunj. There I saw mountains stand very close all around and a clean stream rush down. I felt it special for getting intimacy with nature. We were there to empower our creative writing being close to nature. We all carried some stones of our choice and I brought back a heart-shaped one. On the third day we had a great time sharing our poems and stories that we had composed on the stones we had carried. It was of the greatest significance, since we had penned what we had observed on our field trip. It gave us another but the most crucial lesson how to find our surroundings in our literary work.

It was on March 12, the first day of the conference after the key speech by Prof. Alan Maley and a plenary session by Dr. Kirk Branch, I had a paper to present in one of the buildings of a nearby college. I was delighted to have about 35 participants to join the creative writing activity with me “Using a Picture to Stimulate Creative Writing.” I was very much impressed by participants who paid a great attention to the activity. While making a presentation, I wondered if the picture would be too difficult for them to write on or not. But, with their abilities and talents, it was obvious that they could write poems and short stories rapidly and colorfully, indeed.

Here are some of the poems on the pictures that they composed during the session and that I would love to share with you hoping that you may also try writing:

My Heart Says  

Oh, Dear
You look as fresh as dew
I don’t have many words to say
But only few
You are the old one for others
But in my sight, you are always new
I am the sky, you are my moon
When I see you, I forget the morning or noon
I have devoted my heart to someone and that is you
No matter you love me or not
But dear, really I love you

(Krishna Chaudhary)

Mona Lisa’s Change  

Oh, Mona Lisa
Pure and pretty woman
You’re born in a palace
And you end in the Mc Donald’s
Why you change your life?
I know well, my Mona
You don’t like the servants
You just wish a coca- cola!

(By Spanish participant)

……………………………….

What eyes she has,

What eyes!

It’s hardly a surprise

That millions have looked into them –

She looks so calm and wise.

But if, by some strange chance

We passed with a quick glance

Today,

Would we even spare the time

To ask her for a dance?

Or simply walk away?

(Alan)

………

And my friendly souvenir to you:

Let’s Smile!

Nothing to pay
When you smile.
So, let’s smile.

Something you gain
Is friendship
Hope
Joy
Peace
So, let’s smile.

Anything makes you pain,
Forget it awhile.
So, let’s smile.
Smile! Smile! Smile!
(Kanokon Opasmongkonchai)

Pictures used in the workshop:

Picture1

To my mind, participants were quite active and confident of doing the activity with me. They had proudly presented their writings. It was very nice that they had different views-points to write, so it made the workshop more interesting, making me feel that they could secure their own space for potential writers to grow out of them! Best Wishes!!

After the paper presentations on the first day, we got back to the Town Hall to observe the cultural program held by cute school boys and girls. Several times they got me to feel like singing and dancing next to them. They sang songs and danced so well that I couldn’t at all feel how swiftly time had flown away. I also learnt about the diverse cultures in the country through their dresses.

On the second day just before the closing ceremony we had another literary taste. It was a poetry recitation. Several participants including Prof. Maley, Dr. Branch, Prof. Bhattarai, Dr. Rai recited their poems in different languages – English, Nepali, Bhojpuri, Maithili, etc. Although I could not understand the poems in the languages other than in English, yet I could perceive their elegance through the ways they were recited. It was really a good example of multi-lingual harmony in Nepal.

In my view, creative writing is the best challenge to accept if you are learning to write. It requires a great deal of patience as well as love to do that. Maybe love should come first. Self-discipline to practice writing with figurative languages together with observing things around us deeply and correctly with imagination is a very important qualification of being a good creative writer. It is certain that it gives us pain when the idea doesn’t come out and in particular when we write in English, which is not our mother tongue. But, when the good result ripens, I dare say it’s worth it, indeed!

Before taking leave, what I am feeling now is:

Loneliness is…

Loneliness

Is

Fungus:

It’s fast to grow

It’s hard to heal

Its root

Is too deep

To eradicate

And

Ready

To come back

Terrible!

(Kanokon  Opasmongkonchai)

Stay in touch to ward off the feeling of loneliness.

Cheerio!

Blog on Creative Writing Workshop and Conference in Birgunj, Nepal

Creative Writing, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writing, , , ,

Li Wei

China

March 9-13th, 2013

This is my fifth time attending Creative Writing Workshop since 2006. I have been to Vietnam, Indonesia, and Nepal with other core group members during the past few years. Birgunj has been my second trip in Nepal. I have had wonderful memories about the beauty of local natural scenery and the hospitality of local people. The experience in Birgunj has deepened the unforgettable impression of Nepalese culture and people.

Every time when I prepared to attend the creative writing workshop, I went through a very energetic and productive period of writing. The time constraints pushed me to engage in the writing, thinking, creating and rewriting cycles. My mind has been occupied by the inspiration of creative impulse and the floating images occurring from my life experience and my imagination. I was often tortured by the writer’s block at the very beginning. Facing the blank paper, my mind was full of unknown thoughts. It seemed so difficult to get started sometimes that I switched to absent-minded state. Usually, the nervous mind got relaxed during the time. Then the inspiration returned little by little and the writing process started from the moment I typed in words on the computer screen. Once I started writing, my hands would be led by the inner talk or ideas appearing in mind. As an effective way for me to keep writing creatively, free writing helped a lot.

Writing leads to rewriting. It becomes much easier to rewrite or revise once there are plenty of words on paper waiting to be reshaped and processed. Our brain works better under a little bit pressure but not so well under an enormous burden of the external or internal pressure. Facing a blank page brings much more pressure for a novice writer, which stops him or her to pick up courage and start writing. While facing a fully occupied written page, the brain is more relaxed and ready to cut dissatisfied parts and add more details from visualization. After some practice, gradually I come to understand the tips of overcoming writer’s block, which are free writing without self-judgment or self-criticism and fast writing without thinking too hard or worrying too much. Free writing and fast writing are the two best ways for me to start writing and keep on writing whenever I face the blank page. In addition, extensive reading and journal writing can also bring inspiration now and then.

Things are getting much easier when the first draft is ready to be read. Revision is cooking a ready-made dish with some sources and refreshing views. Inspiration only comes naturally after racking one’s brain. It is a bit like giving birth to a baby. Thinking is the pregnant process and inspiration is like the hard push. The new-born baby looks ugly as if the first draft seems rough and imperfect at the first glance. Revision and rewriting are the upbringing process, which take a lot of energy of the writer but the writing piece is taking shape after some hard work. In the creative writing workshop, every participant shows others his or her prepared writing as if showing the photos of the cute baby. Then the readers are supposed to give comments or suggestions to the writer.

The communication between the readers and the writers is crucial during the revision process. The writer can receive different opinions from different readers and find out the weaknesses or shortcomings in his or her writing as well as the positive feedback about the writing. The whole communication process is carried out in a friendly and helpful atmosphere. No one should be laughed at or belittled during the mutual comment process. It is often an interesting process to discover how your readers understand your story or poems in a slightly different way according to their own life experiences and cultural backgrounds. If the writing touches the heart of the reader, it can be shared in experience universally no matter which culture it might represent. There are a lot of commonality among human life experiences and emotions. Cultural differences bring diversified settings and environment into the story and show various mentality of the main character, but the basic emotions are in common.

In our creative writing workshop we worked as a team. We read one another’s story and poems, and then we gave our comment to the writer. I could often learn a lot from my readers and realize how to revise my work. For example, as core group members, we were required to write about a picture called Nighthawks. It was interesting to discover that everyone saw the same picture in different ways. Although the main theme was the same about solitude or loneliness, the writers in different ages and from different cultural backgrounds did illustrate the picture in their own way. It was inspiring to read various poems written about the famous painting Nighthawks. The universal emotion of human being was very influential and powerful. Writing from observing a picture was also an effective way to learn to observe carefully and write something out of box. The picture was the stimulator and the restraint. We need to observe the characters in the picture and we also need to think imaginatively out of the picture. As creative writers, we should not be locked into the picture itself like the main characters in it, but we should jump out of the frame and write something unseen.

Talking about my presentation during the concurrent session, it had attracted a roomful of audience and most of them were students in the university. They were eager to listen to my talk and I could feel their enthusiasm from their eyes. I divided my talk into two parts. The first part was about what creative writing meant to me. I thought creative writing had made me love writing much more than before. It was a process of learning to write and also a process of self-discovery. Whenever I tried to create a character, my life experience and people who were familiar to me were jumping into my mind. I thought creative writing could not come from an empty space. The seeds of a story must lie somewhere in our daily life. Through reflection and observation, stories would take shape in some way or another. The second part was about activities which could be used in English writing classes of different levels. Even some very simple activity could lead learners to create unexpectedly beautiful poems through right guidance. For example,

‘When I think of …

I can see…

I can smell…

I can taste…’

One girl in my presentation room wrote about sunset in the form of the above simple pattern. It was so beautifully written that I could not help offering my praise to her in front of the audience. Her poem really inspired me to use the simple-form poem activity with more advanced students because their imagination and language expression were more interesting in a way. Although the form could be simple, the ideas and the feelings were thought-provoking without limitation. Once learners knew how to play with words within the restraints of the form, their thoughts and imagination could be as flexible as the flowing water which could be filled into any shape. I felt the most rewarding experience of doing creative writing was that the potential inner creativity of oneself could be stimulated in the process of word play. The sense of achievement was fulfilling for most English learners. To find your own voice and express your inner thoughts in a foreign language were very challenging as well as exciting. The happiness of composing a short poem or a short story was so strong that the painful producing process seemed bearable.

