I’m a student of ELT but also teach Nepali language to the foreigners in Nepal for the last four years. English is considered as a foreign language in Nepal, while Nepali (my native language) is a foreign language to my students. In my university, I study how to teach English as a foreign language to Nepali students, while I also teach Nepali to the foreign students! My students (those learning Nepali) share the similar background with Nepali students learning English- both learn a foreign language. In this backdrop, I thought of sharing my experience of collecting students’ feedback for improving my teaching skills, which could be a useful resource for EFL teachers and practitioners.
I consider myself as a very hardworking teacher, but I don’t know how my students perceive me. I would literally do anything to make my students learn language. I can recall times, where I had set myself off the limits, pushed myself too hard to design lessons to make my students learn in an easy way. For instance, once I went as far as transcribing a student’s spoken discourse in order to find out what kind of errors the student produced so that the errors could be diagnosed. However, sometimes when I would try too hard, I felt that the students didn’t care very much. Sometimes, when my students wouldn’t get the expected results, I would think them of not paying heed to my hard work, which would eventually make me sad.
Sometimes, we are tuned to listening to only our praises from students that we have a hard time thinking of our teaching methods in critical way. We may want to get periodical feedback from our students, but we ask the feedback in an authoritative way that they’re compelled to give some pleasing feedback because they fear to tell their real feelings. Therefore, it’s hard to elicit the true feelings and feedback from them. Hence, I wanted to try out collecting feedback in a logbook (a simple writing copy). For this, I made a commitment that I would step out from my comfort zone and be ready to get any feedback, both positive and negative. However, my students would often consider giving feedback as an assignment and wouldn’t show much interest in it. So, I formulated one or two short questions and asked them to keep their answers short.
At that time, I was teaching Nepali language to an American and a Danish student separately three days a week. So, I separated the first section of the logbook for American student and other section for the Danish to write their feeling and feedback with date at the top to track the progress. I tried out this strategy for a month to the American student and for two months to the Danish. After that, they took a break due to their other priorities.
I started with simple questions for both. Sometimes, I changed a bit depending upon the lessons. The questions were like ‘How was today?’ ‘What did you learn today?’ ‘How well do you remember the last lesson?’ In this way, there would be a question each day and the students could write their responses as short as they wished. Sometimes, they would elaborate and some other time, they would just write one-word answer. For instance, to the question, ‘How was today?’ the Danish wrote Very good. And the next day, she wrote her reflection as, Good. Helpful to chat over the new words. Also good to try to explain the movie. A good challenge. Also some words stick to my brain others not. When lot of new words other words go somewhere behind so good to practice use of your words.
These comments were a way good feedback for me as I could know what they thought of my teaching. It also provided a way for the students to express their achievement and frustrations regarding language learning. This gave me a lot of insight about my teaching. I came to know that, in second language learning, we talk about exposure a lot. We say that if we give students a lot of exposure in the target language, he/she will learn better. But Danish student’s comment tells that there shouldn’t be a lot of exposure at once because too many words made her forget the former words. She emphasized the need of more practice with the new Nepali words.
Other day, responding to the question ‘How was today?’, the Danish wrote, Very good. I think we are doing so many different things know that I know I will lose something though. Love all the things we do but we could dwell more with the things. For my brain’s sake. Her English may not be highly comprehensible, but we can clearly understand what she is trying to say. Her feedback made me realise many things about my teaching methods. On that day, I had planned my lesson in this way:
Conversation for 30 minutes: she would explain a Danish cartoon in Nepali. The new words she learnt would be recorded and taught for the next 15 minutes,
Chat again for 30 minutes or so,
Read the passage and do comprehensionquestions for 45 minutes: read the passage I had designed in Nepali and attempt comprehension questions.
When I reflected on the lesson plan, I found that I had tried to incorporate a lot of contents in the lesson of that day. My intention to plan this way was to give a variety to her, so that she would not feel bored. However, after reading the comment I realized that though I spent a lot of time on lesson planning and designing activities, the student wasn’t benefited because the contents were overloaded.
Likewise, the feelings and the feedback from American student were also equally useful for me. One day, having asked, ‘how was today?’, he wrote, it was okay. I was tired so it made focusing difficult. This comment took out a lot of burden from me. I had tried to make him understand some Nepali words and he was simply not able to grab them. In this comment, he clearly wrote he was tired, so he couldn’t focus and that had nothing to do with my teaching strategy. And I was relieved to some extent.
From some of the excerpts from my feedback logbook and my reflection above, you must have already thought how such practice can help us to find out what’s working and what’s not in our classroom. This exploration can help us to plan, re-plan and review our teaching activities and strategies. Maintaining logbook worked well for me and I’m planning to develop this strategy in my classes in future too.
I think that feedback logbook can be used cautiously in large classes too. Firstly, we should encourage students to limit their writing from one phrase to few sentences. Or in place of writing in the logbook, sometimes we can simply ask them to write in a paper anonymously, fold and give that to us. This will build their confident to write freely and truly. Secondly, we can reduce the frequency in the large classes. Instead of doing daily, we can go for fortnightly, monthly or even bi-monthly. Moreover, it shouldn’t be assigned to them as a homework, they should be given chance to write voluntarily in the classroom.
[Note: since you have come up to here reading the whole piece, please share your feeling, feedback or any question related to this article in the comment box below, which will encourage the author. Thank you!]
*The Author: Somy Paudyal is an M.Ed. student of Central Department of English Education at Tribhuvan University, Kritipur, Kathmandu.
