The development of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the global education system. ChatGPT and effective AI models are now essential innovations in the language teaching and learning field. By providing technology to community schools with limited resources and infrastructure, scholars can gain insight into the potential and challenges of AI in resource-poor environments. This paper is a reflection of the recent empirical studies and my personal experience as a teacher and researcher to relate critically to the effects of ChatGPT on English language teaching. The input analyses the moderation through which AI transforms pedagogy, addresses learners’ differentiated desires, and works under the moral and infrastructural measurement of AI technology in Nepal. The data of this input are grounded in teacher interviews, classroom observations, and student-centred surveys, digging deep into the use and impact of AI tools. The output provides recommendations for maximising ChatGPT use to promote language acquisition in resource-scarce classrooms while alleviating accessibility, training, and moral challenges.
The ChatGPT: A Personalized and Engaging Commitment
The individualized ChatGPT capability to provide learners with feedback that is personal and immediate has been a possible offer of integration of learners up until now; something that is not practicable in a typically busy community classroom. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence model called OpenAI, which is a state-of-the-art generative machine that can understand and produce human-like text after recognition of the given output. It is, in other words, a pillage of the substitution of creative slaves. It is also a testament to the increasing sensibility that there is a need for differentiated instruction (Zhang, 2022). In its essence, the ChatGPT implies that learners should learn at a pace which is commensurate with the timing that befits them. I personally think the OpenAI model is selfish and a more strenuous taskmaster. The state-of-the-art artificial intelligence OpenAI is more observant than a schoolteacher is and is a capable assistant anytime, even when students are away from the classroom (Sharma & Koirala, 2021). It makes the conversation more interactive and more exciting; the chatbot responds in the way the learner asks the questions. This miraculous discovery also helps shift it from the strength of monologue teaching, making space for the value of voices by offering the learners opportunities to communicate, share, be more interactive, and engage in the conversation (Patel & Uddin, 2022). Indeed, it is a deviation that it is possible because the basis for differentiation and the structure of any learning system is a one-size-fits-all mentality (Thapa, 2021). Time has changed, and increasing sensitivity embraces the ideas of differentiated instruction in such a diversity of educational responses from the learners.
Pedagogical Transformation: From Deliverer to Facilitator
As for the pedagogical transformation, the other phenomenon observed with the help of ChatGPT is the possibility to shift the role of teachers from the main source of knowledge to the person who designs the improved learning processes (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). The key manifestation of this AI incorporation was the opportunity to use AI not as the medium to replace a teacher but as a tool that supports the learning process. In this way, teachers stop being the main content deliverers and become the facilitators and guardians of the AI-supported learning process. Generally, teachers are also communicators and problem-solvers; they possess the complex skill set that they should hand down to their students. The example of the pedagogical transformation made me reflect on the potential of teachers to design more individualistic and student-friendly plans that incorporate a range of AI-based tools. This, of course, requires teachers to become literate in AI and be aware of the options and the limitations of machines in their problem-solving strategies. To me, such a transfer implies a range of professional development opportunities, a permissive organisational culture, and facilitating policies regarding the conditions under which teachers can participate in experimentation and engage in reflective practice.
Confronting Challenges: Infrastructure and Equity
I acknowledge that the successful integration of AI requires teachers to balance the affordances of the digital media and their professional judgment and situational knowledge. It challenges teachers to organise print-based interpretations so that the students’ work is steerable, so that it can provide the role of humans, such as motivation and ethical guidance, because their work was or could be used to take advantage of the affordances of the artefact. Even though I view my reflection from an optimistic perspective, it is a fact that the infrastructural and resource challenges persist in the schools of Nepalese communities. For instance, the lack of internet connections, the lack of digitalisation of the devices, and sporadic power interruptions become an obstacle to the promise of the integration of AI. Socially, such disparities present threats of increasing the inequities in education that would favour the students in cities or good school districts over disadvantaged rural students. I think my reflection necessitates an immediate policy action to close this gap and investments in enhancing digital infrastructure and the fair distribution of technology.
Ethical Considerations: Striking a Balance between Innovation and Integrity
Another ethical aspect that has been imprinted in my mind was the issue of danger. While ChatGPT has the potential of becoming a learning scaffold, one of its applications, the unregulated and unrestricted use, could lead to more plagiarism, reduced creativity, and a weaker need for critical thinking. All three problems touch upon excuses issued by educators when talking about ChatGPT. In my view, the solution is neither to eliminate the use of AI nor to promote the paradigms of its application that would be equitable. Teachers and policymakers play the most active role in the promotion of decency, offering students digital ethics lessons that teach them how to use AI tools meaningfully and responsibly. In the Nepalese context, a considerable amount of national and institutional support is needed. On a national scale, the government should adopt a policy that would regulate the use of AI in education, making it more just. For this, the curricula change is a must, with digital ethics and literacy being added. Moreover, the government should offer guidance and resources for educators, explaining how to use AI responsibly. On the institutional scale, a school should pay due attention to the note of how important academic honesty, perseverance in the face of misuse, and the desire to solve problems instead of finding an easy way out are. Teachers will always be in need; such moral custodians will have to teach students how to become their own moral mentors, inciting them to use ChatGPT as a source of inspiration for development, rather than praise for creativity.
Moving toward Sustainable Integration: Policy Support and Professional Development
As has been discussed above, the integration of ChatGPT cannot be successful via a technical training programme but rather one that is evidence-based with pedagogical, ethical, and reflection aspects. From the reflection I have undertaken, professional development is continuous, situational, and participatory. The aspects can create teacher confidence and innovativeness. Education policymakers can help in developing clear guidelines and ethical norms that ensure AI supplements the current subject matters and increases universal access. To achieve this measure, the initiatives should be co-designed with teachers, students, and communities to be culturally responsive and viable.
Conclusion
This paper discusses the implementation of ChatGPT in Nepalese community schools, identifying its benefits and drawbacks, and analyzing its potential contribution to English language acquisition. It discusses AI applications like ChatGPT, which offers the possibility to experience a personalized learning process and support engagement growth in the underprivileged setting. The implementation of ChatGPT at Nepalese community schools offers more advantages than disadvantages. While achieving individual educational plans and centring students resulted in multiple case benefits, this method requires stronger control on the part of teachers, infrastructural investments, and ethical considerations regarding the current programme. Policymakers and teachers can use this to understand that while the introduction of new technology can be more advantageous, this consideration should also be supported with a relevant and sensitive approach based on the context and students’ perspectives. This paper confirms the opinion on the potential extension of the educational process with the help of technology. However, it also emphasizes the significance of the human factor, critical thinking, and ethical competence.
The implementation of ChatGPT in Nepalese community schools can truly be an opportunity. It seems to be the most eternal way to individualised learning, which guarantees student interest with the help of an approach based on an individualistic manner. Still, it has a number of challenges, such as the appearance of new teacher roles, impacts on infrastructure, and the necessity to consider ethical considerations all the time. The future of AI-enhanced language learning is conditioned by the context-targeted planning and assumes the consideration of the educator’s expertise, institutional and national policy, and independence of the students.
References
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Author’s Bio: Mr Arjun Jung Rayamajhi is an MPhil scholar in English Language Education at Kathmandu University. He is a secondary-level English language teacher at a community school in Nepal, where he has been actively engaged in classroom teaching, academic mentorship, workshops, and training. His research areas are ICT and ICT-based teaching. He can be reached at arayamajhi16@gmail.com.
The integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has transformed educational practices worldwide, fostering innovative teaching and learning experiences (UNESCO, 2018). In developing countries like Nepal, however, ICT implementation remains uneven, particularly in rural community schools. Despite the government’s efforts to promote ICT in education through policies such as the School Sector Development Plan (SSDP, 2016–2023), the challenges in rural contexts continue to hinder its effective use. This study reflects on my personal and professional journey as both a learner and a teacher in Nepal’s community schools, focusing on the challenges of ICT implementation and the realities of the digital divide between rural and urban educational settings. I was born and raised in a rural village in Tanahun District, Nepal. My early education took place in a community school that lacked basic ICT infrastructure, including computers, projectors, and even electricity. Like many rural students, I completed my schooling without ever having seen or used a computer. My only exposure to ICT was through conversations among teachers, which made computers sound like distant, mysterious tools.
The lack of digital exposure during my schooling reflected a broader issue: Nepal’s rural-urban educational disparity, especially in access to technology. Several studies align with my own personal experience, whether as a student or a teacher in various schools. For example, a study by Joshi and Ayer (2024) found that most rural schools in Nepal still lack the infrastructure and training needed for ICT integration. Similarly, Phunyal (2024) reported that many community schools have computers but lack consistent electricity and internet facilities, making their use infrequent and symbolic rather than transformative. Similar challenges are echoed in Lomo et al. (2024) when they reported that insufficient funding, weak stakeholder support, training challenges, poor electricity and internet access, and high maintenance costs constrained head teachers’ efforts to support ICT integration in teaching and learning. It has been reported that teachers have poor ICT skills, schools have poor internet connectivity, and a lack of computers, which creates a significant challenge in its implications (Lamsal, 2022). This report aligns with my personal experience in using ICT in teaching and learning.
Transition to Higher Education and Exposure to ICT
After completing my School Leaving Certificate (SLC), I moved to Pokhara for higher education. I passed intermediate without seeing computer use in the teaching and learning process. However, this transition marked a turning point in my educational journey. While pursuing my Bachelor’s degree, I joined a computer institute and completed a basic computer course. I also began teaching in a private school, where I observed the effective use of ICT in classrooms. Students were taken to the computer lab for a computer class, as well as being taught the contents through ICT tools.
Teachers used projectors, digital content, and multimedia presentations, and I noticed how students were more engaged and motivated. Their enthusiasm contrasted sharply with my own schooling experience. This observation deepened my understanding of the digital divide, a term referring to the unequal access to technology across social, geographical, and economic boundaries (Van Dijk, J., 2020). However, even in higher education, the integration of ICT was limited. Most lecturers relied on traditional lecture methods, highlighting a systemic gap in technology adoption even at the tertiary level.
ICT in Higher Education: A Source of Inspiration
During my master’s degree at Tribhuvan University, I experienced technology-enhanced learning environments for the first time. Professors used laptops, projectors, and digital resources to teach English, which significantly enhanced classroom engagement. They utilised ICT tools in preparing teaching materials and presentation slides, and employed these tools to involve students in group work. The most exciting thing I experienced was that they provided project work that required students to use computers in reporting the work. The ICT use really brightened up the classroom, ended boredom, enhanced students’ participation, and allowed students to explore the world of knowledge using technology. These experiences reinforced my belief that ICT could revolutionise teaching and learning if properly implemented. It inspired me to become an ICT-oriented teacher who could bring innovation into classroom instruction.
Research supports this realisation. According to Pun (2013), the use of ICT in teaching English promotes learner autonomy, motivation, and language exposure beyond textbooks. Similarly, Adhikari (2022) emphasises that teachers’ attitudes and digital competence play crucial roles in the success of ICT integration. Furthermore, Paudel (2021) argued that teacher professional development programs must include digital literacy and pedagogical training to ensure the sustainable use of ICT in schools.
Encountering Realities as a Teacher in Rural Community Schools
My enthusiasm for using ICT faced harsh realities when I began teaching in a rural community school in Tanahun. The school lacked not only computers but also electricity. There was no internet connection, either. I had to depend on mobile data to connect to the internet. The mobile data was also poor. I was disappointed with the realities I confronted there at that time. I was just puzzled about how to integrate ICT in my real teaching without ICT tools at school. The classroom size was large. I had the responsibility of dealing with tech-savvy learners who were more interested in using technology in learning a language. I wanted to be a scuba diver, but the circumstances forced me to be helpless. There was also poor support from the administration in utilising ICT in teaching and learning. I talked to the head teacher and the SMC chairperson. They spoke of the financial challenges the school was facing. My colleagues were discussing the lack of opportunities for ICT training, despite their wishes. Only a few teachers are well-trained in ICT. I desperately wished for an appropriate policy at the local level to address the challenges of ICT implementation in the community school. My knowledge and training in ICT felt irrelevant in that context. Similarly, Rana (2018) and Paudel (2022) identify financial constraints, inadequate training, and the absence of institutional commitment as core barriers.
After four years, I was transferred to a secondary school at Bhimad, where the situation was slightly better; there were computers and projectors, but no internet connectivity and unreliable electricity. Moreover, most teachers were digitally illiterate. Even computer teachers conducted classes theoretically without hands-on practice. These challenges align with findings from Sharma (2020), who observed that many rural schools in Nepal possess ICT tools but lack effective usage due to insufficient training, irregular power supply, and a lack of maintenance support.
Current Teaching Experience and Continuing Challenges
Currently, I teach English at a community school in Tanahun. Despite my persistent efforts to integrate ICT tools into lessons, barriers remain. Limited resources, poor connectivity, and a lack of institutional support continue to restrict meaningful ICT use. I have maximised available tools, using personal mobile phones, recorded videos, and downloaded materials, but systematic integration remains out of reach.
This situation aligns with broader national findings that rural teachers face “second-order barriers”—attitudinal, skill-based, and policy-related constraints that prevent effective ICT use (Ertmer, 1999; Paudel, 2021). Dong, C. (2025) reported that teachers faced major obstacles in integrating ICT into their teaching, primarily because they lacked adequate ICT training and professional development Rana and Rana (2020) in the Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology observe that the implementation of ICT in rural Nepal is highly context-dependent, constrained by geography, socio-economic status, and policy support. The persistence of these issues reveals the urgent need for localised training, infrastructure investment, and policy follow-up. Their findings reinforce the idea that rural ICT integration requires systemic rather than individual-level solutions.
Reflections and Implications
My journey from a student deprived of ICT to a teacher striving for ICT integration reflects the systemic inequities in Nepal’s education system. The journey helped me come up with the idea of the challenges of ICT implementation and its corresponding measures. The lack of sufficient ICT resources, inadequate ICT-based training for teachers, inconsistent electricity supply, poor internet access, a lack of alternative sources of electricity, insufficient administrative support, and a lack of ICT skills are identified as the major challenges to the effective implementation of ICT in rural community schools in Nepal. It underscores that ICT implementation is not merely a technological challenge but a socio-economic and policy issue.
These various experiences helped me to develop the insights to minimise the challenges. Conducting regular ICT training for teachers, promoting digital literacy among students and teachers alike, and community and local government participation in ICT initiatives. Schools must search for financial resources, and stakeholders need to provide administrative and technical support to mitigate the challenges that emerge with the effort to integrate ICT in teaching and learning, particularly in rural community schools. The findings also triggered changes in the policy-making and implementation aspects to seek a solution to the challenges observed. The majority of teachers who have not had the opportunity to learn ICT skills need to be provided with training for proper implementation of ICT in the language classroom, and ultimately to transform the traditional way of teaching to the recent ICT-integrated teaching.
Therefore, policymakers and educational leaders must consider various factors, such as strengthening infrastructure (including electricity and internet access) in rural schools, conducting regular ICT training for teachers, promoting digital literacy among both students and teachers, and encouraging community and local government participation in ICT initiatives. Furthermore, the SMC chairperson and head teachers should share equal responsibility for adopting technology in classroom teaching and learning. The teachers also need to be aware that the use of technology enhances the learning outcome, meeting the goal of quality education. Additionally, various tiers of government need to collaborate to address the challenges of implementing ICT in education. These governments need to formulate an appropriate IT policy and equally emphasise the implementation part. Moreover, these governments need to allocate a budget for infrastructural development and the management of ICT tools in schools. As UNESCO (2023) notes, equitable access to ICT is a key driver of inclusive and quality education. Without addressing the underlying barriers, the digital divide will continue to widen.
Conclusion
This reflective account highlights that ICT integration in rural community schools of Nepal remains a significant challenge despite policy intentions and teachers’ enthusiasm. The author’s experiences mirror those of many rural educators who aspire to innovate but are constrained by contextual limitations. Bridging this gap requires more than distributing devices; it demands sustained commitment to infrastructure development, teacher professional development, and community engagement. Only then can ICT truly transform education in rural Nepal.
References
Acharya, C. P. (2014). Use of ICT/Web tools in ELT in Nepal. Journal of NELTA, 19(1–2), 1–13.
Dong, C., Ji, H., Yang, T., Wu, H., Liu, C., Xie, X., … & Zhang, X. (2025). Janus Adsorption of Polar Ion Hubs for Simultaneous Regulation of Zinc Deposition Kinetics and Interfacial Stability in Long‐Cycle Aqueous Zinc‐Ion Batteries. Advanced Functional Materials, e13529. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202513529
Ertmer, P. A. (1999). Addressing first-and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(4), 47-61. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02299597
Joshi, K. R., & Ayer, R. (2024). Teachers’ experiences and challenges of integrating ICTs in English language classrooms in rural schools of Nepal. Journal of NELTA Gandaki, 7(1–2).
Lamsal, H. L. (2022). Exploring challenges and opportunities of remote teaching at Nepalese community secondary schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utamax: Journal of Ultimate Research and Trends in Education, 4(1), 29-38.
Lomo, D. A., Abonyi, U. K., & Ahwireng, D. (2024). Headteachers’ support and challenges toward ICT integration into teaching and learning in Ghanaian Basic schools. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 24(2), 330–345.
Maski Rana, K. (2018). ICT in rural primary schools in Nepal: Context and teachers’ experiences. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Canterbury).
Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (2019). Education in Figures 2019. Government of Nepal.
Paudel, P. (2021). ICT integration in community schools of Nepal: Opportunities and barriers. Journal of Education and Social Studies, 4(1), 56–67.
Pun, M. (2013). The use of multimedia technology in English language teaching: A global perspective. Crossing the Border. International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 1(1), 29–38.
Rana, K., & Rana, K. (2020). ICT in rural primary schools in Nepal: Context and teachers’ experiences. Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology, 8(1), 36–53.
Tondeur, J., Van Braak, J., Ertmer, P., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2017). Understanding the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and technology use in education: A systematic review. Educational Technology Research and Development, 65(3), 555–575.
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UNESCO. (2023). Global Education Monitoring Report 2023: Technology in Education. Paris: UNESCO.
Van Dijk, J. (2020). The digital divide. John Wiley & Sons.
Author’ Bio: Mr. Janak Sigdel is an English teacher at Chandra Jyoti Secondary School, Ghirhing, Tanahun. He is the Roster Trainer of the Education Training Centre, Gandaki Province. Currently, he is pursuing an MPhil from Nepal Open University. He can be reached at schoolchandrajyoti31@gmail.com.
We are pleased to announce the release of the Anniversary Issue of ELT Choutari (March- May 2025). This issue presents a collection of reflective accounts from English language teachers and practitioners, offering diverse perspectives on teaching, learning, and research. The contributions explore the transformative power of reading, the evolution of pedagogical practices, the integration of AI tools in academic writing, and the application of the 7E instructional model in the language classroom. Collectively, these reflections underscore the significance of innovation, adaptability, and critical reflection in enhancing educational practices and learner engagement.
As language teachers, we devote a large portion of our time to planning lessons, designing material, evaluating students’ progress, and attending to the various needs of our pupils. However, writing, a critical tool for our personal and professional development, frequently remains overlooked during these hectic routines. For educators, writing is more than just a scholarly endeavour. It serves as a tool for reflection, professional growth, and engagement in the broader discourse outside classrooms. It is because we are documenting our experiences and making sense of our pedagogical decisions, our classroom difficulties, and our evolving identities.
Unlike previous issues, this is a generic issue which features reflections by influential ELT experts, researchers. and teachers. We hope their experiences and anecdotes will benefit our esteemed readers.
In a conversation with Chandra Bhadur Lama, Dr. Bal Ram Adhikari sketches out how reading was important in his personal and professional growth. Connecting his personal experiences, he highlights the importance and benefits of reading for a language learner. Building on his reflections, he argues that viewing reading solely as a receptive skill is a limited and often misguided perception. He emphasises the importance of redefining reading as an active, interpretive process. Furthermore, he advocates for a shift from explanatory to explorative reading, proposing several strategies to foster deeper engagement and critical thinking in the reading process.
Dr. Narendra Raj Paneru, in his article, reflects on his English language teaching and learning journey. He reveals his memories of learning English in three phases: learning shaped by memorisation and punishment during schooling, mechanical learning in higher education, and eventually the realisation that teaching is not merely conveying information but rather communicating the essence of a topic in the language that resonates with students. Reflecting on his personal and professional experiences, he sketches out a picture of a paradigm shift from chalkboards to clicks.