In a word, the Birgunj Creative Writing Workshop and Conference were very successful and unforgettable with the help of many organizers and participants. I believed that there would be more creative writers appearing in Birgunj who would love to share their stories and their poems with the rest of the world in both Nepalese language and the world language English. Let’s write and enjoy!

NeltaChoutari: March Issue, 2013

Editorial

Welcome to March, the Conference Special Issue of Choutari 2013! 

Editorial

As it has been the convention from past years, this issue of Choutari focuses on the (18th) International conference of Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association (NELTA) which was recently held partly in Kathmandu, the capital of the country, and partly in Janakpur, also known as the capital of Mithila Kingdom in ancient times. The theme of the conference was ‘Transformations in ELT: Contexts, Agents and Opportunities’. The conference which was attended by participants and presenters from 18 different countries including U.S.A, U.K, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Poland, Pakistan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Japan, Iran, Indonesia, India, China, Bangladesh and Australia. I thank everyone who contributed to this issue on behalf of my fellow Choutari editors. I hope that readers will find the varied contents of this issue interesting.

The first entry here is the presentation material of Dr. Richard Smith, the keynote speaker, who is a professor from Warwick University, UK. Dr. Smith also facilitated the plenary on ‘Teaching Large Classes’, and building on the plenary, he also facilitated a smaller workshop on teaching and researching large classes during the concurrent sessions.

The second item includes the presentation materials (along with brief blurbs) provided by another keynote speaker, Dr. JoAnn (Jodi) Crandall from Maryland University, U.S.A. who delivered her key speech on ‘Preparing Global Citizens for the 21st Century: The Role of Content-Based Language Instruction.’ Dr. Crandall facilitated two plenary sessions: the first entitled ‘The Expanding World of the ELT Professional: Opportunities and Challenges’ and the second ‘Culture as Content in the ELT Classroom: Helping Learners Develop Intercultural Competence’.

Associate Professor Ganga Ram Gautam, who is also one of founding members of NELTA, made his observation and reflections on the key speeches delivered by key speakers Dr. Richard and Jody’s speeches on the conference theme and preparing global citizens for the 21st century: The role of content based language instruction respectively.

The next entry is a contribution by Mandira Adhikari, who was a rapporteur at the conference. Ms. Adhikari reflects on the plenary and concurrent sessions she had attended during the conference of NELTA. She shares how the conference turned beneficial to  her personal as well as professional development.

Choutari asked the participants who attended the mega event of ELT about one thing they are taking away from the conference to their classroom. The compilation of their responses, as another blog entry of this month, reflects why a teacher needs a professional association like NELTA – which is also a lesson for those who missed the conference.

We have also included a blog entry from Madhav Kafle  who shares his stance on monolingual policies in multilingual states like Nepal and its implications for language Teaching urging Choutari readers for joining the thread of discussion. 

What an incredible work Nepalese youth icon Rana has done establishing English medium School, which teaches children free of charge! The written documentary with YouTube video contributed by Apar Poudel will make us feel inspired and motivated to do something different for our community, society and the country.

Here’s the table of contents for convenient navigation:

—–

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all the contributors including the Choutari Team for their support and contribution. Thank you all for your continuing effort and contribution to NeltaChoutari, and we expect more contributions of yours on Chouatri for the next issue ahead. Please share with us any new ideas you think is better to make Choutari better.

We always welcome your constructive feedback to make our publications more reader friendly in terms of the content and issues in ELT. I urge you to join the professional conversation on Choutari by posting comments or sharing among your circles via social media networks like facebook, twitter, google plus, pressing likes under the blog entries you have read and printing for those who lack the internet access to the webzine.

Enjoy Reading!

Praveen Kumar Yadav

On behalf of Choutari Team

Key Speaker Dr. Richard Smith’s Key Speech and Plenary

English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous

Transformations in ELT: Contexts, Agents and Opportunity- Key Speech

Professor Richard Smith began his talk with a brief historical overview of western language teaching methods and their export, highlighting the needs revealed by this history for teaching methodology to be appropriate in context. Moving on to agents, he stressed that the main agents of change in ELT are teachers, and he argued for the idea that the genuine transformations only tend to happen gradually, from within existing affordances. Finally, then, he laid emphasis on some practical and realistic opportunities for teacher development and teacher research which have the potential, at least, to bring about lasting change. For his presentation slides/materials, please click here Transformations in ELT: Contexts, Agents and Opportunity

Teaching Large Classes: Plenary

Referring to cases of good practice from recent research in developing country contexts, he has shared the findings on how  some teachers and learners have addressed difficult circumstances including large class size, lack of resources and heterogeneous groupings. On this basis, he mapped out some directions for future  teacher development and research work, drawing particular attention to the activities of the Teaching English in Large Classes network. For Dr. Smith’s plenary talk on teaching large classes, please click the link Teaching Large Classes 

 Teaching and Researching Large Classes: Workshop

Building on his plenary  ‘Teaching Large Classes’, Dr. Smith encouraged the participants to share their own recent teaching successes. He also mediated further ideas from teachers elsewhere, and he showed how they can show themselves do research into the problems they face without too much added burden, indeed actually lightening their load.

Key Speaker Dr. JoAnn (Jody) Crandall’s Key Speech and Plenary

English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous

Preparing Global Citizens for the 21st Century: The Role of Content-Based Language Instruction – Key Speech

Content based language instruction has a valuable role to play in preparing global citizens in an increasingly interconnected world. It builds content knowledge and offers the possibility of integrating the “21st century skills” of critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration. It also fosters authentic use of language, with real purposes and audiences, in a range print and digital literacy and in contexts that promote authentic and often intercultural communication. These skills can begin to be introduced to young learners in language programs and ne expanded as students move through secondary school and the university to achieve more advanced language, literacy and content knowledge and skills. For her key speech, please click the link here Prepari_Global_Citizens-Role_of_CBI_CLILNepalfnl

The Expanding World of the ELT Professional: Opportunities and Challenges – Plenary

A number of factors have come together to make the world of English language teaching one of increasing opportunities. These factors include the globalization of English, the introduction of English in early grades, the increasing use of English as a medium of instruction at some level of education (especially higher education), the increasing reliance upon digital technologies, and the rapid creation of new knowledges, which if met, enable us to continue to grow and perhaps, reverse the tendency to “burn out” or become less motivated by the profession we have chosen. Dr. Crandall’s talk focused on the opportunities and challenges that are presented to us in the new life cycle of an ELT professional. Please go through her presentation in the plenary by clicking the link ExpandingWorldofTESOLProfessionalNepalfnl

Culture as Content in the ELT Classroom: Helping Learners Develop Intercultural Competence – Plenary

The language classroom has long been seen as a natural context for the teaching of both explicit and implicit culture. We include cultural practices and institutions, customs and traditions, verbal and nonverbal communication and many more cultural topics in our classes (Datesman, Crandall & Kearny, 2005) In many English classes, we also include both target (where the language is widely spoken) and source (the students’ own) culture, since one goal of the language class is to help students better understand their own culture. But the role of the culture in the English classroom is more complex and the goal of intercultural competence even more critical, as English is used internationally to communicate across cultures. Thus, those of us who teach English as foreign or additional language (EFL/EIL classes need to take responsibility to build students’ intercultural communication skills in order to prepare them to be effective users of English in global contexts. An important step is to build a “sphere of interculturality  ” (Kramsch 1993) in the EFL classroom that promotes a healthy process of learning about cultural difference through reflection on one’s own culture. That can be followed by the use of a number of activities to promote intercultural awareness, knowledge, tolerance/respect, and behavour and to help learners develop increasing “intercultural sensitivity” (Bennet 1993) and intercultural competence.  Please click the link Culture as Content in EFL-EIL- Helping Learners to fnl for the materials/slides presented in the plenary.