Project work offers the possibility to enhance not only students’ language skills but also students’ life skills. In spite of its importance, it is often seen as an “extra- curricular” activity in EFL class and Most of the time, it is not monitored and rarely assessed. Project work however can help students acquire project management skills as well as language skills. This article offers a practical way of integrating project work in the EFL class. It discusses the importance of project work, ideas to help students in their projects and assessment of project works.
What is project work?
Project work is a dynamic way of motivating students to use the target language while working on topics of their interests. Project work allows for both language and content integration. It is student- centered, experiential and usually connected to real-life (Stoller, 2002). Moreover, working on projects strengthens students’ collaboration skills to carry out their projects and presentation skills, while presenting the work. Additionally, project work offers opportunity for “authentic integration” of the four skills studied. Moreover, conducting projects offers opportunities to hone students’ creativity, communication, and critical thinking. These are important life skills for students in this era.
Why is it important to integrate project work in class?
Project work can affect students’ learning in different ways:
Motivation: Project work increases students’ motivation to learn and willingness to participate in class activities.
Collaboration: Students learn how to collaborate together and work in teams. When projects are collaborative, students have ample time to learn from each other.
Project design, implementation and evaluation: Students learn how to plan, implement and evaluate projects; these skills will help them prepare for their academic life and future careers
Conflict –resolution: While working on class projects conflicts might arise. A group project is then the best opportunity to learn how to tolerate different viewpoints.
Voice and Autonomy: projects provide opportunities for students’ voice, choice and autonomous learning.
Creative / Critical thinking: Working on projects can help students acquire creative and critical thinking skills. Creativity can be enhanced as students tap on their talents and use their artistic skills to bring a beautiful touch to their final product.
Skill integration: Project-work is an opportunity for integrating of the four skills taught as well as boosting students’ life skills.
How to integrate projects in EFL class?
Project work could be easily integrated in the EFL class if projects are considered as part of learning process. Projects are not only an ‘extra activity’ or ‘filler’ at the end of a module or unit but it’s a process for honing both language skills and life skills. Projects could be planned at the beginning of a unit/module of work inviting students to work on a project at the end of unit, which culminates all the learning from the unit. For example, students may be told they will be making a poster about their favourite city, giving a presentation or making a video on the theme of the unit. In this way, students might pay more attention to the unit contents knowing that they will be required to work on a project at the end. They might start researching the topic of the unit. This will increase their motivation to learn because they will expect that they will be required to use what they learnt for their end of the unit project. Moreover, projects can be adapted to all levels and students are free to choose the presentation of their work. Lower level students can work on projects such as: make a short poster about my family tree, for intermediate or advanced they can work on projects such as: make a presentation on oil spill in the ocean.
How/when to plan project in EFL class?
Using different simplified project planning templates might help students plan their projects better. A template might include: (a) title of the project, (b) a short summary of the project (c) objectives (d) end product (e) presentation style (f) evaluation procedures. Project planning templates can vary depending on level, type of project (individual or collaborative) and familiarity of project work to students and time frame. Preparing a short presentation might necessitate less time than making a poster or a video and vice versa. If the time isn’t relevant and a frame is not set for the project, students might lose interest in the project. For instance, scheduling the project presentations during examinations isn’t a good idea as the students will be more preoccupied by their exams. So it should be avoided. Meanwhile, the project portfolios can also be considered as an alternative form of assessment.
Fried-Booth (1986), in their work ‘Project Work’ states three stages while planning projects:
Classroom planning
Conducting projects
Monitoring and Evaluating projects
On the other hand, Alan and Stoller (2005) provide a ten step procedure for project planning:
Step 1- The teacher and students decide on a project theme or idea.
Step 2- The teacher and students decide on the final product / outcomes of the project
Step 3- The students starts planning their project with the help of the teacher, they decide on different tasks and assign roles
Steps 4 – Students gather information, collect data, analyze, select and compile their work. They meet, discuss, negotiate and decide on a final work to be presented. They choose presenters and rehearse their presentations.
Step 5 – Students present their work
Step 6 – Students get feedback from their peers and self-assess their own work (using a simple grid). The teacher can also design a grid to evaluate students’ work.
Based on the work of Fried- Booth (1986), Alan and Stoller (2005) and also Ribe and Vidal (1993), students projects can be planned as follows:
Stages
Activities
1. Classroom planning
The teacher and students decide on the theme of their projects, which are related to their units/lessons. Or students might also choose their own themes. The teacher decides on language needs, life skills targeted and helps students develop them, while they plan their projects and decide on roles, responsibilities and divide tasks.
2. Conducting projects
Students carry out their projects, conduct research with clear role/task division. For instance, while a student is a ‘time-manager’ others may be ‘project-leader’ and can agree when to meet to discuss the project. Tasks can vary depending on students’ abilities. Some might be responsible for compiling the work and finalise the design. Others might think of possible ways to present their work. Meanwhile, some can be assigned roles to document the process (taking pictures for e.g of the group work)
3. Project presentation
The agreed final product dictates the possible forms of presentation. If it’s a video or presentation, each group can present their work and then get feedback from their peers/teacher. If it’s a poster, their projects can be displayed on the walls of the classroom and each group stands close to their poster and can talk about it. Or students can walk around and evaluate the posters.
4. Evaluating projects
A- Monitoring the work
To monitor students work, teacher can ask group representative or project leaders to update class on their projects, challenges being faced and any support required.
B- Evaluation the project
Project evaluation can be done first through peer –evaluation (see template) and then through self- reflection, where students are invited to reflect on the whole process and share the learning. The teacher can also evaluate the group work and assign grades if it’s considered as a form of assessment
How to evaluate project works?