Similarly, Saban Kumar K.C. highlights the importance of AI tools in research and academic writing. Drawing instances from his thesis-writing journey, he sketches out how AI tools like ChatGPT, QuillBot, and Grammarly prove to be good research assistants in various phases of research planning, execution, and reporting. He also points to the pros and cons of using AI and recommends the way forward.
Likewise, Mr. Sagar Parajuli reflects on the 7E instructional model while teaching the story Treasure in the Forest, highlighting how it enhanced student engagement, critical thinking, and creativity in the English language classroom. Despite challenges like time constraints, linguistic barriers, and evaluation misalignment, the model fostered a more inclusive and student-centred learning environment. The experience reaffirmed the importance of reflective teaching and adaptive lesson planning for meaningful language learning.
For your convenience, here are the hyperlinks to the blog posts:
Lastly, we extend heartfelt gratitude to our co-editor, Ganesh Kumar Bastola, and all our editors and reviewers—Jeevan Karki, Mohan Singh Saud, Dr. Nani Babu Ghimire, Dr. Jnanu Raj Poudel, Sagar Poudel, Binod Duwadi, Puskar Chaudhary, Yadu Gnawali, and Dasharath Rai—for their dedicated efforts in bringing this issue to completion.
ELT Choutari is a platform for researchers, scholars, educators, and practitioners to share insights, practices, and narratives from classrooms and communities. We invite you to contribute to our upcoming first quarterly issue (June-August 2025) by submitting your articles and blogs to 2elt.choutari@gmail.com.
If you find value in the interviews, articles, and reflective pieces, please share them within your circles and feel free to leave your comments below each piece.
ELT Choutari is pleased to present an intellectually stimulating dialogue between Mr. Chandra Lama, an emerging scholar and dedicated educator, and Dr. Bal Ram Adhikari, a prolific poet, critic, translator, essayist, and Assistant Professor of English Education at Tribhuvan University (Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tahachal).
Dr. Adhikari’s scholarly and literary contributions have significantly enriched Nepali academia, particularly in the domains of translation studies, literary criticism, and the pedagogy of reading. His reflections in this interview offer critical insights into the role of reading skills in language education, their theoretical underpinnings, and their practical applications in the classroom. These perspectives hold immense value for teachers, researchers, and learners invested in refining their approaches to English language teaching and literary engagement.
Beyond his academic work, Dr. Adhikari is an award-winning translator and writer, with numerous publications in national and international journals. His accolades include the Nepal Academy Translation Prize (2025) and the Nepali Talent Prize, England (2018), underscoring his profound influence on Nepali-English literary discourse. A passionate advocate for reading culture, he consistently bridges theory and practice through his research, teaching, and creative writing.
This interview, titled “Reading as a Log in the Ocean: A Life Shaped by Words,” not only illuminates Dr. Adhikari’s intellectual journey but also catalyses deeper reflection on pedagogical practices in ELT. We invite readers to engage with this thought-provoking exchange and explore its implications for their own professional and academic endeavours. The full extract of an interview about reading is presented below.
Let’s begin with something close to your heart. You’ve often told us in class how deeply reading has shaped your life. Could you share why reading matters so much to you as a student and now as an English language educator?”
I see the world in words and words in the world. Reading has always been something that shaped how I think, feel, and connect with life around me. I had an early infatuation with literature, especially through Hindi and Nepali magazines. As a child, I grew up reading Hindi literary and semi-literary magazines like Saras Salil, and Nepali ones like Garima and Madhupark. English literature came into my life much later, around my intermediate level. At first, I read it through translations. Only in my bachelor’s did I start reading English texts in their original form.
So, for me, reading multilingual literature has been a part of both my academic path and my personal identity. It’s never been a luxury but a necessity. I remember asking myself years ago, “Why do I spend so much time reading?” And the answer that echoed from deep within me was:
“When my life was fraught with frustration,
When my inner world was sinking into the ocean of depression,
The only log I found in that fathomless ocean was the book to which I was clinging.”
That’s what reading meant to me as a student.
And now, as an English language educator, reading matters to me professionally as well. I read to explore other perspectives, to experience diverse lives and thoughts, and to better express myself through writing and speech. In essence, reading is how I connect with the world and help my students do the same.
That’s deeply moving, sir. I still remember in your class, you often reminded us that reading is seeing. Given your own experience, how do you view the place of reading in the University English language curricula?
The English education program, under the Faculty of Education at Tribhuvan University, has mainly focused on producing professional English teachers and teacher educators. For a long time, the curriculum was more theoretical with its prime focus on linguistics, applied linguistics and language pedagogy, giving limited space to reading-focused courses. Until around 2010, students were learning about English rather than exploring and experiencing English through authentic readings. But after the political changes in the country, education reforms followed, and the B.Ed. English curriculum was revised. A big change was the inclusion of reading as a core component, to expose future English teachers to authentic literary and non-literary texts. Current B.Ed. and M.Ed. English curricula are rich in readings across disciplines and genres.
In our reading classes, I recall you used to say reading is more than just “finishing a chapter.” You often taught us specific strategies for reading, like underlining difficult words, trying to guess their meaning, jotting down our understanding in the margins and even encouraging us to ‘talk’ to the characters in the text, among other things. What, in your view, does teaching reading really involve?
That’s exactly it. Reading is so much more than just “finishing a chapter,” and those strategies you remember are a big part of a much larger picture. Teaching reading is a layered process. It’s not just about recognising words or finishing a chapter. It’s about helping students understand why reading matters for learning, thinking and developing their language skills. It’s about guiding students to become thoughtful, strategic and curious readers. Let me break it down:
a) Orient students to the importance of reading
Reading isn’t just for passing exams. It builds language, sharpens thinking and opens up new ideas and worlds. Once students realise this, they enjoy it and make it a habit.
b) Open up linguistic, contextual, cultural and basic content information
Sometimes students struggle with a text not because it’s hard but because they don’t understand the context: the culture, setting or certain vocabulary. So, we need to unpack that before they start reading.
c) Train students in reading strategies and demonstrate them
We need to train students in strategies like skimming, scanning, predicting or guessing meanings from context. And we should model these strategies for them: show, not tell.
d). Connect reading with other productive skills: writing, speaking and translating
What they read can inspire writing, spark discussions or even lead to translation tasks. This makes reading more purposeful and connects it to real communication.
e) Inculcate the habit of reading through extensive reading
And finally, let students choose what they want to read, like stories, comics, articles, anything they enjoy. Reading widely and for pleasure is what really helps them grow as readers, thinkers and individuals.
What stayed with me was the way you made silence a part of the reading process, letting us sit with words before rushing to analysis. In your view, why does reading matter, particularly in our ESL/EFL context of Nepal?
I’m really glad that the practice of silence resonated with you deeply. Before rushing into analysis, I believe it’s important to sit with the words for a while—to contemplate them, to absorb their essence, and to give them time to speak to us.
Now, coming back to your question: why reading matters.
To begin with, if we talk about Academic Communicative Competence, reading is irreplaceable. It’s central not just to language learning but to students’ daily lives and academic performance.
There’s a mountain of research in second-language reading that shows how important reading is. Scholars like Carrell, Grabe and Krashen have pointed out that reading isn’t just about decoding words. It’s become a survival skill in today’s world. It touches almost everything: our education, employment, daily tasks, even how we participate in politics and social life.
Reading affects a person’s ability to access knowledge, grow economically and socially. It builds imagination and creativity. Many researchers have said that good reading and writing skills open doors to better life opportunities. It’s been said that literacy, especially through reading, reduces poverty, lowers crime rates and even shapes a person’s moral compass.
One of the strongest advocates of reading, Stephen Krashen who says that reading is the only real path to literacy. In his studies, he shows how free voluntary reading, like just picking up books out of interest, can have a profound effect on language acquisition. It not only improves reading but also enhances writing, grammar, vocabulary, and even overall cognitive development. He asserts that it gives students the content, style and motivation they need for writing too.
Interestingly, the U.S. Department of Education has concluded that avid, independent reading leads to better skills, higher academic achievement and more desirable outcomes in terms of income and professional life.
Other educators like Brozo and Guthrie have also said that students who read widely perform much better academically than those who don’t. Reading exposes learners to new vocabulary, sentence structures, and fresh ideas. It fuels their imagination, motivates them, and helps them shape their perspectives and worldview. Although reading is often treated as the third skill after listening and speaking, in reality, especially in the educational context, it’s a primary skill, absolutely crucial. Richards and Renandya, two respected names in this field, have pointed out why reading is so central in ESL/EFL settings. First, many learners learn English mainly to be able to read English texts and get information. Second, written texts are their main sources of input for both in terms of language and content. These texts also serve as good models for their writing.
In countries like Nepal, where English is not used much in daily oral communication, either in or outside the classroom, reading becomes even more important. Students get exposed to written English much earlier and far more often than spoken English. So, written texts don’t just help. They compensate for the lack of spoken input.
If we believe in Krashen’s idea of comprehensible input, accessible written texts are the tools for language learning. A researcher from Nepal, Dr. Vishnu S. Rai, surveyed Asian universities and found that most students in Asia learn English through reading. Based on this, he recommends more space for reading in our classrooms.
Our education system also supports this. If we look at our secondary level English curriculum, reading has the highest weightage, i.e., 40%, compared to writing, listening and speaking. At the university level, reading is gaining more importance.
So, in short, reading isn’t just another language skill in Nepal’s ESL/EFL context; it’s the main gateway through which students learn, grow and access opportunities.
That gives a whole new weight to the term “reading culture.” But I’m curious – what are some common misconceptions about reading that you’ve encountered?
A major misconception is that reading is often understood as a third skill, secondary to listening and speaking. This is especially flawed in contexts like ours, where English is primarily learned through reading, particularly in academic or instructional settings.
People tend to see reading as merely a receptive skill, but it’s much more than that in reality. In academic contexts, reading becomes highly productive because the reader isn’t just absorbing information but is actively constructing his/her meaning from the text. Reading is not a passive activity. It’s an active, dynamic process. The reader engages with the text, questions it, and reflects on it. There’s an ongoing interaction. I would even say it’s a critical engagement. Readers must maintain a certain distance to interpret, evaluate, and negotiate meaning.
This reminds me of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method. He talks about how reading involves a twin process: prediction and post-diction. Prediction means the reader is constantly looking ahead, anticipating what might come next based on the cues in the text, whether it’s the title, the context, or the structure. It’s a forward-looking process that activates the reader’s expectations and imagination. On the other hand, post-diction involves looking back, revisiting what has already been read in light of new information. It’s a process of reevaluation and reinterpretation. As we read more, earlier parts of the text may take on new meanings. This continuous back-and-forth is what makes reading deeply interactive and thoughtful. So, the reader is not a passive recipient, but an active meaning-maker. The agency of the reader is very high in this process. Reading, then, is a creative, critical and reflective process.
In your opinion, how can we expand the students’ reading process?
I see the reading process in three levels: reading the lines, reading between the lines, and reading beyond the lines. Most students tend to stop at the first level – just understanding the literal meaning. It’s essential, but not enough. The second level, reading between the lines, is about interpreting what’s implied, grasping the author’s intent, connecting ideas, and uncovering hidden meanings. The third level, which is reading beyond the lines, is even more crucial. Here, readers connect the text to its wider socio-cultural or historical context, think critically, question the author’s purpose, and assess bias or credibility.
Unfortunately, what I often see is that reading remains sub-standard, inadequate, or even defective. We must help students move beyond just decoding words and support them in engaging deeply with what they read, both intellectually and emotionally.
Over the years, you’ve worked with diverse groups of learners and experimented with different approaches to reading. Drawing from all that, what do you think makes for an ideal pedagogy for reading?
That’s a thoughtful question. I believe the pedagogy for reading should involve three concentric zones, what I like to call the core, peripheral, and expanding zones of reading.
Could you explain what the core zone includes?
The core zone of reading primarily refers to intensive classroom reading, especially reading of the prescribed textbooks. This kind of reading is essential as it directly impacts students’ academic performance and also serves as a foundation for deeper learning. But here’s a problem: the way we usually conduct classroom reading often kills students’ interest. It becomes boring, repetitive, and demotivating. As Lewis Thomas once said, “Science is an adventure within, a wilderness of mystery,” yet so many science classes are dull. This happens across subjects. Most of our teaching and students’ reading get stuck in this core zone. But we need to remind ourselves: textbooks are not end books; they are means. They should open doors to further reading and exploration.
So, are you suggesting that we need to move beyond the core zone?
Exactly. That brings us to the peripheral zone of reading. This involves connecting the classroom reading to related materials- maybe an article, a story, a biography, or even a visual text. It’s about taking the topic one step further, making the reading experience freer, more student-centred, and creative. In essence, this means we shift from purely explanatory reading to exploratory reading. Students start seeing the broader context of a topic, and reading becomes a discovery rather than a duty.
And what about the expanding zone?
Ah, that’s my favourite part. The expanding zone of reading is about cultivating a lifelong habit of reading. It’s not just for exams, but for information, pleasure, and vision. Here, students might read for facts or fantasy, explore different genres, or dive into books that awaken both sensitivity and sensibility. Sensitivity means the ability to feel and sense the world through words. And, sensibility is the ability to make meaning out of what they read.
To support this, schools and teachers can take many steps, like starting book reading clubs, discussion groups, or inviting local writers and journalists to share their reading journeys. Even something as simple as teachers sharing the books they love, or celebrating a book-giving day, can create an inspiring culture around reading.
Finally, looking back on your years of teaching reading, what is one lesson or insight you wish you had learned earlier?
I wish I had been trained on how to read rather than just explaining the content of the text. During our time, texts were mostly explained, summarised, or interpreted for us. The entire approach was exam-oriented. We were taught what to remember, not how to explore or question what we read. Now, I realise that if students are guided through the actual process of reading, developing skills like critical thinking, engaging with the text emotionally and intellectually, asking questions, making connections, then they not only understand better, but they also become more independent, reflective readers. That kind of reading stays with them for life.
Interviewee’s Bio: Bal Ram Adhikari, PhD, is a lecturer in English Education at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. An award-winning translator and writer, Dr. Adhikari has more than a dozen translations and numerous scholarly articles published in national and international
journals. His contributions to Nepali-English translation and Nepali literature have
earned him several honours, including the Nepal Academy Translation Prize (2025)
and the Nepali Talent Prize, England (2018). Apart from teaching, training,
researching and translating, Dr. Adhikari loves writing poems in English and essays
in Nepali.
Interviewer’s Bio: Chandra Bahadur Lama is an emerging and active writer, poet, and translator in the field of Nepali literature and translation. In addition to teaching English, he is also actively involved as an executive member of the Nepal Translators’ Society. His poems, essays, translations, and articles have been published in various literary and online magazines. His deep love for literature and passion for travel have shaped a profound philosophical perspective in his creations. Recently, his English translation of the anthology of poetry Premko Aadim Geet has been published, further establishing his contribution to the field of literary translation.
Lesson planning is an essential part of effective teaching. It provides structure, focus, and direction to a classroom session, allowing teachers to guide learners through the learning journey smoothly. A thoughtfully crafted lesson plan does more than simply outline the day’s activities; it helps ensure that every student is actively involved and that the learning objectives are met.
As an English Language Teacher, I have always taken lesson planning seriously. Over time, I experimented with various approaches, but it wasn’t until I participated in a pedagogy workshop organized by NASA College that I was introduced to the 7E instructional model. This model, which stands for Elicit, Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate, and Extend, presented a more dynamic and student-centered approach to planning and instruction. It allowed me to rethink how I designed my classes to support not just language acquisition but also active participation, critical thinking, and reflection.
In this paper, I reflect on my use of the 7E model while teaching the story ‘Treasure in the Forest’ and explore how it shaped my lesson planning, classroom implementation, student engagement, and overall teaching experience.
Reflection
My journey with the 7E model began when I decided to integrate it into one of my literature classes. The story I chose to teach was ‘Treasure in the Forest’, which provided rich opportunities for thematic discussions and narrative exploration.
The first phase of the model, Elicit, is meant to activate students’ prior knowledge. To start, I shared a short, relatable story about Santa Claus and gift-giving, which drew immediate interest. This approach helped students make connections between their personal experiences and the idea of “treasure hunting,” which is central to the story. One student shared a touching story about finding a baby parrot during a trip to the forest. This moment not only created a warm classroom atmosphere but also highlighted how stories can serve as bridges between the personal and the academic. However, I also noticed that some students struggled to articulate their thoughts. Their difficulties with vocabulary, tense usage, and narrative structure indicated gaps in linguistic competence. While the activity was successful in drawing out ideas, it also reminded me of the importance of differentiated instruction to accommodate diverse student needs.
In the Engage phase, I used a short video about treasure hunting. This visual aid sparked curiosity among many students. As expected, some students participated eagerly in the follow-up discussion, while others remained silent. To make the session more inclusive, I introduced a peer-discussion segment. After a four-minute talk with a partner, even the quieter students began to nod in agreement and contribute ideas. This small shift in strategy transformed the energy in the room.
Moving to the Explore phase, I asked students to read the story within a set time frame. I displayed a countdown timer on the smart board, creating a playful challenge to “beat the clock.” Students were tasked with underlining unfamiliar words and connecting the plot to the video they had watched earlier. Although we didn’t have enough time for everyone to share their insights, the ones who did were enthusiastic and insightful. Those who missed out were invited to share in the next class. This phase helped students become more independent in exploring language and story elements.
In the Explain phase, I provided a focused lecture. I highlighted key vocabulary, explained the plot, and drew attention to the narrative technique of flashback used in the story. Students asked questions and noted important points, indicating that the earlier stages had successfully prepared them for this deeper dive.
During the Elaborate phase, we discussed the ethical issues present in the story, such as greed, morality, and ownership. Students were encouraged to relate these themes to real-life situations. The discussion revealed their ability to think critically and empathise with characters, showing that language learning had extended beyond grammar and vocabulary to include moral reasoning and human values.
The Evaluate phase was carried out through a formative assignment. I uploaded an activity via the Veda app, asking students to reorder a jumbled summary of the story and copy the corrected version in their notebooks. They were also asked to write their own treasure hunt story and compare it with the original, focusing on similarities or differences in structure and technique. This task helped me assess not only their understanding of the story but also their ability to organise thoughts coherently and creatively.
Finally, in the Extend phase, students went beyond the lesson. By writing their own stories, they applied what they had learned in a new context. They explored different sentence structures, practised using transition words, and learned to maintain coherence across paragraphs. This phase demonstrated how the model promotes long-term skill development.
Advantages and Challenges in the Classroom
Implementing the 7E model had a significant impact on how my students interacted with the lesson. First and foremost, it made them more active participants. They weren’t just listening or reading; they were connecting ideas, forming opinions, and sharing personal stories. Each phase built upon the previous one, creating a sense of continuity and progression.
One of the biggest changes I observed was in students’ collaboration. The peer discussion during the engage phase, group sharing in the explore phase, and the classroom debate during the elaborate phase all promoted a sense of teamwork. Students were not only learning from me but also from each other.
While the 7E model brought numerous benefits, it also presented several challenges. One major issue was students’ passivity, particularly among those who came from non-English-speaking backgrounds or had weak foundational skills. These students often remained silent during the brainstorming or discussion stages, not because they weren’t interested, but because they lacked the language skills or confidence to express themselves.
Another challenge was time management. Each phase of the model requires careful planning and sufficient class time. Unfortunately, within the constraints of our standard class periods and curriculum demands, it wasn’t always possible to give each phase the attention it deserved. Some parts had to be rushed, especially the elaborate and extend phases, which benefit from deeper exploration.
Additionally, the rigidity of the evaluation system created complications. Our institutional assessments focus primarily on written exams and do not always value creative or process-based learning. As a result, students sometimes questioned the relevance of certain activities if they did not see a direct connection to their grades. This misalignment between classroom practice and assessment structure limited the model’s potential impact.
Lastly, psychological barriers such as fear of judgment, hesitation to speak, and lack of confidence in using English also affected student participation. As a teacher, it was challenging to motivate every student while respecting their pace of learning.
Success Story
Despite these hurdles, the 7E model brought about noticeable success. One particular story stands out. A student from Okhaldhunga, a remote district of Nepal, had been extremely reserved in class. He rarely spoke, avoided eye contact, and seemed detached from classroom activities. However, after we adopted the 7E model and allowed flexible language use (including Nepali when necessary), his behaviour began to change. He started to participate in small group discussions, then gradually in class-wide activities. After six months, he confidently thanked me for helping him become an active learner. This transformation reminded me of the power of inclusive, student-centred teaching.