Take-away of this year’s NELTA Conference Key Speeches

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

Ganga Gautam

NELTA Member

This year’s NELTA conference began with the two powerful key speeches;

1)      Dr. Richard Smith – Transformations in ELT – Contexts, Agents and Opportunities

2)      Prof. Dr. Jodi Crandal–Preparing Global Citizens: The Role of Content-BasedLanguage Instruction (for English language instruction at all levels)

Dr. Smith in his presentation talked about how ELT has undergone massive transformation and he highlighted the key milestones of the shitfs in the ELT paradigms. One of the important messages that Dr. Smith brought in his presentation was the shift in the teaching methodology. He made endeavors  to communicate that talking about the single generalized method of teaching would be irrelevant at present context because it is the teachers who invent and create the methods by themselves based on the local contexts and the need of the learners at the local level. Rather than just following the approaches and methods from the BANA countries, it would be wise for the teachers to look at those methods and see how they can judiciously use them with the modifications and changes to suit their learners and the local context. Collaboration among the teachers from different settings would thus, produces appropriate methodology for the teachers. The methodological inventions are, therefore, bottom-up and they are led by the teachers rather than top-down as it was in the past. He concluded the session with a thoughtful question

“How can you bring about appropriate transformations in your ELT practice, in your own context, as an agent – at least partially — of your own destiny, and what opportunities do you see for supporting your students’ as well as your own development?”

The second key speech, which was given by Dr. Crandal, highlighted the role of content integration in the EFL/ESL materials. She shared that the global citizens of the current world need the 21st century skills and the EFL/ESL classes should include the materials from the wide array of disciplines so that the language teaching becomes not only lively and meaningful for the learners but also expose the students to the materials they will encounter in their real world after graduation. She also presented how language and content can be integrated together and shared some examples of the collaborative efforts made by language and content teachers to implement content integrated language teaching and learning in class.

So the take-away of the conference from these sessions is that it is the teacher who is responsible to make the methodological decisions in the local context to suit the learners’ need, interest, culture, their native language and so on. Collaboration with other teachers at the local, regional, national and international level will promote mutual learning building upon the successes in different countries and enhance professional harmony among the practitioners. Similarly, the integration of language with the content area subjects will promote thinking skills among the learners and the learning will be authentic for our students.

A rapporteur’s reflection on the 18th Int’l Conference of NELTA

Miscellaneous, Nelta Networking, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

Mandira Adhikari

Attending conference is one among various ways of teacher’s professional development.  Maggoli (2003) says that many teaching professionals attend conferences, seminars or courses as a part of their professional development. She further puts an emphasis on the conference plan that a participant should have so that they will have the aim of attending the conference and they will utilize their learning after returning back to the classroom. For the same cause, I attended the 18th international conference of NELTA to gain various ideas that will be useful for my classroom teaching, personal learning and professional development.

On the first day of the conference, I attended the speech of Key Speaker Dr. Richard Smith from UK on the conference theme ‘Transformations in ELT: contexts, agents and opportunities.  I would like to share with the community some of the key extracts from the key speaker. English now is no longer owned by the native speakers, the number of English speakers is increasing rather than decreasing day by day and there is the need of more English teachers. The main message of his presentation was to focus on the bottom –up approach in ELT and teachers can be the best researchers as they are well aware of their contexts and the problems they are facing. Similarly, finding out the solution by the teachers themselves would be more effective as they are the ones who are contextualized in their classroom. He concluded his session remarking that transformation is going on and new challenges in the ELT are emerging that demands bottom-up approach and teachers are the major ELT agents in their own context.  Thus, his presentation motivated me to be the researcher of my own classroom and helped me build up a confidence that I am the one who can better understand my context and my classroom rather than any other person.

Another session which I attended was facilitated by Sayeedur Rahman from Bangladesh on ‘Politics of English Initiatives Implementation in Bangladesh: An Investigation of ELT Reforms which clearly mentioned that the programs implemented in Bangladesh in order to improve English language are not as satisfactory as they need to be. He also presented various facts and examples that pose challenges to the program implementation without desired output.

Similarly I found the joint workshop by Ashley Hager, Madhukar K.C. and Sumati Shakya entitled ‘Enhancing critical thinking and creativity in EFL Classroom more effective. This workshop helped me to gain the idea that critical thinking is something that makes an individual think critically rather than just a plain reading. It is something like ‘thinking outside the box’. At the end of the workshop, I thought critically and was able to make my own quote “innovative mind for revolutionary world”.

On the second day of the conference, the three plenary sessions helped me to gain ideas especially on the problems of large classes and the use of ICT its impact, affordances and constrains in ELT. The plenary session by Prof. Dr. Jodi Crandall, on The Expanding World of the ELT Professional: Opportunities and Challenges’ mainly focused on a number of factors have come together to make the world of English Language teaching one of the increasing opportunities such as the globalization of English, the introduction of English in earlier grades, the increasing use of English as a medium of instruction at some level of education especially higher education, the incensement reliance upon digital technology and so on. Her presentation highlighted the different issues of teacher development such as mentoring especially the role of the mentor to develop one’s professionalism. The way she presented the challenges and opportunity for the teachers looked as if she represented the stories about all of us who are facing several challenges but are trying to create opportunities within those challenges.

Another plenary by Dr. Richard Smith on Teaching Large Classes basically focused on successes and challenges of large classes where he encouraged the participants to share their own teaching successes and challenges in large class. From the discussion sharing, major challenges of teaching large classes included unable to check the homework, no participation of all students, difficult to get students’ attention, difficult to control noise in the classroom, problem in dealing with mixed ability students, difficult to achieve rapport among students- students and students-teachers, difficult to hear individual responses from the students, difficult to promote active learning, difficult to manage the classroom and difficult to remember all the students’ names.

To address the above problems Dr. Smith concluded with the suggestions that they should apply group works to make all the participants active, develop ground rules to minimize noise level, ask them to write notes and see at home to understand the mixed abilities of students, chat with students every time when the teacher gets time and play the role of the moderator to build rapport, ask students to find themselves or ask them to do project work in group to make active learning fruitful and ask students hang a name tag in their uniform when they come in the class to remember all the students’ name in the large classes.

Kalyan Chattopadhyaya from India in his presentation ‘Transformations in ELT: ICT in Learning Spaces, and Teaching Practices showed how the use of technologies is changing the ways of teaching and learning of English language teaching. His presentation was database and was focused on the following points; Teachers’ use of ICT tools, Impact of the use of those ICT tools, Affordances and constrains of emerging language learning spaces and challenges of those tools in ELT. He found the teachers were using ICT in language teaching to fulfill the objectives such as finding out the useful information or idea, expressing oneself through the web, communicating across cultures and fostering independent learning. He presented that ICT integration in ELT has larger impact such as learning beyond the classroom, providing new learning spaces, BYOD/BYOT: learning with your devices, supporting and sharing the ideas and self- exploratory practices. Despite of some limitations, ICT tools provide us the opportunities in ELT and we should never think that at first we need to master in technology first and use it later however, we can simply learn the essential tools and start using it.

On the same day I with three of my co-presenters (Dhanapati Subedi, Nibedita Sharma and Bhumika Adhikari) presented our paper based on the need of the teachers of Kathmandu valley. Upon our presentation, I found the participants more interested to learn the current need of the teachers and conduct researches on the area. The opportunity to present a paper in a mega event of ELT made me more confident adding a brick in my professional development.

The 18th international conference of NELTA was more helpful for me to learn a lot for my personal as well as professional development gaining substantial ideas that I can implement in   my classroom of real situation and building my self- confidence for further presentations.

From the Conference to the Classroom

Miscellaneous, Native Perspective, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

We had asked the participants of the 18th international conference of NELTA – Could you please share with Choutari one thing that you are taking away from the conference into your classroom? 

In the response, we have received the following views, which have been presented below:

I bring the passion of ELT young fellows from this conference to my classroom as they are so curious to learn something and I am fortunate that I have the moment to share my learning. During my stay, I am feeling that NELTA people are so much sensitive about systems and about English teachers but they should collaborate with the new sense of young ELT fellows and go ahead who are far from the valley and struggling with their contexts and contents together.

– Ms. Kate Miller, UK, NELTA  Member

I learnt the ways to tackle with the large class in the plenary hosted by Dr. Richard Smith in the conference. Upon retuning to my school, I am sure I can effectively manage my classroom and make my teaching better than before.

– Madan Kafle, NELTA Sindhuli

I found that ELT [practitioners] sharing latest information is applicable in real classroom. It was great opportunity to know about ELT situation of other countries and share the existing situation of Nepal. The resources shared would be so essential to develop language competency. Besides, I have learnt different ELT methodologies the presenters presented and their application into classroom.

                         – Hom Raj Khadka, NELTA  Banke

I enjoyed the class of Ms. Christine Stone in the 18th International conference of NELTA as I found it so useful especially for teaching primary level students. Despite of her ageing, she was proactive facilitating the session with support of her co-presenters. Her sessions were indeed impressive to me.

– Dor Bikram Thapa, NELTA Sindhuli

I liked the way Ms. Kate Miller engaged the participants in interaction in her presentation. She talked about early childhood education. I liked her simplicity dealing with the learners, which I am going to apply with my students and her techniques in the classroom.