Rubrics are an easy way to evaluate projects, these can be either designed by the teacher and students on their own or adapt through rubistar.org. Project evaluation is as important as planning and presentation stage. Students will learn how to assess their work by self and peers. They will also learn how to reflect on their own work and learn from each other. The teacher will gain insights on students learning. Another important point about evaluation is that students can learn to set their own learning goals and then assess by self how far they have achieved them. For lower levels, a way of assessing learning can be as simple as asking students to draw a smiley face (J L ) to illustrate their project work experience. For higher levels, the teacher can use either a rubric or simply invite students to reflect on the learning process through reflection questions.
Sample self-reflection questions:
What did you learn while working on this project?
What did you learn while working in group?
What difficulties have you encountered?
If you want to make your project better? What would you change?
APPENDIXES
APPENDIX: A- Sample project planning template
Project title:
Expected outcome/ product :
Name of the group:
Students name :
Project date completion:
Summary of our project
Steps / process / roles
Steps
Tasks: What will our group do?
Who is responsible? (name of student(s)
Date of completion
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step ….
Resources needed
Mode of presentation
APPENDIX: B Sample project evaluation rubrics
Sample rubric for project (peer) evaluation (group presentations)
C = NEED MORE WORK
B = Good
A= Excellent
C
B
A
Content
The information is not clear at all.
There aren’t enough details about the topic
The information is not always clear
There is only some details about the topic
The information is clear, concise
There are enough details about the topic.
Organization
The audience can’t follow
There is no introduction, and a conclusion
Poor time management
The audience can follow most of the parts.
There is an introduction, and a conclusion
Good time management
The audience can easily follow
There is an introduction, and a conclusion
Excellent time management
Presentation
The presenter(s) do not keep eye contact; they only stick to notes/slides.
Use too many gestures/ move a lot
Do not speak clearly
Don’t look confident enough
The presenter(s) keep eye contact most of the time
Use natural gestures / sometimes move a lot.
Speak less clearly
Look less confident
The presenter(s) keep eye contact
Use natural gestures
Speak clearly
Look confident
Team Work
Very few group members participate / have a role
Group do not seem to get along well
Team members were not able to answer the questions of the audience
Few of the group members participate / have a role
Group seem to get along well
Team members are able to answer some questions of the audience
All the group members participate / have a role
Group seem to get along well
Team members are able to answer all audience questions
APPENDIX: C- Sample Rubric for Oral presentation (individual):
Student name: ……………………………………………………………
Category
4
3
2
1
Content
Shows full understanding of the topic
Shows a good understanding of the topic
Shows a good understanding of parts of the topic
Doesn’t seem to understand the topic very well
Preparedness
Student is completely prepared and has rehearsed
Student seems pretty prepared but might have needed more rehearsals
The student is somewhat prepared but it is clear that rehearsal was lacking
Student does not seem prepared at all to present
Posture and eye contact
Stands up straight, looks relaxed and confident, establishes eye contact with everyone in the room during presentation
Stands up straight and establishes eye contact with everyone in the room during presentation
Sometimes stands up straight and establishes eye contact
Slouches and/ or does not look at people during the presentation
Speaks Clearly
Speaks clearly and distinctly all (100-95%) the time, and mispronounce no words
Speaks clearly and distinctly all (100-95%) the time, but mispronounces one word
Speaks clearly and distinctly most (94-85%) of the time. Mispronounce no more than one word
Often mumbles or cannot be understood or mispronounces more than one word
Alan, B & Stoller, F. (2005). Maximising the benefits of project work in foreign language classrooms. Teaching English forum, 43(4). 10-21.
Fried-Booth, D. (1986). Project work. New York: Oxford University Press
Ribé, R., Vidal, N., & Macmillan Publishing Company. (1997). Project work: (Step by Step) Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann English Language Teaching
Stoller, F. (2002). Project Work : A means to promote language and content. In J. Richards & W. Renandya (Eds), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice (Approaches and methods in language teaching, pp.107-120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
About the author: Samira Idelcadi is an ELT supervisor in Tiznit Directorate (Morocco). She holds a Msc in Public services Policy and Management from Kings College London (2011). Her main interests are teacher professional learning, teacher leadership, educational change and educational policy.
Integrated curriculum or approach in teaching learning has been a buzz word and more and more schools are opting this approach. This article is an attempt of such applied method on the basis of my direct observation while working as a teacher in Rato Bangala School Lalitpur, Nepal. Therefore, it is an account of how teaching learning activities are organized in chronological order as integrated curriculum approach is applied in the classroom.
An integrated approach: What and why
Curriculum is mostly presented in a very direct and isolated form in most of the textbooks in schools. But many themes in those course books are interrelated and over lapping. When the contents are treated in isolation, the application becomes complex for the young minds. Further, it makes students memorize what is learnt only as the chapters of the textbook. Learning does not take place in a holistic mode. Most of the times, the children are not able to relate how their learning applies in the real world. In response, the integrated curriculum model is an approach which is sensitive to the students’ needs. This model places an emphasis on advance content knowledge, which relies on higher order thinking skills, and focuses learning on major issues that cross several disciplines (Van Tassel-Baska, 1987). This approach adds the practical way of ensuring their learning which becomes more meaningful through participation applying many strategies and levels of application.
The market study can be taken as a long-term project, a socioeconomic activity, which is closely related to the daily activities of our lives. This can be the pivotal around which many other themes and objectives of curriculum across the subjects can be integrated. Researches show that students in integrated programmes achieve better (or equal to) academic result than students in discipline-based programmes (Drake and Reid, 2010). Likewise, an integrated project such as market study creates a platform for students to learn English as a foreign language by using it meaningfully in various contexts. In this connection, Gibbons (2002) states that “integrated program takes a functional approach to language and places its teaching focus on language as the medium of learning, rather than on language as something separate from content” (pp. 119)
How does market study foster learning across disciplines?