Another notable success was the use of role-playing. I assigned characters from the story and asked students to act out key scenes. Even the most hesitant learners embraced this task with enthusiasm. They experimented with vocabulary, tried new sentence structures, and displayed creativity in expressing emotions. The activity not only made the class enjoyable but also helped students internalise the content more effectively. It brought the story to life and made learning memorable.
Conclusion
The 7E instructional model has had a profound effect on my teaching practice and my students’ learning experiences. It shifted the classroom dynamic from teacher-centred to student-focused, encouraging exploration, discussion, and critical thinking. While challenges remain, such as time limitations, evaluation misalignment, and linguistic barriers, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. When applied thoughtfully, the 7E model can create inclusive, engaging, and transformative learning environments. It supports continuous assessment, fosters creativity, and builds confidence among learners. Especially in the context of English as a foreign language, where traditional teaching methods often dominate, the 7E model brings a refreshing and effective alternative. This journey has reaffirmed my belief in reflective practice and adaptive teaching. As I continue to refine my methods, the 7E model will remain a cornerstone of my lesson planning, guiding both my professional growth and my students’ success.
Author’s Bio: Mr. Sagar Parajuli is an M.Phil. graduate from Pokhara University (IACER) and currently serves as the Head of the English Department at Milestone International College, Balkumari, Lalitpur. With a deep passion for education, his research interests focus on translation studies and the innovative use of gaming in grammar teaching.
Writing a thesis has always been a difficult and involved undertaking, especially for someone with a technical background like me. As an Electronics and Communication Engineer with further degrees in Technology and Innovation Management, and now concentrating in Information System Engineering, I frequently found communicating complicated technical thoughts in written academic form difficult. During my first master’s degree, I depended extensively on a friend with an English degree to help me polish my assignments. However, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as ChatGPT, QuillBot, and Grammarly transformed my academic path. These tools not only helped me write, but also gave me the confidence and inventiveness to handle the difficulties of thesis writing on my own. In this paper I reflect on my academic writing during thesis journey and explore how AI tools have influenced my experience and approach throughout the process.
What and Why AI in Academic Writing
Historically, academic writing relied mainly on human editors and static grammar tools. Today, AI has progressed into interactive and sophisticated writing assistants. In addition to thesis writing, AI techniques are now being used in language schools (Li, Xu, Li, and Shi , 2025). They help students with vocabulary development, grammatical checking, real-time feedback, and even conversation practice. This democratization of AI tools enables students from all language origins to confidently participate in academic writing and communication.
Artificial intelligence (AI), a dynamic subject of computer science, is intended to mimic human intelligence in activities such as problem solving, language understanding, and decision making (Russell & Norvig, 2016). With the advancement of advanced natural language processing (NLP) models, AI is becoming more integrated into academic writing. Tools like OpenAI’s GPT models have transformed the way scholars create, refine, and polish academic articles. The application of AI in academic writing increases productivity, ensures clarity, and assists writers with varied levels of linguistic proficiency.
AI as a Tool to Enhance Creativity in Academic Writing
AI has played an important role in improving the quality and clarity of my work. For example, ChatGPT helped me analyze data and draft complex thoughts. It guided me throughout the process of researching, writing, and publishing. To be specific, I used it to identify research gaps, decide on research design, review relevant literature and develop research tools, analyze data, and sharpen my language. While engaging in this prompt engineering, creating detailed and unambiguous instructions was critical to achieving the best outcomes. That is to say, making prompts with unambiguous instructions would allow getting an accurate result. A prompt like “Continue writing in a formal tone, maintaining coherence with the previous paragraphs” ensured that my writing style remained consistent throughout.
I used QuillBot, a paraphrasing tool, to reorganize and enhance my phrases. It ensured that my ideas remained original and well-articulated, which considerably improved the fluency and coherence of my arguments. . Its contribution to my thesis writing journey was critical in achieving clarity, coherence, and originality. The ability of QuillBot to improve the fluidity of my arguments while maintaining the integrity of my ideas has significantly improved the quality of my thesis content. It’s worth noting that, in some cases, I used ChatGPT to help with initial drafts, and QuillBot was invaluable in paraphrasing and fine-tuning the text. The seamless collaboration between ChatGPT and QuillBot ensured that the ideas generated by ChatGPT were refined and tailored to meet the desired excellence in academic writing. This collaboration produced a thesis that not only reflects my original ideas but also demonstrates a refined and coherent presentation of ideas, demonstrating the complementary nature of these AI tools in writing.
Grammarly provided linguistic precision by correcting grammar, punctuation, and stylistic problems in real time. The tool’s real-time suggestions and in-depth analysis not only saved my time, but also improved my document’s overall language proficiency, resulting in a polished and professional academic work.
As I progressed through the thesis writing process, a critical checkpoint for a plagiarism test held at Tribhuvan University’s Central Library. The researcher meticulously examined the document for any potential instances of plagiarism using the iThenticate software. The software revealed a commendable similarity index of 4%, which is significantly lower than the acceptable threshold of 20%. This success highlighted the prudent use of AI tools in ensuring the research’s originality and authenticity.
Apart from these, various AI- powered tools have emerged recently. These AI assistants ; Jenni (assists to devise precise heading and outlines for your research, Paperpal ( gives real time academic writing feedback and while Brainstorming, creating headings paraphrasing and proofreading ) ChatPDF( supports in literature review by summarizing the content), Research Rabbit (helps to review related literature by visualizing research networks), Zotero( manages references and generates notes) and many others have been widely used to reduce human effort and bring efficacy in writing.
Strengths and Challenges of AI in the 21st Century
AI tools can be used as a good research assistant from brainstorming to writing journal articles. Khalifa and Albadawy (2024) outline nine dimensions of using AI in research. They are: Idea development and research design, content development and structuring, literature review and synthesis, data management and analysis, editing, review and publishing support, communication, outreach, and ethical compliance. It increases creativity via idea generation and vocabulary development which in turn helps to enhance autonomy and fluency in writing process. AI has also been supportive to maintain accuracy in research reports and develop readability and refining language.
However, it is to be noted that AI tools are not fault –free. They occasionally generate inaccurate, biased or irrelevant content. Similarly, over-reliance on AI tools may hinder original thinking. It is risky that the author may skip the processes of analyzing, interpreting and evaluating ideas themselves which eventually curtail the skill of independent judgment. Moreover, relaying on the tools and their prompt results may keep the readers’ way from deep reading, reflecting and synthesizing ideas on their own. Moving forward with the advancement of AI tools there is a big question regarding the issues of ethical consideration around authorship and plagiarism. Khalifa and Albadawy (2024) conclude that a careful balance between utilization of AI and human insight is recommended to ensure that while AI invites efficiency and analytical power, the creativity and critical thinking inherent in human intelligence is not overshadowed. Hence, it is recommended that AI should be viewed as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, human critical thinking or intellectual endeavor. Otherwise it is possible that academic works turns into a mechanical exercise hindering in the development of high order skills like critical thinking, and criticizing.
Conclusion
With the proliferation of various advanced AI tools academic research and writing has been simplified, enhanced, efficient, and less labour- intensive. But too much reliance can stifle originality and critical thought. Challenges lies in balancing the benefits of AI with the need to uphold academic integrity. Therefore, it is imperative that they be used critically and ethically. AI tools should be used as a complement to rather than a substitute to academic rigor.
References
Khalifa, M., & Albadawy, M. (2024). Using artificial intelligence in academic writing and research: An essential productivity tool. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine Update, 100145.
Li X, Xu Y, Li P, Shi Y. Application of artificial intelligence in English teaching content innovation and teaching method optimization. Journal of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering. 2025;25(3):2745-2755. doi:10.1177/14727978251321645
Russell, S., & Norvig, P. (2016). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.). Pearson.
Author’s Bio: Saban Kumar K.C. is a Senior Lecturer at Kathford International College (Affiliated to Tribhuvan University, Nepal), with a focus on Electronics, Communication, and Information Engineering. His research interests include deep learning, blockchain technology, IoT applications, and engineering education. He has published peer-reviewed papers and actively supervises undergraduate research and innovation projects. He is passionate about bridging technology with local development needs and promoting interdisciplinary approaches in engineering.
Aristotle urges us to be a master of metaphors to grasp a living reality of a thing. Following the footsteps of Aristotle, George Lakoff and M. Johnson introduce a perspective on metaphor—a perspective that takes metaphor as imaginative rationality. Admittedly, I am inspired by these two theorists. My inspiration is that I could not help using a simile to share my modest success in getting some of my responses to Call for Conference Proposals (CFP) accepted: Writing changes: remaking rhetoric in times of uncertainty organized by Corridors 2022 at Virginia Tech University, and Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian organized by Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) 2022 at University of Los Angeles California. For Corridors, I developed a paper entitled “Pedagogical Emasculation in the Wake of AI’s Growing Applications”, and for PAMLA, I submitted an abstract with the title “Backsliding New Materialism and a Resurgence of Interest in Virtue Ethics and Anthropomorphism”.
While responding to these two CFPs successfully, I came to know that responding to a CFP is almost similar to being a gentleman caller. Forgive my wild rush to John Dryden called ‘yoking heterogeneous ideas by violence’. More technically, responding to CFP and being a gentleman caller are distinctly disparate realms of activities. Just as forwarding a love/marriage proposal without paying sufficient courtship to a lady for a quite bit of time may backfire and probably end in rejection, so is answering to CFP without doing an extensive inquiry and without having background information on the topic. Any rush to reply to the CFP may backfire on the responder, often ending in outright rejection, which might weaken confidence and concentration. It is this point of commonality that pushed me to choose this figural trope. The fate of being a jilted lover is a bitter pill to swallow for any obsessed lover, in much the same way as it is for a responder to cope with the rejection of the abstract submission to CFP. With this figural gesture, I would like to reflect on my experience of responding to a host of CFPs.
We have seen many calls for proposals (CFP): CFP for conferences; CFP for book chapters and journal articles; CFP for intermezzo and review essays; CFP for web texts and digital projects; CFP for a success story and cross-border narrative; CFP for blogs and reflective writings, CFP for cases of advocacy, activism, and intervention; and to name just a few. Scholars, researchers, and instructors alike tend to respond to different CFPs they come across. Every responder to CFP deploys a nuanced approach. In spite of each scholar’s unique response style to CFP, there should be a few widely practised formularies to deal with CFP. Based on a few instances of my success in responding to CFP, I would like to craft a short account of responding to CFP.
In trying to emerge as a conference hopper, I kept exploring many other venues that organize national and international conferences such as the New Berry Library Conference (NBLC), Popular Culture Association (PCA), Modern Language Association (MLA) Pedagogical Training and Workshop, Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA), Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), Rhetoric Society of Europe (RSE), Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) and the list goes on. Actually, these venues release CFPs that tend to address any aspect of burgeoning issues, ranging from colonial reckoning, the rhetoric of precarity and the rise of authoritarianism to social justice, the linguistic justice, power and precarity attendant to AI’s growing application in learning and teaching space. Being well informed of all these burgeoning issues and of relevant proposals to address the issue constitute a core competency on each CFP responder’s part. Based on these two and various other successive experiences of responding to CFP, I would like to talk about some tips and strategies with which I succeeded in getting my conference proposals approved. I presented at a conference scheduled to take place at the University of Virginia Tech. Similarly, another conference proposal of mine was also accepted. In the second week of November 2022, I presented at a conference at the University of California, Los Angeles.
First, getting to the heart of an issue that takes centre stage in the CFP description is essential if we are to touch all the bases of CFP. While describing an issue/topic for CFP, the CFP issuer tends to be specific in producing an outline of the issue; at the same time, they often write, ‘the CFP moves around this topic, but not limited to…’, to allow for a somewhat flexible space to explore and probe the proposed issue.
Previously, while formulating an excellent abstract draft for a conference call, I used to take a general approach without homing in on a specific aspect of the CFP. After multiple rounds of rejection, I learned that people want to listen to specific things. Though the conference offers a smorgasbord of various potential topics, it would be in our best interest to dwell on the specificity of the issue. As soon as I shirked off this tendency to drift away from the axis of specificity, I realized that it wouldn’t be challenging to hit the target with the single most focused thrust to the specificity. To this end, it appears that any temptation toward delving deep into the topic in a manner most lithe and supple because exploring any issue by being specific is crucial to the acceptance success of a response to CFP. As to some heuristics and nuances with which the exploration of an issue would lead to a reliable unfolding of the issue, I have come to propose here: Test the efficacy of the issue in different cultural contexts, check on its limit, be aware of its fallibility, assess if its relevance is rooted in time and occasion, reflect on its impact on our normative practice and pragmatic life, and finally stretch your imaginative faculty to probe the issue under consideration with a detached mindset. The simultaneous shifts in my mindset led me to come across an acceptable topic for the CFP I was managing to respond to.
Second, though the power of forming a fresh, attention-grabbing, and shift-stimulating perspective of any responder to CFP is highly valued, the ability to introduce this perspective tactfully and without a lag matters the most. To translate this realization into action, I reflected on my expectations about how CFP evaluators take my abstract submission and what metric they would apply to assess the submitted abstract. I also pondered if their metrics and criteria remain consistent or if they apply abstract-specific metrics. I did my best to align the core thrust of my conference abstract with the CFP evaluators’ submission-specific yardstick of judgment. At the top of my talent, I aimed at ‘striking the right chord’; with the right chord being struck precisely, the net outcome is an acceptance call.
Third, the responder to CFP should not come to terms with the issue on the first go. Instead, the responder should let the proposed issue come to terms with a cumulative effort to develop a fresh perspective. For this, curious and consistent immersion in the latent and the manifest dimensions of the issue is required of those who play what Peter Elbow calls the Believing and Doubting Game. The fourth point is the assertion that with the idea of responding to CFP comes the responsibility to CFP. CFP wishes to garner a wide range of ideas, thoughts, propositions, perspectives, comments, questions, critiques, and curiosities. Most CFPs expect a concrete contribution of ideas to the platform the CFP is creating. Thus, every responder to CFP needs to internalize that to respond to CFP is to contribute something new, a fresh perspective, a nuanced approach to dealing with the proposed issue anew, a distinct approach indeed!
The fifth point that guided my approach to responding to CFPs is being aware that often CFPs asks for a fresh take on burgeoning issue/problem. Any response to CFP should look like a solution. Adopting a down-to-earth overture is a curtain-raiser to grappling with CFP head-on. The sixth tip comes in the guise of tonality. Maintaining an insistent tone serves two-pronged purposes: one is to bracket off any interference from digressive and deluding thoughts, and the other is to help the proposed perspective gain purchase. The use of an insistent tone wards off any trace of opaqueness that might arise while homing in on the target expectation of CFP. A response to CFP needs to be formed in keeping with the persistent presumption that whether others accept a proposal or not hinges on the same tone underpinning the proposal’s substratum.
The seventh clue to conveying a response to CFP is tricky. Throughout career-building in the academic field, students, scholars, and instructors respond to different types of CFP. Their responses often vary from acceptance and partial acceptance to outright rejection. In the case of outright rejection, it might be tough to bear the brunt of rejection, which might sap the spirit and entelechy one has been cultivating since the beginning of one’s academic footprint. In this condition of being in a low spirit due to sporadic rejection, one must groom oneself with a philosophical maxim, dictum, or conviction. In the wake of angst and anxiety consequent upon the rejection of any response to CFP, it would be tactful if one with the experience of rejection switches instantly from the erstwhile mental frame of lapsing into frustration and lamentation to a new mindset informed by the conviction that having been rejected means being hurled on the rose bed of renewal.
The last trick that may prove pivotal is catching a glimpse of and acting following the zeitgeist of contemporaneity that by and now diffuses across the world of CFPs. The spirit and entelechy of inclusion have penetrated every stroke of knowledge-making. Any linguistic shred and fragment are redolent of an alienating, exclusionary, and unjust practice, triggering a domino effect that ultimately spoils the inherent acceptability of the proposed perspective, no matter how full the proposal would be. All these strategic clues ultimately come down to a praxis that justice-fostering, dignity-ennobling, and identity-acknowledging rather than a collocational, standardized, and stereotypes-filled language pave the way for enriching the acceptability of proposed response to CFP.
Graduate students preparing to enter the job market are always hard-pressed to devote their whole time to completing their dissertation research. Nevertheless, they must invest more time in responding to CFPs for conferences, book reviews, review essays, success narratives, cross-border narratives, writing about their observation, and reflective writing. Since responding to the CFPs for a book chapter, journal articles, and intermezzo requires both intensive and extensive efforts, involvement, and time, it is relevant to conclude that trying to catch low-hanging fruit is an appropriate option for them. However, in no way should it not be understood as an underestimation of the potency and potentiality of graduate students inching closer to a threshold of the job market because there is quite an incredible number of graduate students who have already adorned their CVs with gems of their productive scholarship. However, speaking from a practical perspective and arguing in consideration of the pressure of time, including plenty of both teaching and administrative responsibility on the part of graduate students, there is every reason to advise that trying to catch low-hanging fruit still sounds like a lucrative and economical alternative for graduate students. In connection with this, responding to the CFPs for a conference, book review, review essay, essay on graduate student’s observation, and reflective writing such as cross-border narrative would be inviting and enticing for Ph.D. candidates on the verge of graduation who have built up a professional mindset of plunging into the job market soon.
At last, I would like to opine my thoughts on a type of stereotype that recurs in most of the announcements of CFP. On seeing sentences—such as ‘for book reviews and review essays, graduate students are encouraged and welcomed to contribute’—I felt irreparably stung by a scorpion of inferiority and of being pigeonholed. A query flashed across my mind instantly. There anyone, including me, could not but ask a question—why cannot graduate students, especially PhD candidates, respond to higher CFPs? The answer is obvious. In a general sense, responding to the higher CFPs demands time, resources and involvement. Graduate students are busy people who have a lot of work to do. I too was not an exception to this condition. Therefore, I was occasionally pained to see this sentence, but now I have mastered such a normal thought. With this unpleasant stream of thought, I would like to cut a long story short by saying that trying to catch low-hanging fruit—CFPs for conferences, book reviews, review essays, and reflective and observational writings—is a wise approach to redressing the harsh rhetoric of publish or perish. For clarity’s sake, I have presented below some pointers that could be helpful for any responder responding to a CFP:
Read and understand the CFP: It is in our best interest to go through the CFP document to understand the theme, topic, and requirements. Supportive here is the idea of paying attention to guidelines, word limits, formatting instructions, and submission deadlines.
Choose the right topic: Selecting a topic that aligns well with the theme of the conference or event is of enormous importance. Responders ought to make sure their research is relevant and innovative. Being mindful of the contributions the responder’s abstract makes is worth pondering.
Prepare an abstract: Of all the pointers pivotal to making a success of responding to CFP, crafting a compelling abstract that summarizes our paper or presentation is instrumental. So, the responder needs to clearly state the problem they are addressing, their methodological choice, and critical ideas and insights. It is good to ensure that the abstract is concise and engaging. The most crucial thing is the need to capture the attention of the reviewers.
Follow the submission guidelines: Successful responders to CFP ought to adhere to the submission guidelines provided by the organizers. They should pay close attention to formatting requirements, citation styles, and any specific file formats they may request.
Highlight your contribution: Each scholarly and institutional venue tends to judge an individual contributor to CFP in terms of their contribution. To that end, it is essential for them to clearly articulate the unique contribution of their work. The key to mastering this hurdle is to explain how it fills a gap in the existing literature, provides novel insights, or offers a fresh perspective. The responder need not dither about emphasizing their research’s significance and potential impact.
Present your qualifications: In an age in which an assertion is evaluated vis-à-vis self, highlighting our expertise, qualifications, and relevant experience in the field we are part of is of paramount importance. To buttress our credibility as responders to CFPs, providing a brief overview of our academic or professional background is imperative to establish credibility.
Proofread and edit: Before turning in our response to CFPs, it would be a cautionary measure to carefully proofread and edit our paper or abstract. If we ensure that our abstract is well-structured, free of grammatical errors, and coherent, it will be accepted. This is the principle we all need to live by. For that purpose, we can opt for feedback on our abstract from colleagues or mentors to improve the quality of our writing.
Meet the deadline: Submitting our response without crossing the specified deadline is advantageous because late submissions are typically not accepted. Hence, being proactive and active while planning our time and allowing for ample review and revision is of utmost importance.