– Dipendra Lal Karn, NELTA Janakpur

The session entitled Teaching Writing in Large Classes: Models, Rubrics, and Peer Review facilitated by William Wolf from Bangladesh during the conference upgraded me to teach writing skills in the classroom in a different way.

–Krishna Lal Sharma, NELTA Nawalaparasi

When I entered into the auditorium, I found the executive members and volunteers busy managing the event with their efforts they could. I was totally upset because nobody talked to me but soon my attentions drew to Dr. Richard Smith’s talk during the plenary session. Dr. Smith’s views about controlling the large ELT classroom were no doubt appreciative but I was puzzled whether the techniques he suggested will be applicable in the context of Nepal or if yes, to what extent. I wanted to raise this question but I could not ask.

–Keshab Dutta Bhatt, NELTA, Kailali

I found a new trend of presentation in Pecha Kucha Fun which had been performed by a team of Students from Kathmandu University led by Associate Prof. Laxman Gnawali. Although it was interesting in the audiences’ views, I could not learn any contents but it was helpful for entertaining the students of ELT with ELT humors. I learnt that several pictures can be used to motivate the learners on the contents.

– Dinesh Kumar Yadav, NELTA Janakpur

I learnt a good lesson from the special session facilitated by Mr. Fife MacDuff and Mr. Bishwa R. Gautam about applying the techniques and ways for ELT Graduate Studies and Assistantships from American Universities.

 – AP Bhattarai, NELTA Life Member, Kathmandu

I am impressed by the lecture given by Mr. Richard Smith, which was about the new trends and the mobilization of ELT in the current global situation. But I was sad because I did not find any advisors who used to be our celebrity and the stars in NELTA.

 – Gopal Prasad Basyal, NELTA Palpa

 I wished I could attend some presentation focusing on the role of the ICT in the ELT classroom. My wish was fulfilled when I participated the session of Dr. Kalyan from India. He shared with us different ways and ideas how ICT tools can be integrated for effective ELT classroom.

 – Ms. Shyama Tamang, NELTA Nuwakot

 I attended the concurrent session of Ms. Monalisa Khan from Bangladesh. She shared us about the challenges while teaching EFL writing at the tertiary level. The content was interesting to me and more interesting were the ways she presented her paper. I learned some measures that will help me overcome those challenges in my classroom.

 – Dipesh Kumar Sah, Siraha

If  you have participated in the conference and you wish to include your views to the list  or share your response to the above-mentioned question with the larger ELT community home and abroad, please add your response as a comment.

Monolingual Policies in Multilingual States: Implications for Language Teaching

Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous

Madhav Kafle

Penn State University, USA

In this brief post, I share my rumination over the concept of ‘a language’ and concept of correctness in language teaching and learning. Historically, neither did human beings claim a language by the virtue of belonging to a place nor did they police communicative endeavors of the learners as we do in many academic and non-academic spaces today. So when did we begin to have the concept of a language from that of the Language? By the Language, I mean the semiotic affordances our predecessors exploited to communicate with each other. We might first be shocked to realize that languages such as English, Nepali, Hindi, Chinese and so forth as we conceptualize them today as bounded entities belonging to a certain group of people were invented at some point in the past. Today, as we know, in most parts of the world, languages are taught as if they always existed as self-contained systems with discrete borders. If we mix words or chunks of so-called language “X” to that of a language “Y” in academic discourse, then we are often seen as a language learner who has yet to master the language fully rather than a member of an elite family. Despite being pervasively prevalent in everyday interactions, mixing is seen as one of the seven sins, if you will, in the academia.

And you might be saying, well you can do that in speaking but not in writing; writing is formal and is set in stone whereas speaking is ephemeral and assisted by multiple channels of meaning including gestures and facial expressions. To speak only of English (as ‘a language’) in Nepalese context, we expect our students at all levels to be able to show the mastery of certain national goals and objectives stipulated by the policy makers. Needless to say, the objectives of the language education are monolingual; therefore, teaching materials and resources all are only in English and the medium of instruction is also assumed to be English only (Let’s not get distracted right now by caring to talk about the reality). The pedagogy in most cases is test-driven. Therefore, instead of assessing the effectiveness of the utterance to the local context, we dwell up on the global binary of right and wrong.

Let’s talk about issue of normativity for a while. Modern society judges all human experiences by putting them through the parameters of ‘normalcy’ whereas this very concept has been shown as a matter of social and historical construction rather than a condition of human nature. According to Lennard J. Davis, as he recounts in his essay “Constructing Normalcy” in The Disability Studies Reader, the word ‘normal’ as ‘constituting, conforming to, not deviating or different from the common type or standard, regular, usual’ only enters the English language around 1840. The boundaries and strictures of normalcy, which we think of as ‘natural’ givens now, were constructed just one and a half century ago, at least in the western intellectual history. Likewise, according to Davis,

the word ‘norm’ in the modern sense, has only been in use since around 1855, and ‘normality’ and ‘normalcy’ appeared in 1849 and 1857, respectively. If the lexicographical information is relevant, it is possible to date the coming into consciousness in English of an idea of ‘the norm’ over the period 1840-1860. (10)

Further, Davis  goes onto say that before the construction of the concept of the norm, there was the concept of ‘ideal’, which also dates only from the seventeenth century. However, since the ideal was linked to the world of the divine, it was simply impossible to be achieved by mortals. Within such a schema of the ‘ideal’ there could be no room for the notion of deviance. Disability, for example, did not mean deviance but a part of the ideal. After the construction of ‘norms’ around the mid-nineteenth century, rules and regulations were created in each and every domains of human experience. This historic account of norms might sound a little simplistic; however, the purpose should be clear: norms are social constructions as are languages. As an aside, let me say this to you, I had to resort to western literature to elucidate this point, I wish I was able to find some relevant sources from our local multilingual archives .

Now, once constructed, do the norms last forever? An example from The New York Times example might be insightful. According to the article, the current association of baby clothes, which are often sorted by gender and color lines, pink for girls and blue for boys, were once just the other way around. Before the World War I, boys were pink and the girls were blue. This indicates that the norms can change according to the needs of the new times (or even for some mysterious reason).

If you permit me to continue this philosophical rambling, to have a historical understanding of the language standards, how about we travel a little back to the pre-colonial times? Would not it be interesting to explore what kinds of language norms were exercised during gurukul education system?  Maybe,  our tendency of seeing ourselves as authorities and our language  policing in  language and literacy teaching, has some kind of legacy to gurukul system as well. Again, unfortunately, the literature covering that time is relatively sparse and we are raised in a culture of looking to the West.

Consciously or unconsciously, we seem to be unable to conceive of other ways besides following the mono-normative pedagogy by default. We take for granted that skills such as reading and writing once learnt are going to be useful for ages while that is in fact not the case. If we talk about professional development, rarely is the case where teacher training programs do capitalize on local (multilingual) pedagogy. Similarly, well-meaning literacy sponsors such as British Council and US Embassy and other funding agencies would not probably commend our proposal of mixing different languages for academic purposes. This is not to say we do not have local conventions, but we often tend to discredit them as incorrect or substandard. We do not often look for hidden legacies we might have. To put it a little differently, we have yet to create the knowledge base that validates our centuries long practices.

On a more positive note, there are some signs that we are going to regain the multilingual history at some point in near future, if not soon. European Union today is a case in point. However, I am aware of the fact that while economic prospect of multilingualism is now visible in developed countries, English is still getting an unjustly superior position in many developing countries like ours. Therefore, to envision a future where we can follow the middle path by striking the balance between the indigenous and dominant languages, whether they be English or Nepali, we need to start acting today. We can’t outright negate the ‘a language’ discourse as it is rather deep, but we can at least start destabilizing the concept. The recent discussion on speaking English (only) in and out of the classrooms in NELTA yahoo group can be taken as one of the examples of possible steps forward.  Through such intellectually engaging discussions, we will be able to reinvigorate and build on our past pedagogies.  Yes, we won’t reach to conclusions easily, but the fire of criticality will keep us guiding to a better future. I hope we soon realize that erasing tribal languages in the name of validating economically advantageous languages in academia is neither fair nor foresighted. So, what kind of pedagogy would be more socially sensitive and culturally appropriate? Let’s keep the discussion going on!

Nepalese Youth Icon Rana’s Love for Change: Teach Children Free of Charge

Miscellaneous, Native Perspective, Nelta branch and members

Apar Poudel

Amid the forest and alluring natural beauty, there stands Maya Universe Academy, a child-friendly school for the children from the poor and marginalized community in Tanahun District of Nepal. It is a model school which offers the children with international standard education free of charge.  A youth icon Manjil Rana, who envisions establishing such schools over the country based on experiential learning, has started from his own village.