To begin with, children are encouraged to answer a simple question like; how does food come on our plate? A thinking process begins in the mind of children to create a hypothesis around the question that is put up. Their thinking will be validated only with a research; valid ideas and areas that need to reform. This is mainly around the social studies theme but in other subjects what would be the areas to work and what can be introduced in the periphery of making it a holistic learning. Day-to-day things are happening simultaneously in different subject areas and themes that work for their learning.
Children in Mathematics class start with gamification (hands-on-activity, learning in playful environment). The students are given only a kind of block to build houses. They get to work in groups and design a house. Soon they realise that they need other blocks to construct and they find their solution in exchanging what they have with what they need. Therefore, students are introduced to the initial stages of a barter system and the beginning of trade in ancient times and gradually they are introduced to the system of using money for the trade. Children are given fake currencies to play and they practice selling and buying in the classroom to be more acquainted with the process of setting up a real market. This allows them to practice the conversation style during the market set up and be familiar with the terms used during buying and selling. At the next level, the concept of loan, buying and selling, added surplus and the profit is given.
Children are introduced to informal and formal letter writing. For the formal letter writing students write to the school administration for a loan. As Market setting is the main epitome of all the activities, a three day market is set for students to run and take firsthand experience of buying and selling and earning profit. The loan is sanctioned by the school principal, then the activities begin. To plan out, what should be in the market the students’ are brainstormed about the fruits and vegetables that should be kept. But to study what is in demand and customers are willing to buy, students go in other classrooms and ask what is preferred with the help of tally marks they are able to see and visualize directly on what to buy in large numbers.
Next, the students are taken for farm a trip (e.g. Thimi farm in Bhaktapur Nepal) at the nearest locality from the school. They observe two essential things following the hypothesis of (a) how food comes to our plate and (b) potential seller of the market set up. They interview farmers and gain more knowledge about farming, sowing, planting harvesting and getting the products to the market. Students get to observe the plants; some as sapling, some while flowering and some ripe or ripening before prepared for the market. They get familiar with the tools used in the farm, the manure and fertilizer used and they observe the hard work it takes for the food to be produced before it is bought from the market and prepared at home.
During the trip, students are taken to a wholesale market, e.g. Kalimati fruit and vegetable wholesale market in Kathmandu. They get to learn that the fruit and vegetables items are priced and sold. They observe that vegetables are weighed in different ways, sometimes in digital weighing machine and sometimes in the taraju (a traditional tool for weighing) and they learn the usage of different weights from 200 gm to 5 kilogram. Then their next trip would be at the retail market and to the supermarket. They inquire about the vegetables and fruit available there. They come to conclude that vegetables are not only brought in from the wholesale market but from other districts surrounding the valley (e.g. Kavre, Dhadhing, Nuwakot, and so on); and in supermarket few fruits are brought in from other countries as well. They make their observations on the packaging and the difference of prices between the wholesale market, retail market and supermarket. By now, students know that they buy at the wholesale and sell at a school set up at the retail prices.
In language arts lesson, the students write a creative article on a farmer’s life. They write slogans and make posters for the advertisement for their market. Students practise writing invitations to their market and give it across the other students from different classes in the school as they are customers. Posters are made with the label names of the fruit and vegetables, and their cost. Students get started with the making of paper bags of different sizes to pack their goods like potatoes and peanuts of different weights. For this they recycle the old newspapers and make the bags. They sit through the weighing in turns and each child is busy with this hands-on-activity. Customers are encouraged to come with cloth bags and the whole event is to be environment friendly.
In Nepali language, students enrich their vocabulary related to farming and farming tools used in Nepali context and surrounding. Whereas stories on farmers and farming can make all inclusive approach while students write their story on farmer in English Language.
It all starts with a prompt that leads many areas and solutions regarding different activities that come along the planning with real life implications. This method of involving the students helps them in the divergent thinking. During the three main days of the market, they carry out a number of tasks from becoming bagger, messenger, seller, record keeper and so on. All these tasks are assigned in rotation, and therefore, these responsibilities automatically become the work learning station and enhances their personal learning.
Challenges and benefits
The pros and cons of using integrated learning should be given a thought before any teacher decides to apply it in the classroom: (a) it can be quite overwhelming as it becomes a fair with almost every day some hands-on-activity throughout the term, (b) other subjects can be overshadowed, (c) there is not enough time to teach thoroughly in isolation, (d) some teachers are reluctant to change their timings and implement something that does not make a big unit in their subject matter and (e) scheduling and agreeing on array of ideas can be a challenging task.
However, the benefits of teaching with the integrated curriculum model allows teachers to focus on the basic skills needed to be taught along with the subject matter/content. It allows a deeper understanding of the content to be absorbed into the students’ experiences. It encourages teachers to make connections among various curricular disciplines and address a variety of learning styles and uses of combined abilities.
This method intrinsically motivates students to succeed in real life skills. It creates instances for the students to build their skills and strengthen it. The experience in a real life scenario allows them to inculcate the hands-on-activities to one main theme and enjoy the success. For instance, the everyday cashiers take the earning to the class and add it all up for all three days. They calculate their total amount and subtract the loan and return it to the school administration. From the rest of the profit they celebrate a snacks party and buy books for a community library. The earning of the profit gives them a boost of confidence.
They make bar graphs from the sale of vegetables, are taught the use of calculations, reflect back on their activities for the last few days and write different articles. The write-ups enable the teachers to grasp what was the impact of the activities. Students share their experiences showing to what extent the actual learning was taking place. Here are some good examples of reflective pieces that our students wrote as extracted from the school magazine named ‘Cornice’ published in different times.