Tailor your response: What matters most is the customization of our response to the specific requirements of the CFP. Reviewers are interested in hearing specific things; no one likes hearing general things. Thus, it is good to keep any idea of submitting generic or recycled content at bay. Tuning our response with the particular and genuine requirement is pivotal to actualizing the chance of acceptance.
Be professional and courteous: Since being soft and gracious matters a lot, it would be beneficial if they interact with the organizers and reviewers professionally and respectfully if they respond promptly to any inquiries or requests for additional information. The secret formulary to heighten our chance of having our abstract approved is one associated with living with a growth mindset and collaborative disposition throughout the process.
Works Cited
Garver, E. (1994). Aristotle’s rhetoric: An art of character. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
About the Author: Shiva Mainaly is a PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Louisville. Currently, at North Dakota State University (NDSU), he will become a postdoctoral research fellow from August 2023. A prolific author, he has published numerous articles in prestigious journals like the Journal of International Students, Constellation, and Composition Studies.
Growing up in a middle-class family with five siblings, my formative years were shaped by the love and care of my elders, instilling in me a sense of confidence and freedom. Among them, my father emerged as the most influential figure, guiding me with his hard work and selfless values. As I reflect on my educational journey and professional life, I realize how my father’s schooling continues to resonate, impacting my academic pursuits and shaping me into an educator who seeks to inspire and transform the lives of others.
The Enduring Legacy of My Father: Inspiring Values in My Academic Journey
Growing up in a modest family in the Baitadi district, my father’s determination, love for education, and selflessness left an indelible impact on my values, beliefs, and personal growth.
Despite their humble circumstances, my father’s family recognized the transformative power of education, impressing upon him the importance of prioritizing learning for a brighter future. Embracing this wisdom, he excelled academically and obtained top honours in the Kanchanpur district, the western part of Nepal. Working part-time to support his further studies, he completed B.Ed. in mathematics from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and devoted over 36 years to teaching secondary-level mathematics in rural areas.
My father’s life experiences taught me the value of hard work, honesty, and unwavering determination to achieve my goals. His struggles also instilled in me a sense of gratitude for the opportunities I have today. His most profound lesson, however, was selflessness, his unwavering dedication to his family and society left an indelible impression on my character. As I pursued my academic journey, my father’s influence continued to guide me. Although my circumstances were more privileged, his lessons taught me that diligence and integrity make success possible.
His teachings not only shaped me as a good person but also as an authentic individual. I am determined to pass these invaluable lessons to my future family and students. With his enduring legacy as my compass, I seek to inspire and transform lives, just as my father has done throughout his remarkable journey.
Empowerment Through Education: A Personal Academic Journey
My academic journey commenced at home, where my family played the role of my first teachers, introducing me to alphabet belts and basic numbers. Though I began my formal education in a government school like my siblings, I had the privilege of studying in private (boarding) school (first in my family). This choice garnered public attention and prestige in our village, underscoring the value of education.
During my primary education, I excelled in memorization-based learning, securing top positions in my class. However, the system of rote learning limited my true understanding of the subjects. Shifting to government education posed initial challenges due to larger and more diverse classes, but I adapted over time, benefiting from a more flexible learning environment, albeit lacking student-centred approaches.
Upon completing my SLC, I went to Nainital India for my I.Sc., however I realized that my I.Sc. didn’t align with my interests, and faced language difficulties and homesickness. My family, understanding my predicament gave me the freedom to decide my academic path, leading me back to Mahendranagar, my hometown.
Embracing my interest in English, I pursued I.A. with English as my major subject. My academic journey continued rapidly, culminating in a B.A. with a major in English from Mahendranagar. My pursuit of higher education led me to Kathmandu, where I completed my M.A. in English literature from the central department of English in Kirtipur, achieving a first division. During my master’s studies, I harboured aspirations of becoming a police officer, inspired by the bold heroes of Hindi movies. However, my passion for teaching gradually surfaced, steering me away from the police force.
In this journey, education has played a pivotal role in empowering me intellectually. It provided me with knowledge, skills, and critical thinking abilities, enabling me to navigate various academic pursuits successfully. Furthermore, education has empowered me economically by opening doors to career opportunities and professional growth, allowing me to contribute meaningfully to society.
Education also fosters social empowerment, equipping me with the ability to share knowledge, mentor others, and contribute to the transformation of education in Nepal. Through my role as an educator, I have had the privilege of training teacher educators, presenting research papers at national and international conferences, and integrating innovative teaching strategies with ICT in language classrooms.
As I reflect on my academic journey, I recognize that education has been the key to my empowerment in multiple dimensions. Not only has it enriched my personal and professional life, but it has also instilled a deep sense of responsibility to empower others through the dissemination of knowledge and a commitment to transformative education.
Empowering Teaching Through Innovative Integration of ICT
As I embarked on my teaching journey at Darchula Multiple Campus, Khalanga, Darchula, Nepal in 2009 after completing my M.A. in English Literature from Tribhuvan University, I initially questioned whether teaching would become my true passion and profession. Not having an ELT background, my first experiences in university-level ELT classes left me feeling somewhat apprehensive. However, the positive responses and appreciation from both students and colleagues ignited a newfound enjoyment in teaching, leading me to realize that teaching was indeed my passion.
To improve my teaching skills and enhance my expertise in English Language Education further, I pursued a one-year B.Ed. and M.Ed. from Tribhuvan University. Determined to stay up to date with the latest pedagogy and educational technologies, I delved into integrating ICT into my ELT classrooms. The availability of ICT infrastructure, including computer labs, laptops, projectors, multimedia smart boards, and internet facilities, provided valuable tools to enrich the teaching and learning process.
The integration of ICT, though initially challenging, proved to be a motivating force in my teaching practices. Participating in various training sessions, workshops, webinars, and conferences, and learning from online resources like YouTube videos, I gradually adapted to using ICT more effectively in language classrooms. My colleagues often sought technical support from me when incorporating educational software such as MS Teams and Zoom during the transition to online classes amidst the pandemic.
Witnessing my students’ satisfaction and a keen interest in my classes further fueled my motivation to innovate in teaching by strategically incorporating ICT. A significant incident that highlights this impact occurred on 5th July 2021 when I was allowed to conduct ICT training for my colleagues at Far Western University Darchula Multiple Campus Khalanga Darchula. The training focused on using MS Team for upcoming online classes, and it became evident that many faculty members lacked familiarity with ICT in education. Their enthusiasm to learn and improve their ICT practices was inspiring. Guiding them through the basic functionalities of MS Team, such as creating class schedules, adding students as members, conducting quizzes, and facilitating group discussions, the session proved to be both engaging and fruitful, garnering appreciative comments from the participants and the dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Despite facing challenges within the academic environment and culture, where well-performing teachers are sometimes undervalued or discriminated against based on political affiliations, I have remained steadfast in fulfilling my professional duties honestly and responsibly. The support and belief from my family, friends, and students have been instrumental in sustaining my resilience.
Through the transformative power of education and the innovative integration of ICT, my passion for teaching has flourished, empowering me intellectually and professionally. Beyond my personal growth, I aspire to be an agent of change, promoting the meaningful use of ICT in education and contributing to the advancement of the educational landscape in Nepal.
M.Phil. at Kathmandu University as a Gateway for Transformation
I decided to pursue an MPhil in English language education from Kathmandu University with the unwavering support and encouragement from my family, friends, and students. Their belief in my abilities and the significance of advancing my academic journey propelled me to seek an institution that would catalyze personal growth and transformation. In this esteemed institution, I got amazing mentors, whose mentorship equipped me with both theoretical knowledge and practical competencies, instilling in me the confidence to implement cutting-edge teaching strategies and adapt to the ever-evolving needs of my future students. Through their guidance, I deepened my understanding of English language education and acquired the necessary skills to become a proficient teacher for 21st-century learners. Engaging in teacher professional development activities, I was exposed to innovative teaching methods, educational technologies, and effective pedagogical approaches that are most relevant in today’s dynamic classroom environments.
Furthermore, the vibrant academic environment at Kathmandu University fostered a strong sense of community among fellow students. Collaborative projects, discussions, and academic events enriched my learning experience and provided me with diverse perspectives on educational practices. This supportive network of peers and colleagues further contributed to my personal and professional growth, creating a nurturing environment for exploration and intellectual development.
During my M.Phil. journey at Kathmandu University, I experienced a profound personal transformation and achieved notable professional growth. Embracing innovative teaching strategies, I contributed to the academic field through publications and disseminated knowledge to a broader audience. Additionally, my academic journey extended into teacher education and research, as I provided training and presented research papers at national and international conferences, contributing to the advancement of Nepal’s education system. This transformation has empowered me with the confidence to foster positive change and cultivate a passion for learning among future generations.
Summing up
My academic journey has been a transformative experience, catalyzed by the influence of my father’s dedication to education and selflessness. From the early years of learning at home to my pursuit of higher education at Kathmandu University, I have been intellectually and professionally empowered. By integrating innovative teaching methods and ICT in the language classroom, I have witnessed heightened student engagement and satisfaction. This journey has also enabled me to contribute actively to the field through my publications and knowledge-sharing endeavours with fellow educators. Supported by the unwavering belief of my family, friends, and students, I am determined to leverage the transformative power of education, creating a positive impact on the lives of students, and fostering progress within Nepal’s education landscape as I continue to evolve as an educator and researcher.
About the Author: Dammar Singh Saud is an assistant professor at Far Western University, Nepal. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and an M.Ed. in English Language Education. Currently pursuing an MPhil in English Language Education at Kathmandu University, his research interests include ELT Pedagogy, ICT in ELT, Teacher Professional Development, and Translanguaging.
English as a second language (ESL) first-year university students often face challenges with academic writing because of the linguistic, cultural, and instructional differences between the education system in the U.S. and their home countries (academic writing conventions in English and their first languages). This paper aims to present an ethnography of writing as a framework to familiarize the ESL first-year university students with the basics of academic writing, which directly speaks to the educational, social, and cultural contexts of U.S. higher education. The paper concludes that ESL students benefit immensely from using Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996) ethnography of writing as a framework to introduce academic writing in English to cope with their academic writing challenges.
Keywords: academic writing challenges; freshman ESL learners; ethnography of writing; U.S. higher education; linguistic, cultural, and instructional differences
My Tutoring and Teaching Academic Writing Experiences
I have gotten an opportunity to become an ESL educator for different aged students in different educational contexts. First, I have been an ESL teacher in Nepal. I have taught reading and writing to high school and undergraduate students. Second, I worked as a writing tutor at a regional level teaching university in the Midwestern region of the U.S. I tutored both domestic and ESL international undergraduate and graduate students. Third, I have been teaching reading, vocabulary, and writing courses in the Intensive English Language Program (IEP) at the Midwestern U.S. university for four years. Primarily, I follow a process-based approach (Zamel, 1983; White & Arndt, 1991) and the genre-based approach (Hyland, 2004; Swales, 1990; Tardy, 2008) to teach academic writing to my ESL students who come from diverse educational, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. I guide my students by helping them explore resources, services, and contacts in and outside of the university. These learning resources are essential to alleviate their academic writing difficulties in the U.S. higher education context (Chauhan, 2021). Sharing experiences of ESL instructors’ academic journey, including coping strategies, is critical to improving their academic writing skills (Odena & Burgess, 2017). However, existing literature shows that academic writing in English is challenging for ESL students at both undergraduate and graduate levels (Chauhan, 2021) because they come from diverse social, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds (Duff & Anderson, 2015). The diversity of their backgrounds can also be an asset to acknowledge and utilize for enhancing their academic writing skills in English.
Nature and Scope of Academic Writing in Higher Education Context
Academic writing (AW) refers to the writing used in the college and university-level writing courses (Johnson, 2016). Additionally, AW has become the primary communication medium between scholars in academic subjects and disciplines in a higher education context (Greene & Lidinsky, 2015). AW is simple, clear, focused, and formal. It is also technical, objective, impersonal, concise, logical, and well-organized. An academic writer must meet genre-specific expectations and stylistic conventions (Ferris, 2018; Giltrow et al., 2014; Osmond, 2016; Starkey, 2015). AW is specific to context, task, purpose, and audience (Ferris, 2018; Grabe & Kaplan, 1996; Starkey, 2015). In parallel with these ideas, Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit (2013) stated that“[t]he distinct purpose, audience, and context of communication result in clear differences in terms of language use in the selection of words, formality, sentence construction, and discourse patterns” (p. 2). AW is seen differently by scholars based on the features mentioned above. Osmond (2016) argued that AW projects writers’ in-depth knowledge, critical thinking skills, and analytical skills while studying different academic subjects within their disciplines and majors. It is also seen as an inquiry because writers can discover their values, beliefs, strengths, and areas to improve when they engage in the writing process (Starkey, 2015). Grabe and Kaplan (1996) recommended that each writer understands AW from the lens of an ethnographic approach. Echoing similar ideas, Ferris (2018) has summarized the features of successful academic writers and standards of writing used in academia.
Writers must have at least an adequate grasp of the content they are writing. They must understand the rhetorical situation, including the purpose of the writing and the knowledge and expectations of their audience of readers. They need to appreciate the constraints and boundaries accompanying genres, tasks, and text types. Further, writers need advanced control of the linguistic features (vocabulary, spelling, grammar, cohesive ties) and extra-linguistic features (punctuation, capitalization, formatting) appropriate for their text’s content, genre, and target audience. (p. 75)
Ethnography of Writing as a Framework to Introduce Academic Writing
As I mainly tutor and teach academic writing to freshmen ESL first-year university students, I am well acquainted with their writing challenges based on my teaching experience and research study. Current research study has also found that ESL undergraduate students faced many challenges with academic writing in the U.S. university context.
To illustrate, Chauhan (2021) concluded that ESL “undergraduate students experienced academic writing challenges [including] content (gathering information/ideas), organization, academic vocabulary, genre awareness, grammar and mechanics, and citing and referencing sources” (p. 148) because the standards and genre-specific expectations of AW in English are different from those of in ESL students’ L1s (Ferris, 2018; Giltrow et al., 2014; Osmond, 2016; Starkey, 2015).
To address the AW challenges of my ESL first-year university students, I employ Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996) ethnography of writing, which provides a theoretical framework to understand AW regarding its social and cultural contexts in U.S. higher education. Before creating any written text, all writers must ask this fundamental question: “who writes what to whom, for what purpose, why, when, where, and how?” (Cooper, 1979, as cited in Grabe & Kaplan, 1996, p. 203). They further stated that this framework considers academic writing as a combination of writer, reader, subject matter, and text as a writing triangle in which the writer persuades the readers in terms of logos (reason/text), pathos (values, beliefs/audience), and ethos (credibility/writer). Overall, the ethnography of writing is one of the best frameworks to introduce AW to the freshmen ESL students because this framework examines the text’s audience, the writer’s purpose, the genre required by the task, and the situation in which the wiring is used (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996).
Taxonomies of Ethnography of Writing
Grabe and Kaplan (1996) introduced eight types of taxonomies of ethnography of writing to discuss further how this framework operates in a broader academic context. Their framework is further explained together with how I employed this framework to teach writing to my ESL first-year students in a Midwestern U.S. university.
Who
Grabe and Kaplan (1996) state that the first parameter of ethnography of writing is a taxonomy of who, i.e., writers. Knowing the writer and their background is critical to understanding writing well. It is essential to understand whether the individual is a beginning writer or a mature writer and whether the writer is a student who will be evaluated by their teachers or an independent scholarly writer who writes for an academic journal. This background information of the writer influences the audience for whom the writing is produced.
Considering this parameter, I often emphasize the writer’s role in my writing class. As an L2 writing instructor, I know that my students come from different first language (L1) backgrounds. The writing system in their L1s works differently from the writing system in English. I am aware that they are beginner writers in L2 and need more explicit instruction, support, and encouragement from me. I do understand that they are at the initial phase of creating their identity in L2 writing. In the meantime, I am also aware that their authorial voice is critical. So, I orient my students to use academic language and concrete words that embody meaning in the academic context (Bailey, 2018; Brun-Mercer & Zimmerman, 2015; Johnson, 2016), which ultimately helps the writers to make their voices strong. Also, I ask my students to use active structures to strengthen their authorial voice.
Writes
The second taxonomy of ethnography of writing is writes, which focuses on the linguistic nature of writing. This taxonomy of ethnography considers the entire process of text construction, its different linguistic parts, and their organization (thesis statement, topic statements, coherence, cohesion, word choice, reference, transition words (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996), sequencing information (Atkinson, 1991), and overall rhetorical arrangement of information (Bruthiaux, 1993). Overall, in the process of text construction, the writer considers audience, purpose, context, and the genre requirement (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996), discipline-specificity, and disciplinarity (Christiene & Maton, 2011; Flowerdew & Costley, 2016). There are two approaches that I use to teach writing: a process-based approach and a genre-based approach.
First, I follow a process-based approach (White & Arndt, 1991; Zamel,1983) to teach writing in my class. For example, selecting topics (they select topics themselves which they are passionate about writing), gathering required information, creating an outline, preparing the first draft, seeking feedback from peers, writing center tutors, and teachers, addressing feedback, editing, and finally submitting the final draft to the instructor for evaluation (Johnson, 2016; White & Arndt, 1991). Each step in this writing process is equally important for them because my students need to undergo various stages of the writing process to write essays. Also, they will receive points for an outline, first draft, and final draft separately.
Another approach that I employ to teach writing to my students in my class is the genre-based approach (Hyland, 2004; Swales, 1990; Tardy, 2008) because genre-based instruction enhances L2 students’ knowledge in four main areas, which include “formal knowledge of target genres’ features and conventions, the process knowledge of the methods used to produce, distribute, and consume these genres, rhetorical knowledge of target genres’ functions, characteristics, strategies, and subject matter knowledge of disciplinary content and skills” (Tardy, 2009, p. 21). By recognising the usefulness of a genre-based approach to writing, past research studies emphasized the responsibility of L2 educators to develop L2 students’ genre knowledge (Ferris & Hedgcock, 2013; Hyland, 2004; Tardy, 2008, 2009). Highlighting the importance of genre, Hyland (2004) stated “to fail to provide learners with what we know about how language works… denies them the means of both communicating effectively in writing and analyzing text critically” (p. 42). As the L2 students are not much acquainted with different types of genres, it is imperative to teach them genre knowledge explicitly. Also, they need to know that written texts are specific to each academic discipline, program, and major (Christie & Maton, 2011; Hyland, 2017).
Therefore, I provide a sample essay to my students, and they are engaged to analyze and identify all parts of the essay. They include an introduction (hook, background information, and thesis statement), three body paragraphs beginning with topic sentences, supporting details (explanations, reasons, examples, data, experiences, observations, etc.), and a conclusion that summarizes the main points of the essay and restates the thesis statement. In doing so, my students internalize all parts of the essay, which will help them to create their essays later. Ferris and Hedgcock (2013) and Tardy (2008) also stress that it is crucial to train beginner writers with skills that enable them to participate in intertextual systems.
What
The third taxonomy of ethnography of writing is what, i.e., the content or message. Grabe and Kaplan (1996) emphasize that this writing parameter should be described in terms of content, genre, and register. So, this taxonomy of writing seeks to answer these questions: to what extent does the writer need to have background knowledge (content) to create a particular text, what type of texts does the writer produce, and in which fields they are used? The what aspect of writing “must take into account the phenomenological world (a theory of world knowledge), a theory of genre, and some specification of register” (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996, p. 205). In other words, the writer’s background knowledge (schema theory) is crucial in this taxonomy of writing because it provides the writer with the knowledge of the genre and the techniques to organize academic discourse for a specific purpose (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996; Swales, 1990). So, it is critical for ESL writing instructors to allow their students to choose their topics to write.
In my writing class, I do not assign any essay topics to my students. Instead, I provide them with the freedom to choose their topics themselves because I want to promote social justice in my writing class. I also encourage them to choose a topic based on their background knowledge because it is difficult for them to write on a topic that is entirely new to them. For example, the student majoring in Finance ended up choosing a topic from their field, such as Three Ways to Make Money Legally in the U.S. However, the student who is specializing in Sports Management wrote Three Strategies to Improve Cricket. Unlike these two students, the next student who is majoring in Nursing decided to write on Three Benefits of Homemade Breakfast. Besides that, I also provide them with a sample essay to follow because I follow a genre-based approach to teaching writing. This approach allows them to be acquainted with the framework of a text used in the academic context. In doing so, they can write their essays on their topics by following sample essays given to them.