Let’s watch the video on YouTube, where Rana shares how he started his project of founding Maya Universe Academy.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUNKtrnzEH4]

Rana in his early twenties started his dream project Maya Universe Academy, a free school, in his village in Udhin Dhunga of Tanahu District two years ago. Now he has scaled up the project establishing two more schools as its branches in the remote villages of Syanja and Makwanpur districts too.

Before he started this school, Rana completed his high school from St Xavier’s School in Kathmandu and then University education in India and the United States of America. In the present context of the youths flying abroad for foreign employment and studies, Rana stands as the symbol, who models the youths to inspire to take a welfare initiative and initiate the campaign for a common cause in their community that can make a difference in the Nepalese society.

The curriculum of the Academy meets the international standards. It is practical and based on experiential learning. The effectiveness of the curriculum is reflected in day-to-day life of the kids as they use not only Nepali but also English for communication.

Rana’s initiative has received support from many helping hands and volunteers. It runs with the minimum fund collected from the volunteers from abroad. In addition, the guardians’ voluntary service, and school’s own agriculture and farming have also contributed to covering the expenses.

As a part of community development service, foreign volunteers from different nations are cooperating with the school management by teaching the children. Every month the Academy arranges some volunteers and cooperates with the local teachers for effective teaching-learning.

An American volunteer Aayean says, “I am highly inspired by the school and having great time here. I believe that students are having fun in learning practically and these are the precious days for me too.”

The Academy has its own rules and regulations that have shaped its uniqueness. The best part of the school is reflected in the students’ uniform i.e. Nepali daura and surwal with dhaka cap for boys and skirt and cholo for girls. It can be one of the indications that our children can learn English without losing their cultural roots.

As mentioned earlier, the students do not have to pay any fees for their study. Instead, their guardians should volunteer in the activities of the Academy. It can be farming and construction or even preparing breakfast and lunch for the teachers and staff. The Academy has raised the hope among the guardians. They are happy to have such an ideal school in their community.

“It’s a joy to have such a school in our village. I feel lucky to see my kids learning English happily.” says a guardian Machindar Dulal. Another guardian Mahendra Adhikari shares his views, “School is really a gift for the people of the poor community, who are marginalized and deprived of quality education”.

The support from the local community has added new enthusiasm to the Academy. The regular meetings and gatherings work out and entrust the responsibilities of guardians for the welfare of the school.

Apart from the educational initiative, the school has also initiated in social transformation through various activities. As a part of social initiative it has been working for the production, promotion and marketing of local products. Rana has come up with the idea of promoting local products along with their production and marketing. For example, he has cooperated with the guardians in producing the orange jam in the village and to sell it in the cities. For this initiation he has trained a team with the skill of producing jam. This has really inspired the locals, who were unaware of such potential of the markets and products.

He is determined to translate his vision into reality. However, he sees people’s mindset and lack of communication among themselves as a major challenge. He feels that passion is the driving force we youths should carry and move ahead that surely leads to success. He has  a dream of educating the kids from rural parts of Nepal so that they can explore and compete for the global opportunities. Obviously it is English that gives them competence and confidence to embark on the journey from the local to global.

This school is an exemplary one for other schools in Nepal, especially the private ones which increase their fees year by year to provide education to the children in the name of English. Besides, it establishes a friendly relationship among the students-teachers through good communication and interaction.

It’s an inspiring step that can surely bring about change in the education system of Nepal along with social development.  Only the thing is that the society should be positive and supportive to help the visionaries put their thought into action. Rana argues that his initiation can bring about change in the education system of Nepal within 20 years. As a promising and aspiring youth, he believes that the schools like this should be set up throughout the nation.

If you want to learn more about the school, click on http://www.mayauniverseacademy.org/

 Mr. Poudel is the manager at Radio Bani Network in Kathmandu and teaching English to higher secondary and bachelor’s level students.

Have Your Say!

Miscellaneous, Nelta Networking

Dear valued readers and contributors,

We feel highly privileged to celebrate the fourth anniversary of NeltaChoutari. The continued support of our valued readers and contributors along with untiring efforts of the editorial team consisting professional experts of Nepalese ELT from home and abroad is the secret behind the successful journey of Choutari. The Information Communication Technology integration into Nepalese ELT has brought revolution which was propelled by a team of six editors (Shyam Sharma, Bal Krishna Sharma, Prem Phyak, Sajan Kumar Karn, Kamal Poudel and Hem Raj Kafle) working independently and voluntarily for the publication of online magazine on the web.

As the editorial reads above, the previous team of Choutari has handed over the responsibilities to young promising leaders of Nepalese ELT to maintain the chain of change for sustainability. The new team members were nominated based on their contributions on the blogzine and their potentials to contribute the professional forum to a large extent. We wish the new team of Choutari a thriving time. May the commitments from the new team to contribute Nepalese ELT to a large extent!

It is only readers and contributors who influence the course of a magazine. Ideas are equally important. Not all ideas can be identified with one person or one faction. As we have witnessed the shift of the responsibility to the new team members after four years’ journey of Choutari, we need the power of ideas and the vision of our readers and contributors to lift the Choutari intervention out of the rut. On the special anniversary occasion, our valued readers and contributors of Choutari have expressed their views adding wonderful ideas along with the best wishes to the new team. Please read on before you post a comment adding yours. Your views and opinions are always counted on for the promotion of the webzine.

Uttam Gaulee, University of Florida, US

Choutari has provided an instant, active, and living medium for the NELTA community to virtually come together, interact and catch up. I assume few will disagree that Choutari now represents the soul of this organization. I believe there is a greater number of teachers, who quietly enjoy and benefit from this inspiring forum than is apparent. No doubt it should be expanded and promoted. However, honestly, I do not think I have any wonderful ideas to promote it though. What comes to my mind instantly is that participation should be encouraged more by acceptance and guidance rather than intimidation. Finally, of course, my best wishes to the new team!

Mandira Adhikari, Kathmandu University

I heard about NeltaChoutari in the 15th international conference which I attended for the first time but I could not understand what it is about. After I joined M. Ed. at Kathmandu University and started exploring different ELT articles on internet in order to complete my assignments during studies, I came across Choutari where I found different relevant articles. Later I also contributed the blog with my three articles as it has been helpful for my professional development. Now I regularly read the articles published here and comment on them. Similarly, I like to read the comments as well since they are helping us to write professional articles and get them published in other venues. Here I would like to suggest everyone to send the articles based on our experience to the forum to promote Choutari. They help the readers reflect on the situation and think of alternatives to improve it. Finally, my best wishes to the new team for their success and I hope we will get chance to read more significant articles of our context onwards!

Umesh Shrestha

Right now, Chautrai is the only webzine which features and promotes ideas and works of Nepali ELT experts, professionals and teachers. In a way, this is a great space for ideas, resources and innovations. However, the webzine needs to add more variety in the content, for example, a podcast or a video of interviews or workshops or conferences. That way, the focus could also include the ‘spoken’ English of Nepali English language teachers. I’m sick and tired of watching videos of foreign experts and ELT professionals on youtube. So, that’s my expectation, at least one interview a month (either in audio or a video format), or audio/video recordings of workshops/presentations, etc. Thus, the new team could have not only editors, but also few journalists or reporters. Hopefully, this idea doesn’t get discarded.

Jyoti Tiwari, Thakur Ram Multiple Campus, Birgunj

NeltaChoutari is the wonderful webzine for all the readers who are involved in teaching learning activities and also for those who are interested in ELT. It is the place where professionals can meet and exchange their ideas, views, experience, etc through this webzine. This is very helpful for those who want to share their experience and who want themselves keep updated with new teaching technique along with teaching method. What I found is that it is playing very instrumental role for improvement of Nepalese ELT and it is the matter of great happiness for all of us. It can be more effective if it covers some more space including more articles, views, interviews, experience of those who are experiencing this field and from those who are fresh or new along with encouraging new readers to read and get benefited. At last I want to express my hearty gratitude to those professionals who have contributed a lot for this wonderful webzine. Because of their effort and hard work, Choutari has reached such height. And I would like to wish ALL THE BEST and GRAND SUCCESS to new team of the webzine in coming days.  

Batuk Lal Tamang, Chair, NELTA Chitwan (Annapurna HSS Parbatipur, Chitwan)

I think NELTA Choutari is a handy companion for ELT practitioners and a valuable asset as well. I read almost all of the articles published in this website. They all are useful and helpful for the English language teachers no matter whether they are primary teachers or university professors. It has been now a small library for us, as we can retrieve the archived articles in category-wise/ theme-wise or date-wise.

Yet some we are looking some features in it. Some more themes should be included here, such as small scale research for language teaching, i.e. action research, case study, and specimen of project work for English language class. I think these topics are very much needed for the school teachers nowadays. To extend its service area, even hard copies should be published.