Some unplanned observation made by the students
“ We decided to distribute jobs for all of us in the market to run market smoothly: labeler, advertiser, messenger, supervisors, hawkers and cleaners…To make sure that everybody got to do most of the jobs. We did the rotation in each shift (Cornice 11-12)
“We saw the weirdest vegetable plant and it was an onion flowering plant. It looked like a dandelion plant…the farmers work very hard to earn money. The farmers plough the fields first, then sow the seeds, water the plants and take good care of it… how a plate of food comes to our dining table.” Cornice 15-16
“We asked the price of cucumber, and we found out that they try to take so much profit from us.” Cornice 14-15
“Well, on the last day (of market) we had bumper sale. The prices were decreased on that day…then we counted the money. It was Rs.91, 115/-. We returned the loan we had taken from our principal madam. We now had Rs.31115/-left…” Cornice 14-15
Conclusion
To conclude, at the end of market study, students will be able to reflect on what they have done in each level through their active participation with the hands-on material. They will have rich experience of activities. Many researches now support that the process and activities take to deeper processing of the information and analysing rather than reproducing the information as in most of our schools. This approach allows students to be active in constructive conversation as a part of the process. It further enables them to enliven the event and develop their communication skills. At many levels, this helps to make it a holistic approach.
References:
Drake, S. M. & Reid, J. (2010). Integrated curriculum: Increasing relevance while
maintaining accountability. What Works? Research into practice. Toronto: Ontario
Ministry of Education.
Gibbons, P. (2002). Learning language, learning through language, and learning about language: developing an integrated curriculum. Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, Ch. 7, pp. 118-139
Vantassel-Baska J. (2015) The Integrated Curriculum Model. In: Vidergor H.E., Harris C.R. (eds) Applied practice for educators of gifted and able Learners. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam,169-197.
The author:
Prakriti Khanal completed Bahelor of Arts from Sophia Girls College, Ajmer, Rajasthan in 1999. She worked as an English and Social Studies teacher at Rato Bangala School from 2009 to 2017. Her area of contribution focuses on running reading corner for the primary level students. She has conducted workshops with ECED.
We learned from our past experience that teaching language in isolation as a subject does not actually help learners understand meaning in context. This learning motivated us, while working in team of a pre-school in Kathmandu to design and implement integrated curriculum aiming to address the need of 3-6 years old children for their language as well as social-emotional, cognitive, and physical development. This article presents some examples of our successful lessons.
I’ve been working as a director of a preschool located in Kathmandu since 2017. During my work in the school, I always encourage the school family to apply integrated approach to teaching preschoolers. Similarly, I encourage them to let preschoolers learn through their own experience. While doing so, we focus more on students’ language development, both Nepali and English. Our experiential integrated learning environment provides students with wider opportunities to use the language freely and in context. Here are some sample lessons practiced in my preschool:
Sample Thematic Unit 1
In the month of June, we start with our thematic unit- Plants. Students learn about the paddy plant from sowing to harvesting throughout this unit. We follow the following steps in the whole process:
Growing seedlings: The school team work in the field and get the seedlings ready beforehand. Seedlings are prepared in a separate nursery area and children are told that the seedlings grow around two months before they are transplanted in another wet field. Children observe the adults working in the field and keep a journal about this step in their separate journal book. Then they draw and colour pictures based on their observation.
Preparation of beds: Tilling is done and the field is ready before preschoolers go there to work. In this step students, under adult supervision, use tools to smooth the wet beds. During the whole process, conversation takes place a lot (among students and between students and teachers) about the tools, e.g. names of the tools and how to use them and also about the process of bed preparation. Back in the classroom students write their journal “Ropai” explaining about the tools, measurement they’ve made, amount of seeds used, etc. and their experiences as well as feelings.
Transplantation: Transplantation is the process of transferring seedlings from seedbeds to the wet field. All the teachers and students together transplant the seedlings in the field on the Paddy Plantation Day which falls on 15th of Ashad (tentatively last of June) according to Nepali calendar. They sing the traditional folk songs while planting. These songs are practiced in the classroom before the plantation day.
Field Maintenance: Students observe school staff maintaining the field that generally includes managing water and nutrients that the plants require and separating the weeds from the plants to help them grow better.
Harvesting: School team including the students together collect the mature rice crops from the field. Harvesting activity generally includes cutting the mature crops, stacking, threshing, cleaning and hauling. Children learn how carefully rice is protected from getting damaged so that the quantity of good quality rice is maximized.
In each step, students keep their journal and teachers discuss on the process on a regular basis. After the whole process, they will have beaten rice prepared from the plants they sowed and celebrate their success eating the beaten rice with curry together as snacks.
Sample Thematic Unit 2
Community Study: we take our students to visit different places around the school. This includes visiting local vegetable market, visiting a temple and interviewing of senior people about the history of the place. Every time they have a trip, children draw a map that tells them how one reach from the school to the visiting destination; this helps them learn drawing and mapping skills. They make tally marks on the way to the destination, they count vehicles and back in the school they prepare the pictograph of the vehicles they see. This helps them understand mathematical concept of chart and graphs. They draw the picture of the temple they visit and back in the preschool they make the model of temple in group. This helps them develop fine motor skills, spatial skills, ratio and proportion, and creative arts. During the interview with senior people of the communities, students make notes (write words or short sentence or draw relevant pictures). This helps them develop the listening skill, communicating skills and moreover they learn about the history of the place they live in. In addition to this, as students have better knowledge of the places in their surrounding, they develop stronger feeling about their community. On top of it, communication is the central during the whole process, as there is always a pre-trip as well as post trip discussions and also students talk among themselves during the trip itself.