To Whom
Another powerful taxonomy of writing is to whom, which refers to the audience. Grabe and Kaplan (1996) call it a theory of audience or readers because the audience is always at the center of creating a text. Also, the audience plays an essential role in the meaning-making of the text. The writer needs to ponder some of these questions regarding the audience. Are the readers known or unknown to the writer? If they are known, how close or distant are they? How much-shared knowledge exists between the readers and the writer in general? How much-shared knowledge exists between them on a particular topic. Grabe and Kaplan (1996) further state that the audience’s parameter influences the writer’s writing, including the number of persons who are expected to read the text, the extent to which the readers are known or unknown to the writer, the level of status (can be either higher, equal, or lower) between them, the extent of shared background knowledge between readers, and the extent of specific topical shared knowledge between readers and writers.
Building on Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996) framework, recent research studies also highlighted the role of the audience. Before the author writes any text, they need to consider their audience because the type of audience determines their writing (Swales & Feak, 2012). Similarly, Kirszner and Mandell (2015) argued that while writing any text, the audience should be kept in mind because they determine the purpose of the paper. While writing, academic writers envision a specific audience who share knowledge regarding a topic or issue they are writing about (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996; Singh & Lukkarila, 2017). Realizing the significance of to whom parameter, I often ask my students to decide their audience because it is critical for them to know who is going to read their essays. They know that two types of audience read their essays. They include their classmates and their instructor/s.
For What Purpose
As its name suggests, this taxonomy refers to the purpose of producing a text. Grabe and Kaplan (1996) state that every written text is created purposefully. They add that when the writer thinks of purpose, they need to ask these questions: to what extent is it possible to define purpose in a writing task? Are there single or multiple purposes in the task? How does purpose interact with genre and audience? As most writings are meant for audiences, they expect the purpose of the paper when they read them. Therefore, most writers mention their goal of writing to facilitate the readers to make better meaning of the text.
Before writing anything, the writer should be clear about the purpose of writing. Kirszner and Mandell (2015) argued that it is the purpose that limits the writer what to say and how to say it. According to Bailey (2015, 2018), there are three main reasons for writing: (i) to argue on a subject of common interest and give the writer’s view, (ii) to report on a piece of research study and create some type of new knowledge, and (iii) to synthesize research conducted by others on a topic. So, AW is unique because the writer shares inquiry-based knowledge to inform a particular academic community (Singh & Lukkarila, 2017). Considering this taxonomy, all writers need to know the purpose of the academic texts they are writing.
In keeping in mind this taxonomy, I mention to my students that each piece of writing has a certain purpose. My students mostly write five types of essays, and these are five-paragraph essays. For example, when they write a cause-and-effect essay, they show cause and effect relationship of a particular topic. However, when they write a descriptive essay, the purpose is to describe a place, person, object/thing, and process. Unlike these two essays, when my students write classification essays, the objective is to describe three main categories of a particular topic in an interesting way. For example, one of my students chose to write on Three Types of Roommates, whereas another student was interested to write on Three Types of Cell Phone Users.
Why
According to Grabe and Kaplan (1996), the notion of why people write refers to underlying intentions or motives that may or may not be revealed by functional purpose. However, if the writer’s motive is apparent, it helps the readers comprehend the text better. Therefore, genre-based texts overtly express the writer’s motive to facilitate schema instantiation. So, the why component of writing depends on the paper’s audience, topic, and purpose.
In order to make sure my students maintain the why component in their writing, I encourage them to engage in peer review. When they participate in the peer review process in different phases of their writing, they are provided with opportunities to read their course mates essays. In doing so, they not only write on only their topics but also get an opportunity to read and offer feedback on their classmates’ essays. First, they are provided with a checklist (based on a rubric) and asked to give feedback focusing on higher-order concerns such as content/ideas, organization, and vocabulary because they play an important role to convey the writers’ message to their readers. Then, they also give their feedback concentrating on lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and formatting.
When and Where
According to Grabe and Kaplan (1996), this parameter refers to text creation’s time and place. This taxonomy of writing plays a more minor role than the rest of the taxonomies. However, its relevance depends on the type of text. For example, in official emails and letters, the date and place they are sent may be more critical for both the writer and receiver (reader).
In my writing class, when the parameter is crucial for my students because every writing assignment has a fixed deadline to complete and submit to me. The deadline is clearly mentioned in my writing course which every student is provided with both printed and digital copies of the course syllabus on the first day of the class each semester. Also, the deadline for each writing assignment is also mentioned on D2L (an online learning platform used in most U.S. universities and colleges). My students strictly follow the deadline to submit each writing assignment. If students are unable to submit their writing assignments due to any unexpected circumstances, they inform me via email and request an extension of the deadline. In that case, I extend the deadline depending on each student’s situation. In that case, I also provide additional time for individual conferencing with that student to support their writing development.
How
Although this is the final parameter of the writing’s ethnography, this is probably the most important because it examines how the text is created. Therefore, this parameter is also called “a theory of online writing production … or a theory of writing process” (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996, p. 213). Mainly, there are two things this parameter emphasizes. First, writing is a recursive process because the writing process stages, namely planning, drafting, revising, editing, and sharing, do not come in a neat linear sequence. Instead, the writers move backwards and forward several times to create a text (Hyland, 2003; Zamel, 1983). Next, the cognitive mechanism remains at the center of this parameter because it “provides [the writers with] the means for exploring notions such as audience, content, and writer intension from a composing perspective” (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996, p. 213).
This parameter is crucial for my students. For each writing assignment, they must go through all writing stages. They also know each stage has its significance in terms of learning and assessment. For example, they are aware that they cannot create a good outline without gathering sufficient information on a topic. Similarly, no good first draft can be written without a good outline. Without seeking and addressing feedback on the first draft, the final draft does not turn out to be perfect. My students understand this process; therefore, they love to follow all phases of the writing process because they receive separate points for outlines, first drafts, and final drafts.
Conclusion
To sum up, I have found that Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996) ethnography of writing is a useful framework to introduce AW to my ESL first-year university students. My students have developed an understanding of the basics of AW after I employed this approach. This framework has been very effective for me for two reasons. First, this framework promotes the teaching and learning of AW by asking the ESL students to analyze the writer’s process before composing any written text. As Paltridge (2017) stated, the students are asked: “to undertake any analysis of the context in which the text they are writing occurs and consider how the situation in which they are writing impacts upon what they write and how they write it” (p. 12). Second, this approach considers the intended audience, their background knowledge, values and understanding, conventions, genre awareness, and discipline-specificity and disciplinarity (Christie & Maton, 2011; Paltridge, 2017) because of people working in the academic community share “ideas, beliefs, values, goals, practices, conventions, and ways of creating and distributing knowledge” (Flowerdew & Costley, 2016, p. 11). Therefore, the ESL writing instructor’s responsibility is to train first-year university students to familiarize themselves with these elements when writing for academic purposes.
References
Atkinson, D. (1991). Discourse analysis and written discourse conventions. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics,11, 57-76. doi: 10.1017/S0267190500001951
Bailey, S. (2015). The essentials of academic writing for international students (4th ed.). Routledge.
Bailey, S. (2018). The essentials of academic writing for international students (5th ed.). Routledge.
Bruthiaux, P. (1993). Child’s talk: Learning to use language. Oxford University Press.
Chauhan, P. B. (2021). Academic writing challenges experienced by international students in a Midwest U.S. university: A phenomenological inquiry [Doctoral dissertation, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/1129
Christie, F., & Maton, K. (2011). Disciplinarity functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. Continuum International.
Duff, P.A., & Anderson, T. (2015). Academic language and literacy socialization for second-language students. In N. Markee (Ed.), Handbook of classroom discourse and interaction (pp.337-352). Wiley-Blackwell.
Ferris, D. (2018). Writing in second language. In J.M. Newton, D.R. Ferris, C. C. M. Goh, W. Grabe, F. L. Stoller, & L. Vandergriff (Eds.), Teaching English to second language learners in academic context: Reading, writing, listening, and speaking (pp.75-122). Routledge.
Ferris, D., & Hedgcock, J. (2013). Teaching L2 composition: purpose, process, and practice (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Flowerdew, J., & Costley, T. (2016). Introduction. In J. Flowerdew, J. & T. Costley (Eds.), Discipline-specific writing (pp. 9-40). Routledge.
Giltrow, J., Gooding, R., Burgoyne, D., & Sawatsky, M. (2014). Academic writing: An introduction (3rd ed.). Broadview Press.
Gottlieb, M., & Ernst-Slavit, G. (2013). Academic language: A centerpiece for academic success in English language arts. In M. Gottlieb & G. Ernst-Slavit, Eds.), Academic language in diverse classrooms (pp. 1-38). Corwin.
Grabe, W., & Kaplan, R.B. (1996). Theory and practice of writing. Longman.
Greene, S., & Lidinsky, A. (2015). From inquiry to academic writing. A practical guide. Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing. Cambridge University Press.
Hyland, K. (2004). Genre and second language writing. University of Michigan Press.
Hyland, K. (2017). Learning to write for academic purposes: Specificity and second language writing. In J. Bitchener, N. Storch, & R. Wette (Eds.), Teaching writing for academic purposes to multilingual students: Instructional approaches (pp. 24-41). Routledge.
Johnson, A. (2016). Academic writing: Process and product. Rowman & Littlefield.
Kirszner, L.G. & Mandell, S. R. (2015). Patterns for college writing: A rhetorical reader and guide. Bedford St. Martins.
Odena, O., & Burgess, H. (2017). How doctoral students and graduates describe facilitating experiences and strategies for their thesis writing learning process: A qualitative approach. Studies in Higher Education (Dorchester-on-Thames), 42(3), 572–590. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2015.1063598
Osmond, A. (2016). Academic writing and grammar for students (2nd ed.). Sage.
Paltridge, B. (2017). Context and the teaching of academic writing. In J. Bitchener, N. Storch, & R. Wette (Eds.), Teaching writing for academic purposes to multilingual students: Instructional approaches (pp. 9-23). Routledge.
Singh, A.A., & Lukkarila, L. (2017). Successful academic writing: A complete guide for social and behavioral scientists. The Guilford Press.
Starkey, D. (2015). Academic writing now: A brief guide for busy students. Broadview Press.
Swales, J.M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press.
Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (2012). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills (3rd ed.). University of Michigan Press.
Tardy, C. M. (2008). Multimodality and the teaching of advanced academic writing: A genre systems perspective on speaking-writing connections. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), The oral-literate connection: Perspectives on L2 speaking, writing, and other media interactions (pp. 191-208). University of Michigan Press.
Tardy, C. M. (2009). Building genre knowledge. Parlor Press.
White, R. & Arndt, V. (1991). Process writing (1st ed.). Longman.
Zamel, V. (1983). The composing processes of advanced ESL students: Six case studies. TESOL Quarterly,17(2), 165-187. doi:10.2307/3586647
Author’s Bio: Dr Padam Chauhan works as a Retention Specialist for the International Center and an ESL Instructor for the IEP at Minnesota State University (MNSU), Mankato, Minnesota, USA. Prior to that, Padam worked as a Writing Consultant for MNSU’s Writing Center. He has earned MEd in English Education from T.U., Nepal, MA in TESOL, and EdD from MNSU, Mankato. Before joining MNSU, Mankato, he taught ESL at the high school level and served as a high school (10+2) principal in Nepal. Padam voluntarily served NELTA Central Committee as its member, treasurer, and general secretary. Padam has presented at the NELTA, IATEFL, TESOL, AAAL, and TESL conferences in Nepal, the UK, the USA, and Canada. His current research interests include academic reading and writing, Writing Center tutoring pedagogy, and equitable access to English language education.
English is taught and learnt as a foreign language in Nepal. I teach students from varying levels ranging from school to university. Teaching English at school and university is a tough and tedious job for every practitioner. It has been more challenging for all many of us. Normally, we believe that students in our context lack competency and proficiency in English language learning contexts. Motivating such learners to learn the English language is a very aspiring as well as a rigorous task for teachers like me. I often try to bring innovative ideas and activities to my classroom context. Unfortunately, my students do not pay proper attention to their studies and at some point, I feel as if they are studying English just to score passing grades. I realized that the students having ‘Nepali’ as the specialized subject focus only to score required grades or pass marks in comparison to students having ‘English’ as the specialized subject. . As an EFL teacher, I have to fully depend on prescribed course books’ task and activities to complete on time. This nature of the course has given no freedom for teachers to apply tasks and activities based on classroom explorations and context. The administration timely does an inquiry about the course progress whether the teacher has met the target of the course for terminal examination or not. Students also have developed their mindset to read any topic or lesson from an exam viewpoint. One of my students asked me during the teaching phase, “ sir, is this exercise important for the exam?” I replied yes to know the response of the student and how important he/she gives to that particular exercise. I found the students who asked me whether this exercise is important for exams or not prepared notes on that topic. From this classroom scenario, I realized to motivate my students to engage in the creative and critical tasks and activities beyond course books.
Fostering the creativity of learners plays a vital role in developing their analytical, critical, and problem-solving skills to enhance effective communication with peers and teachers naturally. In this regard, Tomlinson (2020) pointed out the significance of being creative for EFL teachers in-order to encourage their learners to be creative. Maley (2016) has suggested the following principles for developing various forms of creativity:
Use heuristics at all levels- do the opposite, reverse the order, expand or (reduce ) something,
Use the constraints principle
Use the random principle
Use the association principle
Use the withholding-information principle
Use the divergent thinking principle
Use feeder fields
Regarding the notion of being creative teachers, we have to come out of the comfort zone to discover and explore newness for teaching creatively having a strong belief that creative teachers are not born and have to abandon the fear of being wrong. The ongoing trends and shifts in teaching expect teachers’ willingness to be creative and demonstrate innovative concepts, beliefs, methods, and skills in teaching. How can a teacher teaching with low resources and less professional opportunity familiarize him with creative and critical aspects of teaching? To address the issue of the above question, I believe, there should be passion among teachers for self- continuous professional growth and learning. Teachers have to be motivated themselves and always devoted and committed to bringing significant changes in their classroom practices forming their own agency.
The rationale for my reflection
Rationalizing the status and ability of students in English, I happened to inquire how I could inspire my learners to be responsible for their own learning. Many questions are stuck in my mind:- Are there any ways I could apply in my teaching to achieve transformative learning? Are there any explicit and creative activities that I could employ in my classroom context for better learning outcomes? Are there any specific ways I could apply to engaging students interactively and collaboratively?
These are some of the leading questions that made me reflect critically on transforming my teaching from content provider/ knowledge transmitter to knowledge explorer and reformer through dialogic interactions with interlocutors. In this write-up, I share my classroom practices on how creative response in ELT can foster students’ creativity, critical thinking, analyzing skills, and problem-solving skills, as well as develop communication skills to integrate various language aspects. The objective of this reflective writing is to rethink and critically reflect and analyze our classroom practices whether or not we are creating a favourable learning environment for our learners to develop their creativity. Moreover, this paper also encourages teachers teaching with less access to professional opportunities and fewer resources to be responsible for self-learning and grow professionally to connect with a wider ELT association of professional networking.
Vignette
I began my teaching career without job induction training and mentoring. I struggled for my survival in the teaching profession during my initial days. There was no staff development programme and professional development opportunity for teachers. Teachers were seniors/experienced based on their years of teaching rather than updated skills and knowledge. I realized proficiency and competency-based training, seminars, workshops, webinars, and short-term practical courses empower teachers to advance their teaching careers. I also became a member of ELT associations like NELTA and TESOL for my continuous professional development and networking with the wider community. The following anecdotes illustrated my professional development activities.
I attended a six-day intensive course on “Fundamentals of Teaching” organized by the British Council on March 25-30, 2018. It was my first experience participating in a 6 days long training for individual professional growth. The takeaways from the training helped me shape my teaching to keeping learners at the centre of the learning process by applying recent approaches to language teaching, group division techniques, designing tasks and activities for lesson planning, managing heterogeneous classes, fostering creative and critical aspects of learners, Think, pair share technique and ways of maximizing interaction and collaboration.
Based on the skills and knowledge from this training, I presented a workshop on Designing Activities for Teaching Reading at the National Conference of NELTA held at Solidarity International Academy, Hetauda, Nepal on March 2-3,2019. TESOL-NELTA Regional Conference and Symposium held at DAV Sushil Kedia Vishwa Bharati Higher Secondary School, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur on November 20-23 was another professional development opportunity to participate and interact with scholars from home and abroad for professional networking. At this conference, I presented a workshop on Using Short Stories for Enhancing Reading Comprehension of EFL Learners. I got an opportunity to participate in a Creative Writing Workshop facilitated by an ELT expert Alan Maley on November 24, 2019. That creative writing workshop engaged me in various ways of writing creative poems and also inspired me to apply the technique in my classrooms to foster creative writing for my students. It is my belief that the best part of learning is sharing in a wider community. I presented a workshop entitled Enhancing Creative Writing in the EFL classroom at the Third Annual ELT and Applied Linguistics Conference on February 21-22, 2020 organized by the Department of English Education, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Recently, I also successfully completed a nine months-long online course entitled “TESOL Certificate: Advance Practitioner (TCAP) getting a scholarship from Regional English Language Office (RELO) US Embassy, Nepal. This course provided theoretical knowledge and practical skills needed for teaching the English language effectively and innovatively by applying modern approaches, methods, and skills. I got an opportunity to participate TESOL convention and English language expo virtually in 2021 and 2022. Attending the TESOL convention virtually made me familiar with recent practices of teacher education, teacher research, innovative classroom practices, and more importantly ELT in the present world. Scholars across the globe shared their beliefs, knowledge, practical ideas based on their classroom exploration, and research findings to empower teachers like me to rethink English language teaching. I was the award recipient of ‘Rosa Aronson Professional Learning Scholarship’ of TESOL 2020.
My classroom practices
My classroom practices focus on the development of the creative and critical skills of the students. In order to enhance creativity and critical thinking, I create a conducive learning environment to foster engagement from the students. I use Icebreaker to initiate the discussions, sometimes during the while phase of teaching and at the end of the class. Using icebreakers in English language class incorporates different language skills. Icebreaker is one of the effective strategies for generating new ideas. I spend around 5-10 minutes on the icebreaker with a clear purpose. The selection of the icebreaker is based on the nature of the text. I use prompts, quotations, riddles, and questions for engaging students in productive learning.
Social media are also the best platform for learning new ideas and concepts for self-professional development through professional networking. I have added many ELT scholars from home and abroad as my Facebook friends. They post innovative concepts of ELT, call for proposals and abstracts for international conferences, seminars, and workshops, and share resources, practical teaching ideas, and links for joining webinars. I found the following activity in the Facebook post of Marjorie Rosenberg, past president of IATEFL. I found this activity engaging so I used it in my classroom.
Activity 1: Icebreaker
I asked the students to complete the following information using the first letter of the last name. They were a bit confused about how to be engaged in this activity. To make them understand how to explore information for completing it, I asked for the last name of any students in the class and wrote the last name on the board. For example, if the last name of the student was Gurung, he/she had to complete the given items using the first letter of their last name (G).
Wear……………..
Drink………………
Place……………….
Food………………..
Animal……………..
Girl’s name…………………..
Boy’s name…………………….
Profession…………………………
Describe someone………………………..
Something in your home…………………….
Body parts………………………………………
Your last names………………………………….
Students actively participated in this activity. I found that students were very curious to share their responses. After the sharing session, I ask the students to write the names of the animals (donkey, elephant), a place to visit (Dharan, Illam), Favourite food (momo, biryani), clothes (sweater, T-shirt) on a piece of paper. I provided them with the structure (If I were a (insert the word generated above), I would……) to write sentences based on the words they generated above. For example: If I were a donkey, I would carry your goods.
If I were a sweater, I would keep you warm from the cold.
Students constructed creative and surprising sentences and compared and evaluated their generated sentences with their peers. This activity energized them to create new sentences based on the structures.
Activity 2: Using Acrostic poems for introduction to new students
An acrostic poem is based on a word written vertically. I used acrostic poems to introduce newcomer students. This activity of writing poems encourages students to write poems about themselves. Acrostics poems can be used to write poems on objects, things, places, and so on. To make my students familiar with writing acrostics poems, I present some samples to make them clear on how to write them. During the sample presentation, I address the query raised by the students.
For Example: Dog
Docile
Obedient
Growling
After presenting the above example, I ask the students to write an acrostic poem based on their own name or about someone’s name they know well.
For example: Ganesh
G Goal-oriented
An Active achiever
N Nurturing naturally
E Excellent endeavour
S Sincere Sociable
H Honest humane
After students wrote poems about their names, I asked every student to share how they wrote them.