Finally I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the past editors who successfully accomplished their task during their tenure, and have been able to bring this online magazine in this status. And I hope the future editors will be able to make the “NELTA Choutari” better and better. I wish them a success of their working period.

Parmeshwor Baral, Prithvi Narayan Multiple Campus, Pokhara, Nepal

Since the beginning of Choutari, I am one of the regular readers of this and consulting the ideas and articles presented in different issues, I have been able to solve so many academic confrontations. In the mean time there is no doubt about the wide coverage of its audience, still I think if this is made like the webmail through yahoo like that of NELTA, it can have more coverage. 

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the previous team of editors and I would like to congratulate the newly formed editorial body. Moreover, I hope that the professionalism in ELT will enhance more in the upcoming days as well.

Now it is the time for you to post a comment adding your views like above – Please consider three things while expressing your views (1) your feeling/experience about/with Choutari (2) your wonderful ideas for its promotion (3) finally the BEST WISHES to the new team.

NeltaChoutari and Professional Development

Nelta Networking

by Ganga Gautam

Dear friends,

It’s been two years since we have the NeltaChoutari with us, a wonderful professional blog that brings us ample Khurak of diverse tastes not only from Nepal but from different parts of the world. Initially this blog began as a kind of discussion blog as Shyamji puts it on the very first issue of neltachoutari (January 2009):

“Over the course of the last few months, Bal, Prem, and I have been talking about a random but very significant set of issues via email (copying among the three of us). I am beginning to wonder if we should redirect that time and energy into something more productive, more shared, and more beneficial for a larger community. As Prem and I talked on Skype this afternoon, we should archive and share these discussions through blogging (I created this blog after our talk), through a wiki (I set up knowledgemaking.pbwiki since that email also), a discussion list (way to go), or anything better than email–email is not designed for collaboration, for Pete’s sake!”

Now, I feel that it is much more than a discussion blog. I consider this a very powerful tool of professional development. Currently I am in Boston University and I am browsing the various professional development network on the web. Comparing NeltaChoutari with other internationally known blog, I can say that NeltaChoutari has offered us no less than any professional sharing blog has offered. Yesterday, Shyamji called me and asked me if I was in a position to share my observations about the blog as its regular reader and occasional contributor. I happily agreed.

I quickly glanced the archives of NeltaChoutari  and looked at what we have shared and discussed. I found the list amazing ! The key themes that we have talked are:

a)      Critical Pedagogy

b)      Methodology of ELT

c)       Native and Non-native Issues in ELT

d)      Global and local varieties of English

e)      Bilingualism and Multi-lingualism

f)       Trends and Issues in ELT

g)      Role of and positioning of English in Nepal

h)      Language Barriers

i)        World Englishes

j)        Reforms in ELT in Nepal

k)      Classroom Humor

l)        Alternative Curriculum

m)    Teacher Training

n)      Teacher Professional Development

o)      Practice Teaching

p)      Professional Networking

q)      Classroom Dynamics

r)       Interviews with the ELT Celebrities

s)       Teachers’ Anecdote

t)       Conference Sharing

The list can go on and on. I just wanted to mention that we have shared a wide variety of topics that are the buzz terms in the ELT undercurrents. This shows that the forum has been able to offer the most updated ELT materials from home and abroad. If someone compiles the discussion (probably NELTA can think of doing it), it would produce an excellent ELT Anthology with a Glocal ELT flavour.

When I read the interview by Prof. Jai Raj Awasthi and the articles by Prof. Govinda Raj Bhattarai, Mr. Vishnu Singh Rai and Dr. Bal Mukunda  Bhandari in the last issue and several other articles from many other colleagues from Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University, I felt that ELT in Nepal is growing as a dynamic discipline and we have been able to set the ELT parameters in Nepal along with the global advancement. I feel very proud to be a part of the recent curriculum revision project in Tribhuvan University and there were many colleagues involved in it. Prof. Awasthi has already highlighted on the new courses in his interview last month. On this occasion, I would like to quote Dr. Numa Markee, Professor of University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign  while asking him for his observations on the recently revised teacher education course of B.Ed. and M.Ed.  that he reviewed before they were finalized. He said, “Overall, I think that the quality of the curriculum you have devised is certainly comparable to that of British, American and Australian universities with which I am familiar”. This shows that we have been following the current ELT world and we also have a lot to offer to the global ELT community. Professional forum such as NeltaChoutari are the excellent platform to learn and help others learn.

Shyamji told me that we have over 9,000 views with an estimate of 500 unique readers on NeltaChoutari as of December 1. This is not a small number. When I shared this blog as a part of my presentation in one of my classes in Boston University, I received very good response from them. They said that they will ask their students to use this blog to get the resources for their research work. However, the readership is not enough. We need think of ways of getting people engaged in the professional communication and sharing. This is the most difficult and challenging part particularly in Nepal where English teachers have to be extremely busy with several assignments and obligations. Nevertheless, we need to find some time for our professional growth. At this point, I would like to make few suggestions to make NeltaChoutari a more productive forum.

a)      NeltaChoutari  not only offers the thematic discussion but it also connects us to the vast amount of ELT resources that are available online. Teacher education campuses can encourage the students to make use of those resources. Students will find them highly useful for the course work and practice teaching. There are wonderful lesson plans on the web which our student teachers can use them readily in their classes.  Similarly, the articles from these resources will complement the topics they discuss in their classes. NELTA can organize a short orientation program for the teacher educators both at the center and at the branches and give a demonstration of how best these resources can be made available for our students.  The teacher educators can also be encouraged to share their experiences through this blog and learn from their colleagues around the globe.

b)      One of the key challenges for our thesis writing Masters students  is the literature review. I remember my students having this challenge and I used to recommend them to visit to NeltaChoutari and find the relevant ELT resources for their review. There are archives of such resources which can be accessed via this network. If people really need some articles that are not freely available, there are NELTA colleagues around the world who have kindly offered their help to make them available if request is placed. So, I can see that it will be a great opportunity for our students to explore NeltaChoutari during their research. Once they are into it, I am sure they will be addicted to it.

c)       In order to engage the primary and secondary level English teachers in the discussion, we could organize a session in the NELTA conference as we did last year and share with them what this forum can offer for them. Also, NELTA Central Committee can organize a short session to orient the branch representatives on the use of this forum.

In a nutshell, what I am trying to say is that professional networking and sharing is the best way to develop ourselves and the more we share the richer we become professionally. Please do read NeltaChoutari and engage yourself in the professional discussion and I can assure you it will pay you back !!!!!

Thank you Shyamji, Balji, Premji, Kamalji and Sajanji and recently Hemji for making NeltaChoutari a special ELT forum for all of us !!!!!!!!!!

Happy reading !!!!!!!!!!!!

Ganga Ram Gautam

Hubert Humphrey Fellow – 2010/2011

Boston University, USA

President, NELTA

December  2010

Practice Teaching: A Reflection

Scholarly Article

“Practice/Student Teaching” in I. ED. and B. ED.: A learning experience or a meaningless ritual?

Ganga Ram Gautam

This is a narrative drawn from my experience as a teacher educator at Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tahachal, Kathmandu.

Background

Practice teaching or student teaching is the obligatory requirement in the faculty of education under Tribhuvan University. In each level i.e. I. ED., B. ED. and M.ED. the students are required to carry out this assignment at the end of the course work. This is to give the students teachers a real classroom experience in teaching so that they can develop the required skills for their classroom teaching later after graduation. The duration is about 4 weeks for I. ED. and 6 weeks for B. ED and M. ED. In order to do this, schools and colleges located in the vicinity of the campuses are requested to provide their classes and the student teachers from the campuses are assigned to teach in them. Each student teacher has to teach at least one class a day with all the preparation and s/he is expected to practice the skills in his/her classroom that s/he learned in the courses. The internal supervisors are assigned to supervise their performance and provide them feed back and sharpen their teaching skills. The final evaluation is carried out by an external examiner at the end of the practice teaching. In addition to this teaching  the students are also expected to do some internship work in the department that includes the preparation of case study of a student and evaluation of the course materials.

As a teacher educator I wanted to see very briefly how the student teachers see this activity as a part of their course work. It is often heard that the practice teaching has now just been a ritual in Nepal and there are complaints from the concerning head teachers and respective teachers that the student teachers come to school just for formality and they do not take this practice very seriously. The teachers teaching in the campuses also say that the practice teaching has not been very useful for the student teachers as it is not being carried out as it should be. If this is true, this will have a very adverse affect not only in school teaching system but also have a negative impact in the life of the student teachers as it is mentioned by (Svincicki, 1996),  “If doctors make worst patients, teachers make the worst students”. I was just curious to find out the current state of student teaching so that the limitations/drawbacks could be found and the suggestions could be made to improve it.