Sample Thematic Unit 3
Students are taken on a day trip to the zoo under the of ‘Animals’. They have a pre-trip discussion about the animals they love, wild and domestic animals and about the animals that can fly, crawl, walk, run, etc. On the trip, they draw the picture of the animals they see and make short notes. Back in the school, they have a month long activities based on what they observe during the trip. The activities includes counting the animals, adding them, subtracting them, animal model making, colouring their model, writing about the animals, uses of animals, categorizing them, etc. and all these activities are very interactive in nature.
We teach our students important life skills such as communication, problem solving, critical thinking and decision making through various interactive activities as mentioned above. Also we use appropriate stories and songs that are related to our theme. For instance children watch the video of children song ‘Let’s go to the zoo’ and practice singing themselves while we are dealing with animal theme. Similarly, we read aloud to them ‘The Little Island’ or ‘The Ant Cities’ while we are dealing with the theme of community. Thus, providing the preschoolers with wider opportunities to get exposure to English and Nepali language inside and outside the classroom. And this the crux of our integrated curriculum.
Conclusion
Integrated lessons in our preschool are designed in a way that facilitates learning both languages- English and Nepali by using them meaningfully in various contexts. The lessons we have developed are more process oriented, where children learn language by experiencing it while being engaged in various tasks related to different subject areas. Although English is used as a medium of instruction to teach senior preschoolers, children’s mother tongue is always preferred a language of transaction when we need to explain concepts of various disciplines.
About the Author:
Midesh Maharjan has been working as a teacher educator in Rato Bangala Foundation for 15 years. At present he is also a director at Innovative Preschool, Kritipur. He is a graduate of Primary Teachers Training Programme (PTTP) from Rato Bangala Foundation and Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) from Kathmadnu University in 2005.
I started my teaching career not by choice but by necessity. Hailing from a lower middle-class subsistence farmer’s family, I saw very few options to get the resources I needed to pursue higher education. With six younger siblings waiting for me back in my home village in the western hill district of Gulmi, my parents had it hard enough without me adding to their burden. In this context, I had managed to get my school-level education from a free Sanskrit school, in Ridi, Gulmi.
Back then, higher education was seen as a waste of time and money; families of that generation believed a better alternative was to go to India to find ‘good’ jobs there. However, the zeal was in me, and after finishing my schooling in Ridi, I landed in Butwal to attend Intermediate of Education (I Ed) at Butwal Multiple Campus. The fact that I had done my schooling in Sanskrit did not prevent me from dreaming to major in English.
You could say that I was naïve, not realizing that I belonged to a class that could not afford higher education. It sounds crazy now. But as they say, “Man proposes and God disposes,” so I got a scholarship from the Campus, enabling me to take the next steps on my path.
When I was in my second year I Ed, I ran out of money. I badly needed a job. I heard from one of my classmates that an education officer from Palpa district was looking for an English teacher for a school in a village called Masyam. The offer looked good to me, so I went to Masyam, Palpa.
Due to financial limitations of the school and my qualifications, I was given a primary teacher’s position but I had to teach students of grades eight to ten. To teach English in the secondary level with just an incomplete intermediate level of education was a real challenge, to say the least. But I did not give up.
In the beginning I simply did not know how to teach! To start with, I lacked even basic English skills. I couldn’t even speak the language. I could only read from the book and translate it to the students. I regularly came across words which were difficult for which I did not know the meanings. I remember, one day I was planning to teach a conversation that included a phrase mind your head. I knew what the word mind meant and what head meant but mind your head did not make any sense to me. I asked around but did not get any definite answer so I travelled to Palpa district headquarters, seeking an answer but I only met people just like me, so I came back without the meaning. The dictionary did not help either. It only gave the meaning of mind and head separately. It didn’t address British idioms. It was only after several years that I was able to find out what mind your head meant – it means “pay attention, don’t hit your head!”.
I confronted other stumbling blocks in my teaching career. In several instances, I did not always have the right answers to the questions given in the book. However, I learnt that being a teacher wasn’t just about being knowledgeable. I later found out that my students in Masyam School had reported to senior teachers that I was a ‘great’ teacher, because I was humble, always trying to help and trying to be friendly. This kind of motivated me to teach.
While my work at Masyam School greatly encouraged me in seriously thinking about a teaching career, I also knew that I was not going to teach there forever. I had firm plans for further education. Indeed, after a year of teaching at Masyam and attending college just to participate in the exams, I completed my Intermediate in Education.
Immediately after the results were published, I learnt that the very same Butwal Campus was launching a new Bachelor of Arts program. The program offered English major along with History and other subjects. I quickly enrolled myself in the program without thinking. However, financial problems reared its ugly head again. I didn’t have a current income source or adequate savings.
I asked Hari Mainali, one of my classmates and the then Principal of Butwal Elite English School, if his school needed an English teacher. And, because I was always regular, did my homework, interacted with the teachers, tried my best to learn, he was already impressed with me! At once I was appointed as an English teacher in his private school.
Butwal Elite English School was an interesting environment; everybody spoke English, teachers and students alike. While I had not developed that level of spoken proficiency, I had to try because that was the rule. I did try, worked hard, soon enough, I was an insider among the teaching staff. As a beginning teacher, the school had given me classes only in nursery, kindergarten and Grade one. However, I took this as a very good opportunity for me to start learning from the beginning.