Activity 3: What Makes Me Happy?
I use this activity to promote positive thinking and also want to know the sources of my students’ happiness. I write “What Makes Me Happy?” on the board and asks the student to write their happiness based on the stem I wrote on the board. To make them clear, I write ‘Eating momo at a restaurant with my friends makes me happy.’ Based on this information, students explore their happiness and write creative and surprising sentences and chunks individually. I divide them into groups with five students in each. Now, students select one writer and the remaining students do the work of editing to shape their poems. Each group shares their final product of ‘What Makes Me Happy?’
Activity 4 : Bio poems
Bio poem enhances students’ creativity to write poems about a place, concept, event or individual they learnt through reading texts. Students write poems about the characters of the story or novel based on the sample. Students have read biography or autobiography of famous people, historically and naturally popular places or any events or concepts introduced in the text. In the form of poems, students organize and synthesize a large number of ideas creatively. The following template can be used to write a poem:
Line 1: First name
Line 2: Four traits that describe the character
Line 3: son/daughter relative of
Line 4: who feels/ verbs………….( 3 items)
Line 5: who needs/verbs……….( 3 items )
Line 6: who gives/verbs………..( 3 items)
Line 7: Who would like…………..
Line 8: Resident of………………….
Ending: Last name
Activity 5: Story Wheel
I attended a workshop on ‘Creative Response to ELT’ last year. In that workshop, the facilitator introduced the concept and practical ways of assessing the ‘story wheel’ in our classrooms. The story wheel required paper and pencil and can easily be used without overnight preparation and planning. Baker (2021) emphasizes that the story wheel can be used to expand learners’ retelling capacities, as well as to hone critical-thinking skills, and provide oral language practice. I use this activity in my class to retell the story students read or heard. Before I use this tool, I ask the students to read the story. I draw a circle on the board and divide the circle into segments. In the segment, I write the name of the story and its writer, the characters of the story, the setting, the plot, the picture that describe the best scene of the story, and key vocabulary. The segments in the story wheel depend on the nature of the story and the level of learners. I distribute pencils and A4 size paper to the students. I form a group with five students in each. They discuss in a group and make the story wheel based on my instructions. I offer my help to them if needed. The story wheel is easily transferable to a post-reading strategy with adaptations.
Reading Activities
Enhancing the reading comprehension of my learners is another challenging part of teaching due to the complex nature of reading texts. Students develop their critical and interpretive skills through maximum exposure to readings texts. In our context, we have given very less amount of reading practice to our learners to improve their comprehension. Students seem bored and passive in reading lessons. This classroom scenario made me re-evaluate my teaching on how to design engaging, creative, and critical activities and tasks to assess reading interactively and collaboratively to motivate demotivated learners. Reading texts enhances the interpretive abilities of the students. In my reading lesson, I begin my class by creating a learner-friendlier atmosphere motivating them to participate in the discussion to share their prior knowledge they have about the topic. I initiate the interaction and elicit information shared by the students by making a connection with their previous knowledge about the reading text. I use the K-W-L chart (What I know-K, What I want to know- W and What I learned-L) to engage students individually in organizing ideas of the text at pre, while, and post phases of the reading topic. Agreeing and disagreeing is another effective reading activity I prefer in my class to express the opinions of my students. For example, I write ‘ Arranged marriages are usually stronger than those based on love’ On the board. I ask the students: To what extent do you agree with the statement- strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree. Students think individually and share their responses with their classmates.
Questioning the author helps students develop inquiry about the text to understand it. Students explore the meaning that the author wants to convey through the text. It also develops the students’ interactive, explorative and interpretive ability to construct meaning based on their reading of the text (Beck, McKeown, Sandora, & Worthy, 1996, 387).
Visualization, summarizing, predicting, making connections, and inferring are frequently used reading strategies in my classroom. While designing tasks and activities for reading texts, I follow the stages of reading illustrated by Lazar ( 2009) to achieve learning goals through interactive tasks and activities. I also use a plot diagram to map the events of the story. Students organize their ideas based on the elements of the plot diagram- exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
Conclusion
Exploring the creativity of the learners in the EFL classroom is the cry of a day. To address the issue of creativity in the EFL classroom, I have applied learnt skills and knowledge to bring positive learning outcomes to my learners giving them maximum exposure through engaging tasks and activities. Creating a democratic classroom scenario will motivate the students to be responsible for their own learning believing they are an integral part of teaching which builds a good rapport between teachers and students.
References
Maley, A. (2016). Creativity: the what, the why and the how. ELT Council: Malta
Baker, A. ( 2021 ). Using story retelling wheels with young learners. English Teaching Forum, 59(3), 14-24.
Gabay, L. ( 2017). I raise my voice: Promoting self-Authoring through a curriculum-based project. English Teaching Forum, 55(4),14-21.
Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., Sandora, C., & Worthy, J. (1996). Questioning the author:
A yearlong classroom implementation to engage students with text. The Elementary
School Journal, 96, 385–414.
Lazar, G.( 2009). Literature and Language teaching. Cambridge University Press.
Tomlinson, B.(2015). Challenging teachers to use their coursebooks creatively. www.teachingenglish.org.uk
Author’s Bio: Bishnu Karki has an M.Ed. in English Education from Tribhuvan University. He is an Assistant Lecturer of English Education at Janta Multiple Campus, Itahari, Sunsari and Secondary level English teacher at Chandra Sanskrit Secondary School, Dharan. Mr Karki is joint secretary of the NELTA Sunsari branch and a global member of TESOL. His special interest lies in fostering creativity in ELT, teaching literature in the EFL classroom, and teacher education.
Like in the past, we have come up with photography project in this writing special issue of ELT Choutari. We believe that our students, like any one of us, enjoy looking photos and hence we can use photos in teaching language skills and aspects. In this post, the photos are more like thematic and can be very useful for teaching writing. One photo can generate many ideas and in many different forms. We can use the following photos in the classroom in the different ways. Like, we can simply ask our students to describe the photo, write a story in the periphery of the photo, write an essay related to the issue of the photo. E.g. we can use the photo of the temple to assign them to write about the issue of “Hygiene and Conservations of Templates”.
Dear teachers, you can show the photos to your students, generate discussion, form a group (or you can assign to each individual) and assign the task of writing. The students will find at least some ideas to write about the photos and they will feel more secure to write with these thematic photos.
For this project, the photos are contributed by Jeevan Karki, who is also a freelance photographer.
Children clicking the photo using the mobile phone in a travel.A man enjoying paragliding over the sky of Few Lake in Pokhara.A shooting set for a video.People harvesting paddy in a village of Nepal.Soldiers in a parade in a function.People standing in a queue in a temple.People singing the Bhajan in a temple.
The Choutari team has initiated a new ‘photography project’. The aim of the project is to promote the use of photography/pictures in EFL teaching. In this project, the Choutari team members share with the larger ELT community a variety of photos they take in different times and places. We do not create our own stories out of these pictures, rather we leave it open for multiple uses (e.g., essay writing, story writing/telling, critical pedagogy, group work, participatory research)as per the need of EFL teachers . In acknowledging the importance of photos/pictures in EFL teaching, this project is influenced by the “Critical Photography Theory” (Wells, 2015) and the “Critical Art Pedagogy” (Cary, 2011). We encourage our fellow colleagues all over the world to use these pictures (of course, acknowledgement is appreciated) for the classroom purposes and participate in the discussion on various issues concerning the use of photography in EFL teaching.
To begin, we share the photos taken by Prem Phyak, our past editor, in different locations and times in Nepal.
I was having an informal talk with a boy of tenth grade regarding growing disinterest of students in the home assignment. To my question of why students do not show their interest in doing home assignments, he replied that home assignments are NOT interesting. He further said if the work is interesting, we simply cannot wait to complete it. We choose to do the interesting work first among others.
I pondered on his view. In fact, he is right. His views give us the insight that if teaching learning activities, including the home assignment are interesting enough, students get involved in them without knowing they are doing them. The same is the case with all of us. We all enjoy doing the compelling work because we do not feel that we are doing it rather we feel that we are riveted to it. The above instance shows that students expect some changes in our day-to-day teaching learning activities. Therefore, we need to review the activities we use in our classes and add some stimulating and compelling flavor to them. However, interesting activities should not be mistaken for some thrilling and adventurous activities. In my view, they imply the activities that are a bit challenging and allow students to use their wit, skills, imagination and innovation. It means that even usual activities that we use in our teaching learning process can be made interesting. However, there should be a little creative touch and modification from teachers, which necessitates teachers to be creative to some extent. Now my question is– can every teacher be creative? Yes, they need to be creative.Continue reading Talking about Creative Consciousness in Teachers→
As teachers, we often ask ourselves, “How can we develop creative thinking of our students? How can we ensure that our lessons are fun making and useful for them?” We, the teachers today always seek to find new ways to help the learners unleash their creativity. In this post, I share with you some thoughts about how we can use storytelling to help our students learn language in effective and enjoyable ways.
When I was a young, my sister used to fascinate me and the rest of the family because she had a very captivating way of unfolding events that kept the audience glued to their seats. I remember getting so engrossed in the story that I fell off the stool. Stories, and creative and effective expression still fascinate me, because stories not only made my childhood fun but they also greatly enhanced my language development. As the old Nepali saying goes, those who can tell good stories are worth adorning with garlands of flowers and . Hearing a story is heartwarming and a storyteller can make the world come alive for the listener. The power of storytelling is attested by sayings like this in many cultures. And as language teachers, we all know that power. When telling stories, speakers develop language skills, as well as build confidence for communicating their ideas.
Storytelling in the Context of Teaching/Learning Language
In the context of learning language, storytelling allows learners to learn and express new ideas, use new vocabulary and grammatical structures, and put such language skills to use within the broader context of events and ideas in the story. Storytelling gives learners the opportunity to use language in a holistic way.
Highlighting how the use of story in language classroom is a powerful tool in the language learning process, Jones (2012) argues that “Once learners get into conversational storytelling, it is an enjoyable experience for both them and the teacher.” There’s no doubt that stories can be fun and also there is more to storytelling than it meets the eye. One has to ensure successful learning of language as well. According to Morgan & Rinvoulcri (2003), successful second language learning is “far more a matter of unconscious acquisition than of conscious, systematic study.” The stories could be such method of unconscious input that can ensure creative output. Stories unconsciously draw a learner towards them. “They capture and hold the imagination of learners; they create empathy as children identify with characters and situations in the stories; they present language in authentic contexts, thus promoting both grammatical and vocabulary development; they facilitate acquisition through multiple repetition (both of the language in the story, and as the story is told over and again)” (Maley, 2008, p. 4).
Hence, storytelling can be a powerful tool for teaching language. Stories also help students to be expressive, imaginative and capable of using language naturally in real context. Telling stories is a natural way of engaging students to communicate complex ideas. Stories when used in classroom help students practice communication and expression. If we as a teacher can help students love stories, we will pave way for them to be extensive readers in the future.
It is worth noting at this point that storytelling is more than just reading aloud. Actually it is NOT reading out loud. When a story is told live, the teller can engage listeners and can create an intimate bond through his/her voice and eye contact. Another obvious benefit of storytelling over reading aloud is improvisation through the use of mimes, gestures and body language.
What Type of Stories?
It is not enough for us as a language teacher to go to a class with any story. If you plan to tell a story to a class full of eager minds, there are two questions to consider first.
Is this the story I enjoy telling?
Is this the story my students would find entertaining or thought provoking?
The stories that you choose to present in the class should touch you and your students should be able to relate to it the way you relate to it. Your reaction to the story and your enthusiasm can really ignite a desire in your students to be better recipient and eager participants. Choosing a good story is a crucial part of storytelling. Don’t tell a story just for the sake of storytelling. Let the story be a part of you. Know your students well and choose a story that might easily be their story.
For my English lesson, one day, I chose a fairly easy story about a tortoise, having a bad day, decides to run away from home. I planned my lesson around it and decided to use this story in two different levels: one primary and another secondary. I chose grade 5 in the primary level and grade 10 in the secondary level. I told the same story to the classes, improvising and detailing the story as per their level. After an initial round of storytelling, I got the students talking about their feelings. I asked them if they could relate to the character and if they have ever in their life felt like running away. All the students responded with “Yes”. When I asked them to write down a similar story, I saw them eagerly opening their notebooks and writing energetically. In the story, the main character returns home after learning the value of his family and friends. The story not only helped them in their language learning process, it also helped them to meditate on their lives by relating themselves to.
Stories are everywhere; in fact stories are our way of life. “Stories are central to what it means to be human. The human mind seems to be hardwired for the creation and reception of narratives. It is even true to say that we are the stories that make us up: stories we have heard, we have told, we enact daily” (Maley, 2008, p.4). There are lots of sources of story. We can choose our stories from fairy tales, traditional folklores, culture, proverbs, pictures, newspaper clippings, films, personal anecdotes, rumors, imagination etc.
Who can Benefit?
As a teacher of language, I have found storytelling very helpful. However we should not just limit its use in language classroom. Stories can be used in a math, science and social studies classes as well. Stories are not limited to kindergarten only but can be useful for secondary classes as well. Stories can be told to any level of learner. Beginners can benefit through it and it will aid their literacy and language learning. Even advanced learners are benefited through storytelling; they can refine their already learnt language skills and polish their ideas. Stories give them opportunity to be creative with what they have already learnt.
Classroom Activities
Storytelling is an effective alternative to traditional language teaching activities. There are a lot of ways through which we can use storytelling in our classroom. As stated by Morgan & Rinvoulcri (2003), storytelling activities range from introspective to interactive, beginner to advance, written to oral, individual to group. Stories can be planned and delivered in such a way that it achieves its objectives. If our objective is to help students with grammar, then we can choose a story with recursive pattern of words and phrases. Our telling can give them exposure to the target language. Apart from grammar, we can focus on vocabulary, intonations and phonetics to help them acquire English language easily and successfully.
Choosing a good story is a crucial part of storytelling. The main part is storytelling itself. Your relation and attitude towards the story matters a lot. Once the story has been delivered you need to plan various activities to help the students contemplate the impact. Group discussion based on various probing question can help the students relate to the story. You can prepare the questions beforehand and have the students talk about it with each other. The questions can range from their reaction to various elements or aspect of the story. If your students are advanced learner you can have them discuss the literary aspect of the story. Have the students paraphrase the story individually and they can even write a reflection on it. Another activity would be to write a similar story on a totally new context.
Dramatizing the story is another method of exploiting stories. Either you dramatize the storytelling itself or have your students retell it in a form of drama. Role playing and role taking helps the students with revision and in doing so they get familiarized with the grammatical, semantic, structural aspect thus unconsciously learning language. Retelling a story is fun and enjoyable. Getting the students to narrate their story in the class often creates a receptive environment in the classroom where more than one student will be willing to share similar experience. Tannen (1984) has stated that one person’s narrative may often be taken up by one or more of the listeners who will add similar narratives of their own to create what she refers to as a “story chain”.
Apart from storytelling, creating similar stories through parallel writing helps them a lot. Get the students create a story with the help of theme words either individually or in a group. Instead of the teacher telling the story, students can also do the telling. This will help in a successful two way communication in a language classroom while giving an opportunity to the teacher to evaluate the learner.
Using pictures and shapes, together the teachers and students can create a new story to tell. Sometimes we can tell an incomplete story and have the students complete it and tell it. Taking an event from a newspaper clipping and telling it in a form of story can also help the students.
Conclusion
Storytelling, which is an integral part of human life, can be vital in language teaching. Basing the language lessons on stories have creative impact on the students. If we cultivate a love of stories in our students through storytelling, we can help them learn without giving them the monotonous drill and bland role play. Stories add a humanistic element in teaching making it quite effective. Various classroom activities based on stories not just make your lesson comprehensible and useful, it also adds fun to your teaching.
References
Jones, R. (2012). Creating a storytelling classroom for a storytelling world. English Teaching Forum, 2-9.
Maley, A. (n.d.). From story literacy to reading literacy. Literacy in the language classroom, 4-7.
Morgan, J. & Rinvoulcri, M. (2004). Once upon a time: Using stories in language classroom. Cambridge: CUP.
Tannen, D. (1984). Conversational Style: Analyzing talk among friends. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Wright, A. (n.d.). Creating stories. Literacy in the language classroom, 23-34.
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Santona Neupane is a scholar pursuing her M. Ed. in ELT at Kathmandu University, School of Education. She is an English teacher in a private school in Kathmandu. She has recently joined the editorial team of Choutari.
‘Change’ is not my word in the title above, but I agree to use it. Do books change our lives? Someone said it is the reader who has the potential to change; the book only triggers that potential. And one who does not have that potential does not respond to the trigger. I agree to this, too.
But I am not here to present a thorough appreciation of ‘five classics’. Not that I avoid reading classics, but I am willing to write about those books that have told me their actual worth. Each of the five books came to me almost ‘out of nowhere’ and left a lasting message. Not that any of them should ever satisfy your intellectual need if you someday decide to read. I write here simply because I have deemed them contributory to my own growth as a teacher. An English teacher.
I was delighted when the Choutari Team asked me to write on five books that ‘changed’ my life. I decided to speak up: I have already read a book with the same title and loved it so much. It is The Book That Changed My Life (2006) by Roxanne J Coady and Joy Johannessen. A book about books, and about how books change one’s life – I had loved this idea long ago. The Book indeed was a reward, such as Coady herself would like to regard as a gift “from heaven”.
I bought it in the summer of 2008 at Books and Books, Coral Gables, Florida, only as a memento of my US visit. And, because it was a casual pick, my interest in it turned into epiphany as I read through the short essays inside. This was an opportunity to peek into seventy one writers’ celebration of “the books that matter most to them.” These seventy one people gave credit to certain books and their writers as their life’s important change agents. So, the writers’ appreciation of their favourites helped confirm that none of my previous and recent cravings for ‘good books’ were without meaning. Anyone, even you, will subscribe to Coady’s prefatory justification for publishing this book, so will I.
Reading is a way to live more lives, to experience more worlds, to meet people we care about and want to know more about, to understand others and develop a compassion for what they confront and endure. It is a way to learn how to knit or build a house or solve an equation, a way to be moved to laughter and wonder and to learn how to live.
One book that has made great sense to me as a teacher of English is The Elements of Style, the tiny work of William Strunk Jr. and E. B White. You may wonder why such commonplace as ‘elements of style’ would strike anyone who boasts of degrees in English and years of teaching in a reputed University’s central department. But I realized, after having gone through the authors’ terse admonitions against verbosity and carelessness, that degrees and years of teaching do not make one a writer and a teacher of effective communication. The actual prerequisite of being a writer is not only the mastery in grammar and vocabulary, but craftsmanship in stylistic and rhetorical choices.
The Elements offers an extremely concise treatment on style. I have nurtured the following assertion more than anything in life and, of course, for writing in Nepali as well:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
Strunk and White made me aware of the beauty of brevity in writing. Then Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark, a writing instructor at Poynter Institute, Florida, helped polish this awareness. The “50 essential strategies,” more as rich illustrations of good and bad samples from various established sources than commonplace imperatives, have best corresponded with my zeal for learning rhetorical styles. Clark taught me writing as an artful yet serious activity and knowledge of grammar a means to shape the artistry of expression.
Assuming the role of highly active, playful teacher along the “strategies,” Clark encourages every aspiring and established writer to become an entertainer, a performer. He likes to take writing for carpentry, and then has this to say: “You can borrow a writing tool at any time. And here’s a secret: Unlike hammers, chisels, and rakes, writing tools never have to be returned. They can be cleaned, sharpened, and passed on.”
Clark’s metaphors of gold coins, ladder of abstraction, internal cliffhangers, X-ray reading etc. will surely tickle one’s sense of sufficiency as a writer and editor. Initially, he makes you skeptic about every sentence you write yourself and read from others. As you move on, because Clark will not allow you to drop midway, you become a better writer, better reader, better editor. Clark follows you directly into your profession. He is with me – in lectures, in instructions, in formal presentations – and now as I write these lines.
I got Wayne Booth’s famous book The Rhetoric of Rhetoric at a time I was trying to get clear knack on rhetoric in scholarly, philosophical and practical terms. Booth proved a rescuer, and a guide to the fact that rhetoric is a vastly developed academic discipline way beyond its everyday currency as a signifier of a cheap lie or a political bombast.