In order to see this practical at a very micro level, I followed a kind of accidental sampling approach. I went to the campus in the morning and stayed in the department. Whoever the faculty members came there in order to sign their attendance I request them to be my respondents as the representatives of the faculty members. I also selected the students in the same manner in which I went to the classroom and told them what I was doing and requested the volunteers to participate in my survey. Since it was not the study for a scholarly work I must confess that I did not follow the standard research procedures in this. My purpose was just to find out how teachers and students see practice teaching and find out some of the immediate key issues related to practice teaching. I prepared a short questionnaire and requested the participants to fill in. Upon my request they did it on the spot and handed it to me immediately.

Key Findings

The Teacher trainers’ teaching experience: 5- 27 years. The students that I selected were B. ED. and M. ED. Students and all of them did their practice teaching in their previous years.  Some of the key highlights of my findings from this snap-shot study are listed below.

Preparation of the student teachers on-campus:

By preparation I mean how the student-teachers are prepared for teaching in the training classrooms in their campuses. This can be reflected in the approach of the teacher training classroom. If the teaching is more student-centred than the students have more room for practising skills where as they have very little practice if the training is lecture based or teacher centred.

Thus, while asking the trainers whether their training was student centred or teacher centred, there was no uniform answer. Among the 10 teachers only four of them (40%) said that their teaching was student-centred. While asking the same question to the students, 57% said that the class was student centred. Actually the students when they were asked to elaborate what they meant by student-centered, they had varied responses.

The method of teaching in the training classroom on-campus was predominantly the lecture for both the faculty and students.

Another question in the preparation was whether or not the student teachers practice the teaching skills in the training classroom in their campuses. While asking this question to the teachers 30% said that they did engage the their students in practice activities but 20% said that they just lectured while 50% said that they sometimes engaged the students in practice activities. Interestingly the students’ response was a bit different. Majority of the students i.e. 83% said that they did not practice the skills in the training classrooms. This clearly shows the lack of practice in the campus classrooms. One can say that the existing training situation seems to be a bit odd, as it does not involve the students in practising the skills in the training classroom.

I tried to dig out this a bit in detail and asked the students why they did not practice the skills in their training classroom and their responses recorded as follows:

  • Large classes in the campus did not allow room for practice
  • Majority of the students did not want to practice the skills in the campus
  • No appropriate environment was created in the campus. But when I asked them what they mean by appropriate environment is, they just could not answer.
  • The faculty and student teachers were not very active in doing things rather they felt comfortable to the usual lecture method
  • Carelessness and irregularity on the part of the students was also a main reason
  • Interestingly the faculty members confessed that they were not prepared enough to share the POWER in shifting their role from a teacher to facilitator could lead to an anarchy in the classroom.

Implementation of the ideas that the student teachers learned in the campus in schools

The success of training can be seen when the trainees are found using the training skills in the classroom practice. In the campus, they learn the skills in theory mainly through the lecture and discussion. I asked them how much of what they learned was actually implemented in the classroom in schools. Obviously, this was not an easy question to answer but I requested them to respond based on their experience. Majority of the faculty and students said that they transferred very little of what they learned. I also tried to find some of the reasons for not being able to transfer the training skills in the classroom. They said that most of the student-teachers did not take practice teaching seriously and there is a sheer negligence on the part of the student teachers.

Frequency of Supervision:

As mentioned earlier, the student teachers are supervised by the internal supervisors during their practice teaching. The supervision is to provide feed back to the teachers and sharpen their teaching skill. One of the objectives of teaching practices as Gower and Walter (1987) put it is, “to provide you with an opportunity to have your teaching evaluated and constructively criticised”. Thus, the frequency of supervision is very important. In this research the frequency of supervision was found very low. The internal supervisors are required to observe at least 3 classes during the practice teaching. While asking them they said that they did supervise 3 times. But while asking the student- teachers there was a different picture. Out of 35 student teachers only 10 of them (29%) agreed with the teachers’ response. Among the rest, 9 students (26%) reported that they were supervised only once and 13 of them (37%) were supervised only twice. Interestingly, 9% said that they were not internally supervised at all. Thus, the supervision system was found to be very weak.

Key issues and challenges of practice teaching:

I was anxious to identify the some of the key issues and challenges in practice teaching. The faculty members had the following observations:

  • Student teachers did not know how to prepare lesson plans: Maybe this is because they were not taught how to do it in the campus or they did not pay attention. The reason behind this was not observed in the response.
  • They had weak language proficiency (English teachers) and therefore could not teach English in schools properly.
  • The faculty members confessed that the Internal Supervisors were not honest in supervision. This shows the lack of sincerity on the part of the teachers.
  • Lack of uniformity among the internal supervisors was a major issue. They say that the supervisors did not give uniform instruction/suggestions to the student teachers which created several problems.
  • Large number of students in teacher training course was another big challenge. Due to this reason the student teachers could not practice the skills in the classrooms.
  • One supervisor had to observe many student teachers in schools located in different places and at the same time the teachers had to teach in the campus as well.
  • Student teachers did not take teaching practice seriously and they took it as a formality and they had a tendency of giving undue pressure to the teachers for giving more marks in their external supervision.
  • On campus teaching (micro-teaching) was not effective as this was also considered by the teachers as a formality.
  • Courses were not taught practically in the campus and the students did not practise the skills in the training situation.
  • Very little or no incentives for the internal supervisors which was also a major contributing factor for the frequency of supervision.
  • Halo effect in the evaluation was also mentioned. The students felt that obtaining marks in teaching practice is a mercy of the internal and external supervisors.

The students brought the following issues and challenges in the forefront:

  • Teaching practice had been used not as a learning experience but as a formality
  • The ideas they learn in the training classrooms were fantastic which are not implementational  in the real classrooms
  • Many students said that the internal supervisors did not supervise properly; they just sat in the class and disappeared after few minutes without giving any comments or feedback.
  • The internal supervisors just criticised what went wrong; they rarely encouraged how the students could build on their strengths.
  • School head-teachers/teachers did not treat the student teachers as they were practising teachers but they behaved them as if they came to schools just to pass their time.
  • Campus teaching was more of theoretical not practical.
  • Lack of enough incentives to the internal supervisors was also mentioned by the students.
  • The schools used the student teachers as the extra teachers and asked them to teach any class which is vacant.
  • Lack of good co-ordination between the schools and campuses made it difficult to handle the situation easily.
  • Schools were not very much co-operative to the student teachers.
  • Lack of classroom management skills in student teachers was yet another issue. Students said that they were not taught in the campus courses.
  • Fixed sitting arrangement in the class did not allow the movements in the class. Thus the teaching did not become student centred.
  • They also accepted that there was a great deal of carelessness among the student teachers.
  • Another serious problem they pointed out was that the Internal supervisors were biased.

Some suggestions for improvement:

Teachers’ Responses:

  • Rigorous training should be given to the student teachers in lesson plan preparation before they go to schools.
  • Uniform lesson plan formats be designed subject-wise and it should be practised well beforehand.
  • Internal supervisors should sincerely and honestly observe the assigned student teachers.
  • Remuneration of the internal supervisor should be reasonable and should be timely paid.
  • Orientation of the internal supervisors should be organised before the practice teaching and proper monitoring of the internal supervision has to be done.
  • Each internal supervisor should be assigned maximum 5 student teachers, if possible all in the same school.
  • Practical courses are to be taught practically.
  • Orientation to the school head-teachers and subject teachers should be held.
  • Refresher training/seminar on practice teaching for the internal supervisors should be organised.
  • Good leadership is ensured to handle this practice teaching business.
  • The campus teacher training should be made student centred as much as possible.

Students’ Responses:

  • Some financial support should be provided for student teachers for materials preparation.
  • Internal supervision has to be made more frequent and it should be made very effective.
  • Full class should be observed and enough feedback should be given to the student teachers by the internal supervisors.
  • Incentives should be made attractive for the internal supervisors.
  • On campus teaching practices should be made meaningful.
  • The government should provide teaching materials to schools so that the teachers in the respective schools also use them in the class so as not to make teaching practice artificial.
  • Demonstration teaching by the trainers could give the student teachers enough idea of how classes are to be carried out.
  • Language improvement course for the English student teachers to improve their own English.
  • Everyone should take this as a serious matter and everyone should sincerely do what they are supposed to do.
  • The evaluation should be done with jointly by internal supervisor and external examiner.
  • Systematic planning has to be made before sending the student teachers to the schools.
  • Harmonious relation between the campus and schools should be established; through orientation to the head teachers and respective teachers.
  • Course in the campus have to be taught practically.
  • Halo effect has to be avoided.
  • Student teachers have to be creative enough in the schools.

Conclusion:

My intention is NOT to put the gloomy picture of the practice teaching but to see it as it is observed by its key stakeholders and draw some implications in our teacher training system. I would like to request the readers to have their thoughts in this issue so that we can initiate some reform in this important area of teacher training. My  purpose is to make teaching practice MEANINGFUL and a RICH LEARNING EXPERIENCE.