Looking back now, I realize that I’d made numerous mistakes, not just with language but in the very way I taught. For example, I would get students to shout the names of fruits, vegetables etc. that I was teaching. It was the method I used to make them memorize words. I also made them copy everything from the books. I remember one instance of my pedagogy, which was after I was entrusted with grades two and three as well. I asked Grade three students to write an essay. To ensure that everyone wrote an essay on the given topic, I provided them with a model essay and every student was expected to reproduce the same essay! Most students did. I did this every time I taught them to write essays. Simply put, this was not teaching at all, but that was all I knew then.
And so time passed as I gradually got into the groove. And, the mistakes I made didn’t stop me from making a good impression among my seniors. And so, it came to be that the following year, I was promoted! Actually, the management asked me to start teaching in the higher classes.
This upward growth helped me iron out my shortcomings and learn new things as well. For example, I found out that independent reading was an exercise that immensely helped students. So, I had them read short stories and poems. And those who read more had better writing. It was then that I knew the value of extensive, independent reading.
The years passed and I continued teaching. Even then, not as a career but as a job in which I was just barely proficient. Whenever I moved from one place to another for my next level of studies, I taught in nearby schools. It was a convenient and always available option. However, when I was doing my MA in English Literature Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, the classes were run in the day time, so I could not study and work simultaneously. I decided to work outside of Kathmandu, in a public school and maintain my study without attending classes – I had to survive first.
I got a position in Dedithumka High School in Kavre district to teach English from grades six to 10. Lucky me, my students were curious and supportive. I experimented whatever I knew; I organized short skits, conversations, sometimes creative writing tasks etc. I taught grammar to the best of my knowledge in contextual ways. Students were happy but I was the one who was happier here. Finally, I was slowly learning the tricks of teaching.
After my Masters, I returned to my own village in Gulmi to teach English to Grade 11 students. Again this upward mobility gave me opportunities to try out new approaches. I could confidently practise what I had learnt with my new students. As with all things, it worked with some, didn’t work with others but overall, the feedback from my students showed that my lessons were well received.
My teaching life underwent a rapid change when I was appointed as a lecturer at Kathmandu University (KU) a year later, in 1993. I had moved to the capital for better opportunities. Newly married, and full of aspirations, I was looking for a proper university position to teach. I learnt through an acquaintance that KU, in its nascent stage then, was looking for an English teacher for its School of Science. I applied and was called to give a trial class. Prof. Abhi Subedi, my former teacher in my MA, observed my test lesson and decided to have faith in me. I was in.
Once in, I went through many experiments, some with pleasure, and more with frustrations. After all, I was somebody who had attended a Sanskrit school for his high school education, someone who had never, as a learner, been exposed to a proper English-speaking environment and well delivered lessons. And now I was trying to teach English to science students who had come from private English medium schools. Their English, particularly spoken, was far better than mine. At times I thought of quitting, I actually tried quitting, but somehow, I held on.
One incident particularly illustrates how much I yet had to learn: I was teaching Romeo and Juliet, a play by Shakespeare. We could have practised the conversations in the play, we could have even presented the drama itself. But instead, I tried to teach the play simply by explaining every line of the play, page after page! Only now I can imagine how traumatic my lessons must have been for my students. There were signs that they were not paying attention, and sometimes I could see clearly that they did not enjoy the lesson. I even took it as a discipline issue. It took a long time for me to understand that the problem was not in them but in me, my teaching process, my teaching, my methodology. I was attempting to teach a drama by explaining line by line, for the whole 60 minute class, every class, three days a week. Had I been the students, I would have quit, but fortunately, my students stayed in class.
Time did remain the same. I moved on, and I seemed to change my pedagogy as illustrated by the forthcoming example. After a couple of years, I had to teach The Day of the Triffids, a sci-fi piece, and Siddhartha, a spiritual novel. This time, while I still used the explanation technique, I made it more interactive. We would discuss the events, linking the elements in the stories to our own lives. Instead of reading and explaining every line, the class became an interaction session between me and the students. Perhaps, this change was responsible for a pleasant surprise I got later in the year. In the students’ magazine, I was voted the best teacher! Although I knew I was not the best teacher, it helped me realize that I was improving.
Later in 2002, after my second Masters from the UK with a scholarship from the A. S. Hornby Educational Trust , I was transferred to School of Education from School of Science because my UK degree specialized in Teacher Training for ELT. As we started the new semester, I felt at home, I clearly didn’t know why. Upon reflection now, I understand I had undergone two things. One, I had been exposed to an excellent teaching methodology at Marjon, Plymouth, with great faculties Tony Wright and Rod Bolitho. I had practised speaking English with native and non-native speakers during my stay there. I had returned with an improved know-how of English and pedagogy. Second, I was teaching postgraduate students how to teach English, something I had specialized in.
With my background and the teaching situation, I was in a good place. I had to demonstrate model lessons so I had to prepare at my best. I worked hard and I enjoyed. My lessons were well-received. I was established.
But the question remains ‘what exactly made my lessons better?’ By this time, I was on the other side of the continuum of teaching. I had stopped giving long lectures. When I had to explain something, I presented lecturettes, not lectures. My students read, shared, worked in groups, gave presentations, argued against each other, critiqued, and reviewed.
I knew that in higher education, particularly at the university level, we have adult students who will not enjoy listening to long lectures. They bring with them a lot of experiences, insights, and ideas. They will also want to participate in the discussions. I knew this so I helped them realize their potential. I feel that my haphazard teaching in early years, and successful experiments with PG diploma, Masters and M Phil level established me as a seasoned teacher. I have tried to exemplify what life has taught me — that a participatory way of teaching is the best way. My success inside the University has helped me to be invited to deliver sessions outside. Conference presentations at the NELTA and other forums in Nepal, as well as in several other countries in the world have become part and parcel of my life.