Booth observes rhetoric’s relevance as much in persuasive communication and study of such communication as in the resolution of conflicts, teaching of science and general upbringing of people. Of special value to me has been his idea of “rhetorology” defined as a “deepest form of listening rhetoric: the systematic probing for ‘common ground’”, which in other words involves a practice of paying attention to opponent views during a conflict situation.
Booth emphasizes that rhetoric is simply the way we think and communicate in the process of creating a better life, and eliminating slippery situations. So, I believe, after Booth, that “the quality of our lives, moment by moment, depends on the quality of our rhetoric.” Isn’t it then even more appropriate to say that the kind of political system and social structure we see/experience “depends on the rhetoric of our leaders and our responses to them”? Booth is equally true in his belief that “our children’s future depends on how they are taught rhetoric.” That is, by us.
Literature, Science and a New Humanities by Jonathan Gottschall is one of my recent readings. It has made much sense in my decision to work across humanities and other disciplines in Kathmandu University. It has reshaped my understanding of the common tension of where humanities needed proper overhaul.
Gottschall makes readers aware of three main fault lines of the current humanities scholarship. The first includes the excessive use of jargons and “theories of human nature that are defunct.” The second is a methodological problem involving the impossibility of getting tangible evidences unlike in science because the “theory-generated hypotheses” in humanities are not “closer to truth.” The third problem involves attitudinal dilemmas where the dismissal of the “possibility of generating reliable knowledge” is critical among humanities scholars.
Reading Gottschall coincides with two very important contexts of my academic life. The first involves a larger concern of the humanities ‘fraternity’, to which I belong. This is the concern for the visible decline of interest and intake in certain traditional university programmes like geography, history, political science, psychology and philosophy. That some people still desired to study English literature or journalism is nothing of a solace to a career-ambitious young man in that it is gradually subjected to preparing ‘service’ writers or higher-secondary teachers. Personally, working in an institution heavily focused to profession-specific academic programmes in science and engineering, I have always felt the need of reconfiguring my disciplinary orientation to more goal- or job-centric terrains. The second context has to with the recent shift in my disciplinary priorities. I moved from where I liked to work (social sciences) to where I loved to belong and contribute (humanities and sciences). The move has also added a challenge of helping to interface the mutually complementary facets of communication, teaching, management, entrepreneurship, and economics in the promotion of engineering and science education.
I feel now that Gottschall’s book endorses my decision to work across these terrains. It lends adequate confidence in the goal “to establish a new humanities on surer foundations.” The foundations would then take more conciliatory yet “diverse and sophisticated methodological toolkit, and the pursuit of disinterested inquiry.” I have subscribed to Gottschall’s “call to move closer to the sciences in theory, method, and ethos.” I have accepted this mandatory, though difficult, challenge to “participate more fully in revealing the ultimate subject of the humanities: humans.” To this my life is directed with tenacity. To reiterate, I have set conciliatory, empathetic performance in scholarship to be the main motto of my further scholarly priorities.
Finally, books do not respond to the extent of leading to change unless you approach them with love and passion. Love for books comes with birth. This love becomes passion when books become a part of your upbringing. Books shape our thoughts which shape our actions. Thoughtful actions are change agents. A book’s contribution to change lies here. With this belief I seek to read good books, more and more.
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Hem Raj Kafle is one of the senior editors of NELTA Choutari. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the Humanities and Management Unit, School of Engineering, Kathmandu University. For more of his literary writings and works at his personal blog: http://kaflehem.wordpress.com/
Experience, Experiment and Interaction for Creativity in ELT
Creativity in ELT is an elusive concept with multiple interpretations. It has been one of the most verbalized and sought for but least realized and materialized concepts in the ELT context like ours. The reasons can be many. Some are i) the fallacy that creative writers are born not made ii) the practice of imitation and repetition deeply rooted in our mainstream education iii) the unreflective culture i.e. do and forget” iv) the culture that unduly gives priority to security in the examination achievement, which obviously discourages the experiment in teaching and learning, and v) the education culture that feeds itself into borrowed metropolitan experiences devaluing our own context-generated experiences.
English language teaching can never be appropriate, context-responsive and context-sensitive unless we integrate elements of creativity and ‘criticality’ into our teaching learning practice in all dimensions. Creativity needs not only insights but also experiences. Experiences need to be experimented in different forms which call for interaction amongst ELT practitioners. Interaction needs space. The conventional space for creation and interaction that we have been relying on is the print media. The conventional space available in the print media is both limited and limiting. An alternative as well as a complement to the conventional space can be cyberspace, the focal point of this issue.
Creativity calls for action and critical reflection. Most importantly, components of creativity and criticality should be valued from the lower level itself. Creativity is not something that erupts out of blue once our students reach a certain level. By nature children are creative and critical as De Bono (1972) remarks “a child enjoys thinking. He enjoys the use of his mind just as he enjoys the use of this body as he slides down a helter-skelter or bounces on a trampoline”. De Bono further notes that “children solve problems effortlessly. Their ideas may often be impractical, but they produce them with fluency, a zest and irrepressible imagination”. Let us capitalize on their flight of imagination, agility, insights to usher their everyday learning of English in the productive land of creativity.
Creativity should be incorporated in major pedagogical dimensions: i) English language teacher education; creativity in the English classroom begins from teachers themselves, ii) Resources; teaching-learning resources should give ample space for learners’ critical perspectives and creative expression, iii) Assessment; assessment of learners’ achievement should be creativity-driven, not fear-driven.
I quoted from the Dhammapada, “the unreflective mind is a poor roof”. Critical and creative teachers not only act but also reflect on their actions. At the same time, they encourage their students to do the same. The teachers who do not reflect on what they did, why they did, what they did, how it went, and what its impact was on their students’ learning, are like a poor roof. Such teachers cannot collect insights and knowledge from their experiences, no matter how many years they teach. In this regard, Jeevan Karki, an English teacher from GEMS, takes us to the self-initiated experiment in his English classroom. He reflects on how he acted relentlessly to explore creative treasure deep buried in the young minds and to unleash it. Since the human mind is ruthlessly pragmatic, i.e. purpose-driven, the students should be made clear why they are writing and with whom they are communicating their ideas. For this the writer offers an option of publishing their works in the class magazine, school magazine, local and national dailies, and the best alternative to all the print media that he offers is a webzine. Most of us dream of novelty in our teaching and of creativity in our students’ performance. But we often work individually. Prerequisite conditions for the materialization of these individual dreams are collaboration and communication, self-motivation for bringing about a change, passion for professional change, and compassion for our students. Advocating for and experimenting with the inductive approach to creative writing, Jeevan’s approach is exploratory, interactive and authentic.
Sagun Shrestha, a budding creative writer both in Nepali and English, shows how we can exploit cyberspace to help our “students learn more, create more and communicate more effectively” (Richardson, 2009). It’s important that we teachers understand why creativity is so important for our students. The takeaway from Sagun’s writing is that creativity is an action verb not an abstract noun. First those who preach it should engage themselves in the action. The teachers should be able to tap into the Internet for “creating relevant, interactive learning experiences in the classroom” (ibid.).
Kamlesh, a young teacher from the Terai belt, reflects on how he learned two different tongues in his school and how his mother tongue Bajjika served as the zone of contact with the both. He raises a crucial issue to be taken on board by teachers of young learners in the multilingual classroom. The issue is the strategic choice of a language other than English. The judicious use of mother tongue is permissible is what was accepted by Richards and Rodgers. However, when the teacher uses a particular language other than English in the multilingual classroom, the question is– Whose mother tongue is he using? His or his Students’? I often had the similar experience while teaching in one of the schools in Kathmandu where the majority of the students spoke Newari as their first language, not Nepali. Whenever I had to explain something difficult in ‘the mother tongue’, or translate into, obviously I would go for Nepali, my mother tongue, not the tongue of the majority of the classroom.
Khem Raj Joshi, a teacher educator from the Central Department of English Education, deals with one of the modes of interaction between teacher and students in the form of feedback. It has an appeal to those who are nurturing young minds. Dealt mostly from the theoretical vantage, the teachers of young learners have to be very careful, especially while providing them with negative evidence. However, his use of ‘deviant forms’, native-speaker versus non-native speakers’ needs further critical observation.
The last entry for November issue is a resourceful link, which is very useful for teachers of young learners. It offers free downloadable and printable resources/activities for teaching English to young learners.
Here is a list of the blog posts included in this issue, hyper-linked for navigating them:
Now I have three requests to make (1) Please share what you read and like. (2) Please leave comments to encourage writers and (3) Please join the conversation by writing new entries for future issues of Choutari.
Finally, I’d like to thank all contributors, my friend Sajan Kumar with whom I have been sharing my ideas and getting insightful feedback, and also Praveen for his relentless technical support.
Happy Dipawali, Chhath and New Dhayan Vintuna
Bal Ram Adhikari
Editor
November Issue, NELTA Choutari
References
De Bono, E. (1972). Children solve problems. UK: Pegnuin Education.
Osho (2013). The Dhammapada: the way of Buddha. Kathmandu: Osho Tapoban Publication.
Richards, J.C & Rodgers, T. S. (2002). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: CUP.
Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classroom. California: Corwin Press.
am (I’m) missing u a lot especially when the english periods go no quite monotonous. anwy (anyway) am f9 (fine) n doing gud. hope u r also f9 n u know wt(what) sir i started writing poem frm grade 10 n till date i hav completed 50 poems. shocking na!!!! n sir i would really lik to thank u as u inspired me to write the poems. eventhough that time we didn’t use to write bt (but) with the passage of tim i also got the knowledge abt why u were so eager regarding student’s creativity. all the credit goes to u. thank u so much sir!
really missing u sir!
Sakshi
I received this mail on July 20, 2012. The sender by now is obvious. She is one of the students I taught in grade eight, two years before the date mentioned above. I used to teach her both English language and literature. In the parents-teachers meeting, the parents often used to complain (and still do) about their children not being creative and just cramming overnight for exams. Most of the time, we teachers keep the issue of creativity aside by telling them it is the matter of innate quality, hard work of students and support of guardians. Blah, blah, blah. However, the kind of activities we do in the classroom and the sort of home assignment we assign also have something to do with students’ creativity. Soon after the parents-teachers meeting, a three-week winter vacation was going to kick off. As a vacation work, this time I thought of assigning a bit different work rather than telling them ‘do exercises from page number this to that’. I gave them some reading work and creative writing. As for the second one, they were supposed to come up with some kind of free writing such as poems, stories, songs, travelogues, essays, diary writing (memorable days), etc. First, they looked puzzled, for they were not used to this kind of assignment. So I gave them guidelines to write and also declared that best writings would be sent for newspapers in order to encourage them. The vacation was over. However, I was not very hopeful that everybody would bring their assignment. To my surprise, everybody brought some writing. Some even brought two writings. I went through them in my free time and found most of them original and creative. Now I was in trouble. As I promised, the writings had to be sent to the newspapers but there were too many. Then I decided to publish a class magazine and shared the idea. Then, I divided the responsibility, making sure that everybody is involved. They worked with their group members in their free time in school and at home without disturbing their regular studies. After a month, each class had their own mesmerizing wall magazine. The parents were pleased to see the outcome in the final parents- teachers meeting and the school administration also took the effort positively and published that news in the school news bulletin too. It could also be one of the reasons that I got a promotion the next session. However, I did not wish to continue working there because I got a better opportunity in another institution.
In the next institution too, I pondered some better ideas of developing creativity of these young minds through free writing. In place of a wall magazine I was thinking of other reliable and long- lasting alternative, which could also include young students from other schools. However, the session was towards the edge without materializing any concrete idea. There was one creative colleague, who belonged to computer faculty, Mr. Krishna Subedi. He is also a web designer and developer. I talked to him and finally we decided to do something on the Web. Then we launched a website or webzine on May 2012. We named it merocreation.com.
We started this small venture for giving young creative minds an open creative platform with the motto “encouraging and energizing the young creative”. Initially, only two of us used to work. Mr Subedi looked after technical aspects while I devoted myself to the content area. We started with the creative writings of the students of our schools. Later, the visitors multiplied and we started receiving the writing from other institutions too. We kept modifying and beautifying the site but because of the overflow of the visitors only we two could not handle it. So we developed a team of thirteen members, including an advisor. It was after two months of the inception of the webzine, I received the above mail from Sakshi.
The mission of creative writing has kept me in touch with so many old students, including Sakshi. There is a boy named Samyam Shrestha, who published few stories in the webzine (he had published not a single story anywhere). His stories are mostly read and liked by the visitors. He mailed me around six months back and said that he wanted to publish a story collection. He is an eleventh grader now. There is another girl named Reeti KC from the same level. She is very good in poetry and has published many poems in the webzine and also in the national newspapers. She mailed me recently stating she has made up her mind for publishing a poem collection and asked me to edit it. It shows that something is going on. Something is happening. The webzine has been grooming these young minds and providing them with an interactive platform. This is also a part of language teaching; language teaching through creative writing.
How to accommodate creative writing in the language class?
It is a frequently asked question by language teachers. They say that they have to complete the syllabus, focus on exams and all students expect good grades. Therefore, there is no time for creative writing. Please do accept that I also have the same problem like yours. We are the birds of the same feathers. Despite all these things, it is possible to accommodate creative writing in the language class.
The first and basic thing is to be self-conscious about our students’ creative writing. When we assign them any writing, we have to make sure there is an adequate space for creativity. Whatever students do and write, we can give it a creative flavor. I call this process an inductive approach to creative writing. Here the teacher gives students the usual class assignment or home assignment, but it is given consciously having space for imagination, logic and noble ideas. Then when students submit the assignment, the teacher has to check the writing through the lenses of creativity. As per the feedback, the teacher can point out the area where the juice of creativity and elements of imagination, logic and noble ideas can be incorporated. Also, they should be asked to re-write so that their writing is publishable somewhere. Let’s take an example, how we can change letter writing into a creative activity.
Suppose, I am teaching students of the lower secondary level to write a letter to their brother or sister who is addicted to social networking sites. The letter can include some constructive suggestions to minimize the habit of always hanging on the sites and also the ideas of using social networking sites for educational purposes. If the letter includes these things, it will be an informative article for many people and hence it is publishable as a creative writing. However, the ideas need to be practical and the language needs refining. Here comes the role of a teacher. There should be discussion and brainstorming before assigning such an activity. After they write, the teacher can ask students to read each other’s writings and offer feedback. Similarly, he or she can also form a group of more-able students as the editors of the class. In the first phase, they can help the teacher to sort out the writing then the teacher can go through them. This will develop a habit of learning in collaboration, a sense of responsibility and togetherness in the language class, which after all will minimize the teacher’s burden.
Similarly, if I am teaching letter writing to students of secondary level, it is not necessary I always teach them to write letter to their fathers for asking pocket money and so on. I can also teach them writing letter to Prime Minister regarding how to stop corruption in the country. It will be a highly creative writing and publishable in the newspapers, webzines and other magazines. The same technique can be applied to other types of writing like paragraph writing, essay writing and so on. To the same token, in a bit long break, we can give students the writing tasks which are creative by nature like poems, stories, essays, travelogues, songs, book/film reviews and so on. In my case, in the vacation like term break, Dashain-Tihar vacation, winter vacation, I assign them to read novels or story books and write their own reviews (applicable especially for the secondary level). In this way our students do creative writing without being much conscious that they are doing it. That is why I call it the inductive approach to creative writing. Without telling anything like, “Okay class, today we are going to do CREATIVE WRITING…!” we can engage our students in creative writing activities. However, the continuity of this process depends on teachers’ readiness and reward. As per the first one, as you are reading this article, it is sufficient that you are ready for students’ creative writing and now it is the second one to think of. It is very important that students be rewarded for their creative work, and the most valuable reward for them is publishing their work in magazines or webzines.
Why webzine?
I said that the publication of students’ creative writing is the best award and it is true. There is a girl in my class, who is very good in her study. Seeing her friend publishing articles in the newspapers and magazines, she also sent some but they never got published. She got frustrated and never tried again. Then she stopped writing completely. I came to learn about that and asked her to show her writings. I checked them, gave some feedback and asked her to rewrite. She did and it was published in the webzine. The publication of her article sparked a wave of euphoria in her and she resumed her writing. Now she often writes and publishes. There might be many hidden potential young minds not getting a suitable platform. Of course, there are newspapers and children magazines, which publish the creative writings of students but they are few and have to look all over the nation and hence cannot give space to all children. So we need to look for an alternative. In order to promote language and creative writing, we can publish school magazines giving space for all the students in school. Similarly, we can also publish the class wall magazine, which can give space to more students of a class. I tried these and found them only being confined to school and failing to be long lasting. Then I started this webzine, which has multiple advantages. Students can get their writings published instantly. It has global access and the writing can be viewed anytime from anywhere. Students can also share it with their relatives who are in another corner of the world. Similarly, another important thing is it is highly interactive. They can get instant feedback from their readers. In this forum, they can find so many like-minded young people writing, publishing, reading and commenting each others’ work. This will give students a creative and productive environment. All these things will encourage them to keep writing. However, they do not find all these facilities in the print media. In the same way, students (especially from the town area) today spend their time surfing the Internet rather than going through the printed materials. So this is also an attempt of developing a culture of doing academic activities in the World Wide Web. It is undoubtedly a great platform for developing language and creative writing among young learners.
However, it does not imply that all English language teachers need to have their own webzine. If you can have, that’s superb. If it is not possible, you can try the alternatives discussed above. In the same way, you can consider this webzine as your own and send the writings of your students to publish there or encourage them to send themselves. As being one of the content editors of the webzine, I suggest teachers that they read the writing of their students and give feedback before sending for publication. Spending some time in this webzine will help students develop their language and creativity. Besides creative writing, they also can find some useful academic and non-academic resources in this webzine. This is purely an academic and creative mission; a mission to develop language through creative writing. We are trying to teach language to our students but now let’s also try to teach the creative use of language. Let’s teach them to play with words and learn art of words. Children have a lot of energy and ‘crazy ideas’. They are highly imaginative. Let’s provide them with some scaffolding. Let’s convert their energy and ideas into creativity. Merocreation.com can be a forum to groom young and creative minds to be a creative citizen of the globe. So let’s join our hand together in this mission.
Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to Mr. Subedi, Kigan Khadka, a web designer and developer, and all team members: Akrin Adhikari, Jeevanpanee, KP Ghimire, Kumar Narayan Shrestha, Megh Raj Shrestha, Ranjana Khaniya, Richa Bhattarai, Sanjaya Karki and Upendra Subedi for their support and inspiration.
* Jeevan Karki teaches at Graded Medium English School (GEMS), Lalitpur. His areas of interest include creative writing, translation and documentary making.
Creativity is all about connecting and synthesizing. Maybe the process that takes place needs a little more of innovation. Put simply, it is a way challenging oneself by transforming and unleashing the forces and ideas within. When you do it, you think of going beyond the state of mediocrity. The pleasure comes within you and you feel your presence in pleasure. A ‘wow’ word resounds in your heart and memory.
Creativity in ELT
It is so awkward to see the practice of the same archaic methods being used in English Language Teaching in Nepal. A ‘chalk and talk method’ has been a common cliché to make criticism on present ELT situation in Nepal. The interception of modern technology is challenging our voyage to the academic world. What if we do not mingle technology with our teaching and learning and find a way-out to make them live and interesting? What if we do not change ourselves and our teaching practices to bring change in our academic world? We would be the losers? In this regard, Prof. Bhattarai speaks: ‘Doubt your beliefs and works, stop and question your practices, may be you were wrong so far, may be you can discover new unexplored areas which can open up new vistas in teaching. Philosophies keep changing and so do teaching principles. You put a question: Is my method of teaching appropriate? Are we following appropriate curriculum, or do we need to stop and rethink over it? All our socio-political values and norms have changed; they are changing so fast, so should not our system of education follow such changes endlessly?
This is in fact seeking and unleashing creativity within. Unless and until we become creative we cannot get, let alone imagine our students being creative. Again Prof. Bhattarai puts his words“:
‘What happens if a farmer does not know about the new breed of animals or seeds and manures and continues with old practice? He will spoil everything and ruin himself. So we traders of truth should also be aware of the new brands of education on sale in the world market.’
Novelty, a paradigm shift, learner or learning centered instruction, multiplicity in methodologies are all the features that we gain in creative instruction, and needless to say these are the postmodern trends in ELT. By postmodern I mean going beyond what we have now or the modernity has brought, and seeking innovation, creativity and criticality to find the unexplored world is the postmodern trend.