Continue reading Practice Teaching: A Reflection →

Future of our nation is in Students’ Quality Circle*

Miscellaneous

Lekhnath Sharma Pathak

Secretary, QUEST-Nepal & Lecturer, Central Department of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University

This might sound just like any other academic kind of statement that is overstated, or like the clichéd claim that ‘children are the future of our nation,’ which actually means nothing at all. But Students’ Quality Circle has the power to translate this dream into reality. The whole philosophy of this approach is rooted in concrete here-and-now kind of pragmatism rather than abstract idealistic speculations. SQC movement has a vision of producing citizens who are SMART and GOOD. Smartness implies competitiveness and excelling over others whereas goodness implies serving others. Practitioners of SQC know of all this. But for someone new to this movement, it might be worth telling how it works.

Like minded students of a particular class in a school form a group, what we call circle. The term ‘circle’ is important. In linearity there is somebody ahead and someone behind the one who is ahead. In circularity, there is no first and last. Everyone is equal. The first lesson students learn (without being explicitly taught, of course) is that everyone is equal. The lesson of respect to human rights and equity begins from here.

The circle sits down together to identify problems of and on their own. This is done by using the technique of brainstorming. Be it whether the teacher is too strict, or the seniors bully juniors, or the school premise is dirty, or there is no one to guide with homework at home, or the parents’ quarrel or TV as a nuisance to study are all problems that irk  students at home or in the school. This is an easy way to start, as anyone can talk about the problems around oneself. Ironically, this does not work with adults. What adults learn is to hide their own problems rather than share in a group. Children are yet to fall into this trap. So it’s useful to teach them early that it’s a good thing to talk about your own problem. It’s important that children take up only that problem which they can solve on their own initiative and which is under their control, not the one which is beyond their control to intervene and solve.

It’s not easy to solve all the problems which have been identified and listed. So the problems have to be narrowed down. The problems are voted and the one which gets highest votes becomes the common problem of the entire group. This is democracy at work. They learn the way of building a consensus and working at a common problem unanimously. This is exactly what adults strive at in many circumstances but end up in strife.

Now it’s time to get things done. Solve the problem, that is. The students get down to identify the causes which have led to the problem. The causes may be within their control to check or outside their control. All the causes are identified and root causes targeted – the causes when removed will minimize or reduce the problem. This is done by using brainstorming, survey, research and is presented using Ishikawa or cause-and-effect diagram.

In the next stage they think of the countermeasures which will reduce or remove the problem. Again the research cycles of brainstorming, incubating the ideas, more research begins till they come out with and exhaust the possibilities available. And set down to implement the countermeasures. This may be done by undertaking different activities like raising the awareness about the problem and intervening on their own. The process does not stop at merely implementing the solutions or countermeasure to the problems. It starts another cycle of cross checking as how much the problem has been minimized as a result of implementing the countermeasures. This completes the cycle of problem solving.

One cycle ends finally, with making a presentation of the entire activity in 15 minutes. The presentation is done using complete illustration of the work done. The presentation highlights also the tangible and intangible benefits children got out of the whole enterprise. Besides having solved the problem they undertook to solve, the benefits include the spirit of team work developed, learning to respect others’ views and listening to others, taking initiative, becoming responsible, learning about lateral and creative thinking, developing communicative skills, learning the basics of research and scientific way of problem solving, leadership skills, confidence building, public speaking and overall developing of an all rounded personality. All these and many more life skills develop naturally. That the problem gets solved is merely a by-product of this whole process, the end-product is the evolution of a child into a complete human being.

If we can get SQC done in all the schools of Nepal in each and every corner of the country, it won’t take us long to have a generation of citizens who will be equipped to take up any problem of the country and society on their own and solve them in such a way that it won’t recur again. Once this movement succeeds in schools, this will go up to colleges and universities and finally to different spheres of professions. So instead of merely Students’ Quality Circles, we will be able talk about Youths’ Quality Circles, Women’s Quality Circles, Politicians’ Quality Circles, Teachers’ Quality Circles, Doctors’ Quality Circles, Engineers’ Quality Circles or Managers’ Quality Circles. Likewise Quality Circles in all the spheres’ of our activities.

And it’s not impossible to it make happen. In Nepal, this movement is led by Prof. Dinesh Chapagain who has a committed team under QUEST-Nepal and which organizes Students’ Quality Circle Convention every year which we celebrated last year in Galaxy Public School on November 26-27 and this Year in 2010 we are bracing up to organize 13th International Convention in Nepal from November 1-3 . SQC spirit is also reflected in the working spirit of QUEST-Nepal in collaborating as a team with likeminded organizations like PABSON, NPABSON, NJS, FNCCI, NQPCN and NELTA. We are also looking forward to work together with other organizations and institutions who are working in the areas related to children and education. SQC needs to become a national reality if we think of creating a real New Nepal.

Teacher Anecdote – Lekhnath Sharma Pathak

Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

When the table turns on you

I was teaching English to the BBA first year students of Tribhuvan University in a private college in Kathmandu. As part of their assessment, I had given them a short presentation task. The textbook had some texts against the watching of television as how it destroys family and reading culture and creative thinking and all that stuff. After having discussed those texts I asked my students to make a two-minute individual presentation on either supporting the watching of television, or opposing it or balancing both the view points.

Many of the students made very good presentations and I was evaluating their performance on the spot and giving them their grades. When the student presentation session finished one very smart boy, Lobsang, raised his hand from his seat and challenged me, “Ok sir, now let’s hear from you, how do you fare yourself on the same kind of presentation. Let’s see a good example of presentation from you now.” My God! I was caught unawares at the middle of it. This was something which had never happened to me before. My students had never dared or challenged me. I thought for a while, as how to deal with this unexpected situation. A teacher in our situation is an absolute authority in the class. I could easily dismiss the challenge saying, “It’s your test, not mine. So just shut up.” But I didn’t do that and didn’t feel like doing that as well. I thought of the repercussion it will have, if I did that. It would be letting the students down, not respecting their voice. Giving a message “I don’t give a damn about you”. And since I am in the teaching profession out of choice, not out of any compulsion and I always hold my students above anything else, even above the authority of the college, I couldn’t dismiss the voice that had come from among them. So I thought for a while and decided to comply what they had said. And in a couple of seconds, I thought of how to do it, in my mind. I decided that I will take a balanced view about TV watching. Within a minute, I had taken my stand and then I smiled, with the whole class smiling with me but they smiling for a different reason and me for a different reason. And I said, “Ok, I am game. I will do it for you. You count the time and warn me ten seconds before as I had done with you. The same rules apply to me. I will take a balanced view of TV watching.” The class was quite excited. The whole class was my judge now. And I had to prove myself before them. It was totally a different test from whatever I had faced so far. I took a deep breath. And quickly organized my talk in my mind. I began by the days of radio, how you could listen and imagine the event yourself, which could have been better than shown, how when you watch a TV you can’t use your imagination as the visuals control your thought, how TV creates a falsified world and manipulates your thoughts and perception but at the same time had somebody taken the entire film of how Neil Armstrong landed on the moon and came back, how Hillary and Norgay reached the top of the Mt. Everest our knowledge would have become richer, if we had no access to the live telecast of important national and international events we wouldn’t know how things actually happen. So there are equal pros and cons of watching TV and we need to use our discretion. By the time, I was about to finish my talk I saw a student at the back writing a big 10 on an A4 paper and lifting it with his both hands above his head and pointing it to me. When I had finished I got a good applause. And Lobsang was very impressed and he said, “I could never think of the points you touched within those two minutes.” I felt very happy, obviously. And the class was never the same again. I had gained their respect and confidence.

Class control

Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

An Interesting Teaching Anecdote

Lekh Nath Sharma Pathak

This happened when I was teaching at Buddha Bhanu Saraswati College in Shillong, India, a college initiated and established by Nepali Community there. I was teaching a class of over 200 students in what was then called Pre-University level. When I finished taking attendance and was about to start the topic, the class was booming with murmur. 200 students whispering and murmuring produces noise sufficient to make teaching impossible. So, I thought of a way to get the class quiet so that they would listen to me and I could start the class. I knew that if I simply announced, “Now, class, keep quiet so that I can start teaching,” it would not work. I had to do something more effective. For a while, I paced back and forth on the ‘stage’ – a raised platform for the teachers so that the students could see the teacher. The whole class was watching me doing this. Then, I suddenly turned to the students and yelled like a military commander, “Stop!” with the index finger pointed up in the air. And the next thing I said, quietly, was, “Just look at the tip of this finger” and the whole class went silent and really looked at the tip of the index finger. They found this quite amusing and some of them were about to smile and say something, but I intervened: “Now don’t speak anything and listen.” And the class quickly came under control and the rest of the hour went on smoothly, with the students talking when they were expected to do so.