Are we supposed to be stuck with a unitary method or do we need to integrate different methods to yield better instruction? The question is of multiplicity here. Multiplicity in thought, multiplicity in interpretation and multiplicity in methods and techniques. We need to mingle all from Georgi Lozanov idea of suggestopedia to communicative language teaching in all dimensions. Focusing on a single method may mean inviting a failure to a large extent. Similarly, the incorporation of modern technology demands us to bring cyber world in language instruction. Can we ever think that our language instruction can be complete without using the multimedia in our classroom in this flat world? NO! A big No! In fact, I have been learning these days how some young teachers (not in terms of age but as regards ideas) are different from the teachers with traditional mind-set. They handle their classrooms bringing technology via blogging, virtual classes, webinars and multimedia instruction. Since they comprise audio-visual instruction, the young learners find them gripping and this is how these teachers win the young hearts through their instruction.
A giant shift in our thought or methodology is a paradigm shift: a shift from our traditional way of instruction. In these days our job is not simply to teach the students but to make them largely creative by inspiring and leading them to explore their own world so as to be professionally sound in future.
Different publications like the leading dailies of Nepal inspire our young learners for their write-ups. Once a week, they have allocated the supplements entitled ‘Classroom’ in The Kathmandu Post, ‘The School Times’ in The Himalayan Times, and ‘Kid’s Corner’ in The Republica. It is to explore their written creativity via different publications. Similarly, for other skills, elocution, extempore, a webinar can be the options. Why don’t we practice them? Why have we teachers remained detached from this sphere? How many of us have helped the children to publish their write-ups or just inspired them to write? Probably many of us have been stuck with the fixed and rigid curriculum and killed the creative power of the children. Writing needs reading, and reading can enable the students to unleash something new but we assume we are unaware of it for long. This is high time we analyzed and knew this fact to have a giant shift in our instruction.
Learner or learning-centered instruction
For so long, we advocated for the learner-centered instruction treating learner as its focal point. I personally believe that it is faulty to focus merely on learners. We maintained the teacher as a facilitator, guide, mediator and any more terms added while opting for learner-centered but in the meantime, we did not deal ‘how’ and ‘why’ aspects to a large extent which is subtly dealing with learning-centered instruction. Learning-centered means focusing on process and product both. The process leads to the product; therefore, the process has to be taken on board. How can learning be bettered? Why has it to be bettered? These have to be considered.
The learner is just a shape that gets molded as per the content that is exposed to him. It’s all learning that has a big role in him to get molded. For this the teacher too has to think more seriously with a kind of novelty. Again here comes creativity.
Creativity in instructors
George Bernard Shaw comes with these words: “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not’?” It’s sure the instructor should come the with ‘why-not?’ factor to explore much and bring newness. The ‘why’ factor makes us seek the things that they are in existence and it is simply knowing, and the ‘why-not’ factor makes us explore the things beyond knowing the things in existence. It means walking past knowing to the world of exploration.
In language teaching we can explore the new world and make our students explore much. More practically, it can be assisted with the different cyber means.
a. Online Virtual Classroom
Online virtual classrooms break away from the narrow confinement of formal classroom setting and invite both teacher and students for the discussion of the issues that is raised there. The discussion chain in the virtual classroom demands the learners to be more creative and critical which ultimately makes the learners and their writing adopt reformation.
There are so many online virtual classrooms, out of which to me the best ever I have used is www.nicenet.org. Once the account is opened, we receive a class key which is to be distributed to our students. With a help of class key they enter their class and take part in conferencing. This conferencing is basically used to get a discussion thread on any issue. The instructor posts a question and the learners comment or answer the particular question. They also comment on their friends’ answers along with their feedback which demands their critical voyage. The instructor is always with them, and he comments upon students’ answers if needed. This ultimately teaches students to have a feeling of respect as they are required to make some positive remarks on their friends’ writing in a discussion thread.
Conferencing, link sharing, having a class schedule and a list of students are the features of an online virtual class. It’s effective for all the levels from teen to adult learners.
b. Blogging
A blog is an electronic platform where we can post any document that can be reached out to anyone. It is more a free and mini-website with a fixed template. Depending upon the instructor’s need, you can create either a class blog, project blog, teacher’s blog or student’s blog which are for different purposes. To me, class blog and teacher’s blog are so much useful in the field of ELT as the class blog helps us to post our issues of the entire class and similarly, the teacher’s blog supports the teachers to provide notes, slides and hand-outs to his students.
Project blogs at times, can be useful to engage learners in developing projects on some sites. It will be more like getting discussion threads as done in Nicenet but for a different purpose. We can also appoint students themselves as editors and subeditors to post their friends’ issues and ask other non-editors to make their comments. www.eblogger.com, www.wordpress.com and www.weebly.com are the best blogging sites used so far.
c. Academic Project: A webquest
Academic project can be assigned online using some tools like www.zunal.com and www.questgarden.com which has its fixed format called webquests. They comprises introduction at the very beginning followed by tasks, process, and evaluation. Since webquest is a well-arranged set, it seems a perfect tool for assigning some project works to our students. The rubric will help them get the right instruction that can be placed on evaluation obtaining from www.rubistar4teachers.com.
d. Academic Search Engines and Social Bookmarking
Search Engines, the generic are Google, Bing, etc. but the more academic that I use for language instruction is www.twurdy.com which shows the readability of each link. We can simply share the link checking the readability level. It is shown with the symbol of color, like the deep orange is a link having a complex text whereas faint orange is a link having a simple text. Moreover, it shows the age-level too.
The social bookmarking site helps us to have a record of each link. It can be termed as our online library since we have a tag to every site, and make a stack. Even other users can have access to our bookmarking if we have made it public. The private sites cannot be browsed by others besides the owner. The best social bookmarking site is www.delcious.com.
These all are the sites that I have been using in my classroom. At times I myself feel that the classroom setting has entirely been changed due to its intervention. Now the classroom’s formal setting has been distorted and everything needs redefining and regeneration, a feature of postmodernism. A Creative voyage indeed!
*Sagun Shrestha is an English Faculty at St. Lawrence College. He is currently working in capacity of Program Assistant in English Access Microscholarship Program, Nepal implemented by NELTA in support of American Embassy.
Writing creatively is a joyful component of learning a language in real life. Creativity, as creative writers have tasted, adds flavor to writing. Many more language teachers might have a rigid mindset because of having had to be bound to the framework provided by syllabi, textbooks, exams, etc. Anyway, they can be hopeful for the change they really wish by introducing at least some elements of creativity in their teaching.
There are a number of general points which will help make implementing creative writing activities more likely to succeed:
Try to establish a relaxed, non-judgmental atmosphere, where your students feel confident enough to let go and not to worry that their every move is being scrutinized for errors.
Ensure that the students’ work is ‘published’ in some way. This could be by simply keeping a large notice-board for displaying the students’ work. Other ways would include giving students a project for publishing work in a simple ring binder, or as part of a class magazine. Almost certainly, there will be students able and willing to set up a class website where work can be published. Performances, where students read or perform their work for other classes or even the whole school, are another way of making public what they have done.
Encourage students to discuss their work together in a frank but friendly manner. We get good ideas by bouncing them off other people. Help them establish an atmosphere where criticism is possible without causing offence.
Explain regularly how important accurate observation is, and encourage ‘noticing’ things. They also need to be encouraged to be curious and to follow up with ‘research’ – looking for more information, whether in books, on the Internet or by asking people.
Make it clear that what they do in the classroom is only the tip of the iceberg. To get real benefit from these activities, they need to do a lot of work outside class hours. Most of what we learn, we do not learn in class. You can capitalize on that fact.
Do the activities regularly in order to get the best effects. Maybe once a week is a sensible frequency. If you leave too long between sessions, you have to keep going back to square one. That is a waste of time and energy.
The following are simply a sample of some possible activities:
Hello/Goodbye poems
Tell the class that they are going to write a poem. It will have only two lines, and each line will have just two words. The first line will start with ‘Hello’, the second with ‘Goodbye’.
Give students one or two examples:
Hello sunshine,
Goodbye rain.
Hello smoking,
Goodbye health.
Hello paper,
Goodbye trees.
Then, ask if they can think of any new ones. Note them on the board.
Ask students to work in pairs (or alone if they prefer), and try to come up with at least two new poems. Allow 10 minutes for this task.
Ask for their examples and put them on the board. Ask students to give feedback on each other’s examples.
Collect all the poems. Display them on the class notice-board or upload them onto the class/school website.
The activity is very simple yet it does require students to call on their vocabulary store and to think about words that have a mutual or reciprocal relationship of meanings (smoking/health etc.) If you prefer, this can be used as a short warm-up for other activities.
Stem poems
Explain to students that they will be writing some lines that will fit together into a poem. Then, write up the stem you intend to use. For example: I wish I could…
Elaborate further by eliciting samples of completed sentences, as in these examples:
I wish I could have an ice cream.
I wish I could speak French.
I wish I could visit Australia.
Then, ask each student to write three sentences following the same pattern.
After about 10 minutes, ask students to work in groups of four and to share their sentences. They should choose six sentences that they think are most interesting and then decide what order to put them in to form a 6-line poem. There is no need for the poems to rhyme but if they do, fine. Lastly, tell them to add one final line, which is: But I can’t.
Ask groups to read their poems aloud to the class. Can they suggest any ways to improve the poems?
Collect all the poems. Display them on the class noticeboard or upload them onto the class/school website.
You can decide on other stems to use in subsequent classes. For example:
Loneliness is…
I used to… but now…
I love the way…
Nobody knows…
Who knows…?
I don’t know why…
It would be a good idea to choose stems that give practice in language points you are working on with the class at that time.
Acrostics
An acrostic poem is based on a word written vertically. The letters then each form the first letter of a word, and all the words are related to the meaning of the original word. For example:
Docile
Obedient
Growling
Explain what an acrostic is and write up one or two examples on the board. Then, ask them to write an acrostic based on their own name or the name of someone they know well. The words they choose should somehow describe the person. For example, Vuthy:
V Very
U Unlikely
T To
H Help
Y You
Collect all the poems. Display them on the class notice-board or upload them onto the class/school website.
Ask students to write at least one more acrostic before the next class. This time, they can choose any word they like (it doesn’t have to be someone’s name). For example:
Lying
Everywhere –
Autumn
Falling.
Acrostics involve a kind of mental gymnastics that engages students in reactivating their vocabulary in an unusual way. Acrostics do not usually produce great poetry but they certainly exercise the linguistic imagination.
Acknowledgement: Some of the ideas were developed by Tan Bee Tin.
If you were …
First you make copies of this outline:
If I were a fruit, I would be ….
If I were a vegetable, I would be…
If I were a tree, I would be…
If I were a flower, I would be…
If I were a fish, I would be…
If I were a bird, I would be…
If I were a book, I would be…
If I were a song, I would be…
If I were the weather, I would be…
If I were a season, I would be…
Then distribute the sheets that you have prepared. Ask students to work individually for about 10 minutes, completing the outline of the poem with words they prefer. For example: If I were a fruit, I would be a grape.
Let students share what they have written in groups of four. Then conduct a class discussion and go through the poems line-by-line, asking for examples of what they have written.
Ask students to think of someone they like and to write the person’s name as the title of their poem. They then write a 12-line poem addressed to that person using the following format:
Line 1: describe the person as a kind of food.
Line 2: describe the person as weather
Line 3: describe the person as a tree
Line 4: describe the person as a time of day
Line 5: describe the person as some kind of transport
Line 6: describe the person as an article of clothing
Line 7: describe the person as part of a house
Line 8: describe the person as a flower
Line 9: describe the person as a kind of music/a sound
Line 10: describe the person as something to do with colour
Line 11: describe the person as an animal
The last line should be the same for everyone: ‘You are my friend’.
So, their poem would look something like this:
For Sharifa
You are mango ice-cream
You are a cool breeze on a hot day
You are a shady coconut palm
You are dawn
You are a sailing boat crossing the bay
You are my comfortable sandals
You are the sunny verandah
You are jasmine
You are a soft gamelan
You are light blue
You are a playful kitten
You are my friend.
Metaphor poems
Make copies of this list of words and phrases for use during the class:
Love an egg Hate a tooth brush Disappointment a vacuum cleaner Marriage a spoon Friendship a knife Hope a mirror Life a window Work a cup Time a banana
Check that students know what a metaphor is – a form of direct comparison between two things. Give examples of metaphors in everyday life:
A blade of grass
A sharp frost
Spending time
Save time
Opening up a can of worms
She’s a snake in the grass
He clammed up
He shelled out
A wall of silence
In fact, everyday language is so full of metaphorical expressions that we hardly notice them. They have become an accepted way of speaking. Explain that poets make great use of metaphor to make their words more vivid and easier to visualise.
Hand out the sheets. Tell students to write three metaphors by combining one item on the left with another on the right (students will have to join the words using ‘is’). They should not spend time thinking about the combinations. For example:
Life is a window.
Friendship is a knife.
Love is a vacuum cleaner.
Marriage is a banana
Hate is a mirror.
Now, ask them to choose just one of their new metaphors. They should now write two more lines after the metaphor to explain what it means. For example:
Marriage is a banana:
when you’ve eaten the fruit,
only the skin is left.
Hate is a mirror:
it reflects back
on the one who hates.
Tell students not to use ‘because’ as it is unnecessary, and to keep the lines short.
Ask students to share their metaphor poems with the class. Students should then make an illustrated display of their work. Acknowledgement: This idea is adapted from Jane Spiro’s brilliant book, Creative Poetry Writing (OUP)
Now we can have a good start to enjoy learning some ‘real’ language. Creative writing promotes self-motivation and makes language teaching and learning effortless. You are always curious to find out something and encounter new things and learn them willingly. How interesting this can be! Good luck and happy writing!
How can we motivate our students to be excited about their classes? One way is to tell them stories. Another way is to ask them to write stories.
Stories educate, enrich, and entertain everyone. Find easy stories in English. But for now, I will whet your appetite by sending you two of the stories that will be published in the forthcoming book of stories called “Untold Tales” written by English ACCESS Microscholarship Students in Nepal, These are the stories that they wrote at the winter camp in 2013 in Pokhara.
These anecdotes and tales of exprience provide an enjoyable opportunity to increase vocabulary, reading comprehension, listening and speaking and, ultimately, writing. The stories and exercises together are a whole-language anthology designed to improve communication skills. These stories include exercises that employ the cooperative/collaborative learning philosophy and address multiple learning styles.
Using stories is a magical way to teach, effective at any age. Here’s a summary of how stories aid language-learning:
provide motivation for reading
heighten listening skills
develop speaking skills
use cooperative learning strategies
foster creative language growth
provide content-based material
Serve as model for further writing
All learners, from babies to grandmothers, learn better with stories; they are energizers. Integrating stories as an adjunct to the teacher’s repertoire in the classroom setting is not only simple, but makes perfect sense. We hope you use these stories to open new worlds of content and learning possibilities. We also hope they serve as a springboard to motivating your own students to write stories.
Enjoy the stories. If you want some more, write to me at “myrtis101@mac.com” and I will send you more. These two are from Kathmandu and Gorkha, but I have many others, some from Butwal and Birgunj.
My Story
One early morning, on my way to temple, I saw sparkling eyes in ragged clothes. I saw their creative hands and bright smiles. These children are strangers to me but no different from our own children whom we always love and support.
Two days later, I visited the prison of Sundhara, Kathmandu, for my class in social work. I saw many such faces who reside in prisons alongside their incarcerated parents and I became sad. These children have done nothing wrong. They are simply caught up in something they don’t understand.
I couldn’t forget them so a few months later, along with some friends, we opened up a child daycare centre in a rented house. My parents were not happy and they told me to leave it. However, I was determined to take those children out of prison and look after them and educate them for the future.
When I started this, I was 21, and nobody believed in me. People thought I was crazy. They laughed at me.
After two years, in 2005, I established The Butterfly Home for the children. Then, I travelled to many other places, speaking with jailers, parents and authorities, preparing to bring children out of prison. My own parents now understood and helped me. We were so touched by the children’s plight, that they are forced to live with their impoverished, incarcerated parents because there is no one to look after them on the outside.
It has been eight years since I began gathering the children from Nepali prisons and bringing them to live in a centre in the capital, Kathmandu, providing them not only with food and shelter, but also education and motherly love. I am happy to be recognized as their mamu. Now I have become the second Nepali woman to win the 2012 CNN Hero Award at the star-studded award ceremony held in Los Angeles. But still 80 children are living in prison and I am going to take them out of the prison soon.
My name is Puspa Basnet and children are my hope. I believe the world is their place where they can carve their future with their own hands.
Prashanna Mahat, 15
Kathmandu
Exercises
Understanding the Story
How did Puspa Basnet get involved with helping the children?
1. The stars were ______________________________________________ in the sky.
2. The children’s parents are __________________________________ in the prisons.
3. The children have nowhere to ____________________________ out of the prisons.
4. Puspa Basnet was _______________________ to get the children out of the prisons.
5. Many people were affected by the ______________________ of these poor children.
6. To make something out of something can be to ____________________________ it.
7. The parents in the prison have no money; they are __________________________ .
Now you Talk
1. What would it be like to be one of those children living in the prison?
2. Where do they go to school?
3. Is there a way you could help these children?
Now you Create
1. Write a letter to the mayor of your town asking for help.
2. Draw a cartoon strip about this problem.
Role Play
1. Mother in prison, her son: talking about his going to school.
2. That son, another student: talking about where he lives.
3. Two Girls who live with parents in prison: talking about their lives.
4. Two guards in prison: planning to help the children
5. Puspa Basnet, mayor of town: talking about helping more children.
The Kidnappers
This is a true story that happened in Dada Gaun village near Laxmi bazaar in 2012.
One Saturday, Rina and Rehan, a brother and sister asked their parents if they could go to the park. Their parents said, “Please, go safely. There are so many bad people in the road.”
Rina said, “Don’t worry. We will be careful.” They crossed one town where many busses went here and there. They went to the park. While they were walking on the road, a micro bus stopped just beside them. The door opened and a man jumped out, grabbed them both and put them in the micro bus.
They were taken to the jungle which is near the park. They were so afraid and they cried a lot. Many hours went by. The kidnapper went near Rina and laughed. Rina asked, “Why are you laughing?”
The kidnapper said, “You are my one corore rupees. That is the ransom we will get from your parents. Give me your phone number. But Rina didn’t give it to him. He slapped her and said, “If you don’t give me your father’s phone number, I will kill you right now.”
Rina was afraid of him and gave the number. Meanwhile, the children’s parents were worried when they didn’t come home by evening time. Then their mobile phone rang. The kidnapper demanded one corore rupees as a ransom. The kidnapper said to him, “If you don’t give me the ransom money, you will see your children’s dead bodies.”
Hearing this, the father became more afraid. Then the father thought of a trick. “Where are you?” asked Rina’s father. The kidnapper said, “I am in the jungle near the park.”
While the father kept talking to the kidnapper, the mother called the police station and said, “Please save my children. They have been kidnapped. They are in the jungle near the park. The kidnapper demands one corore rupees as ransom. I don’t have even thousands.”
The police hurried and drove very quickly. They stopped the car in the park and walked into the jungle. They surrounded the microbus and caught the kidnapper. The children were saved.
Their parents gave many thanks to the police. They told the police not to let the kidnapper free because if he is free he would kidnap other children. After that he was put into the jail for his whole life.
Kasam Ale, 15
Gorkha
Exercises
Understanding the Story
What is a moral for this story?
Vocabulary
Fill in the blanks of the summary with the words below.
ransom surrounded kidnappers tricked
microbus worried careful grabbed
The children wanted to go to the park. Their parents were __________________ They said, “Be very _________________ . While the children were walking, a _________________ stopped and a man jumped out and _______________________ them. The men were __________________________. They demanded a _____________________ . The father ________________ the bad men. The police ____________ the kidnappers.
Now You Talk
1. What would you do if a kidnapper grabbed you?
2. How can you solve a crime with a mobile phone?
Now You Create
1. Draw a picture of the kidnappers.
2. Write another ending to this story.
Role Play:
1. Mother, girl: warning about bad people.
2. Girl, kidnapper: he asks for her phone number.
3. Sister, brother: planning how to get away from kidnappers
translator in the field of Nepali literature and translation. In addition to teaching English, he is also actively involved as an executive member of the Nepal Translators’ Society. His poems, essays, translations, and articles have been published in various literary and online magazines. His deep love for literature and passion for travel have shaped a profound philosophical perspective in his creations. Recently, his English translation of the anthology of poetry Premko Aadim Geet has been published, further establishing his contribution to the field of literary translation.