Like everyone, I too have my regrets and mistakes. I know I cannot travel back in time and undo them. From time to time, I remember the scenes of my lessons in Palpa, in Butwal, in my early years, my mistakes at the University.
However, it may have been that I had to make those mistakes to arrive where I am now.
About the author:
Dr. Laxman Gnawali is Professor of English Education at Kathmandu University School of Education, and Senior Vice President of NELTA. He can be reached at lgnawali@gmail.com
I have been teaching ESL/EFL in different schools, colleges, and universities for about ten years. In this period, I mostly taught according to what was provided by schools; such as textbook, curriculum, and methodology mentioned in the syllabus. Particularly, schools prescribed the textbooks for my class, and I had to teach and was asked to get an excellent output from students. I did as per the school’s and college requirements, but I was not satisfied with my teaching. I felt like someone was choosing food for me. I wanted to quit teaching and do something different. At one point in time, I hated teaching the most, though teaching English was my dream job in my life. Later, I received teacher training courses and my identity shifted from teacher to teacher trainer. I got opportunities to facilitate training to English teachers from home and abroad. I designed training manuals, reviewed courses and made contextual changes, wrote and adapted materials to better deliver training. The responsibility of a course designer and course facilitator gave me immense pleasure in teaching and training. Recently, I am working as a teaching assistant and teaching English for Academic Purpose (EAP) courses at the University. When I look at my journey of ELT, an effective language teaching and effectiveness of my instruction resulted after I started to design ELT courses and implemented myself in the class. Autonomy is crucial for English teachers in selecting textbooks, methodology, and designing a course of study for their students. In this write-up, I walk through how autonomous Nepali English teachers are.
Prescription on course and methodology
Honestly speaking, teachers have been slaves as they are operated by someone else. The teachers never get a chance to discuss what they need in the classroom. The schools themselves in private schools and the government in government-aided schools prescribe books, and the teachers have to follow what they are asked to do. A few teachers get the expected outputs, but most of them fail. Somebody at the top level (i. e., expert) designs a course/textbook/curriculum for all the students in the nation, and the teachers are sent to classrooms with the course. The course/textbook designers neither consult concerned teachers nor do they go and study what the students need. They design the same course for all the locations from east to west and north to south without having proper knowledge of classroom contexts. Then, the problem comes when teachers use textbooks/courses in the class–the course books are prepared based on pedagogical philosophies or teaching methods. The teacher’s potentiality is spoiled through the activities mentioned in the books because teaching and learning are conducted according to the textbooks. In this respect, English teachers have been methodologically and organizationally slaves. Methodologically slaves in the sense that they teach English with the method that someone has developed for them, which may not be suitable for their classes. A technique/method that best works for one part of the world/classroom may not work or does not work at all for another part of the world/classroom. Therefore, it is the teacher who makes necessary changes in an established method and makes suitable for class, not the one out of the class (expert). Here, I am not questioning experts and established ELT methods, instead advocating for teacher autonomy. Similarly, teachers have been organizationally slaves because schools, colleges, and even the universities never discuss so that teachers know what they need. The organizations choose the textbooks and teachers are thrown in the classes. The question is, how do school administrations know what sort of books/courses a particular group of students need without consulting teachers and students.
Effective teaching and learning
English teachers should be given full autonomy to design, develop and disseminate ELT courses and materials for their classes. They are not only the implementers of what someone has designed but also course and method developers. Of course, all of the teachers cannot design the course for their students since they lack proper training and practice, but they must be trained in such a way that they can develop English language courses themselves or adapt textbooks and methodologies. Moreover, it is necessary to be satisfied with what is done in the classroom. How can teachers be happy and satisfied, if they cannot choose what they need in the classroom? Our students learn English from the early years of their schooling. At the end of the day, they cannot produce English. This is because the materials that they are exposed to are not appropriate to their level or/and interest. We have been teaching in the same way for years and years, and we say we are the experienced teachers. We never reflect on our teaching, for instance; how was my class? Did the textbook/materials, planning, and classroom management work today? Teachers find teaching boring because they are not given the responsibility to hand over all teaching and learning systems. Teachers should be trained to adapt to the materials/ textbooks. Textbook and method adaptation is a process in which the teachers evaluate textbooks and methods and do necessary changes according to what they need, and use in the classroom. All of the teachers must be trained so that they can adapt to the textbook, language course, and methods. Most importantly, teachers and students should be consulted while designing the curriculum, textbooks, and teaching methods. Similarly, teachers should also reflect on their teaching (content selection, content delivery, appropriacy of instructional activities) to contextualize teaching in the current classroom setting.
Conclusion
Unless teachers remain free from methodological and organizational slavery and they are given training, not only on how to teach but also on how to adapt teaching and teaching methods, it is difficult to see remarkable changes in students. Therefore, from an organization’s part, they should organize training for teachers on material contextualization, and teachers have to take a lead and produce teaching materials on their own without depending on the textbooks/language and methodology mentioned in them. Autonomy creates a win-win situation for teachers, students, and schools. So, let the teachers be their boss, don’t put them down.
Binod Singh Dhami is a teaching assistant at Minnesota State University, Mankato, USA. As a TESOL trainer, he served at TEFL International. He also produces YouTube videos on different aspects of teaching and learning that can be accessed on the YouTube Channel called ‘Global Online School.’ L2 writing, World Englishes, methodology and curriculum designing are his research interests.
These days, public speaking seems to be an essential soft skill for an individual which needs to be focused in school. Speakers’ club can be an effective way to develop such skill in students in addition to enhancing language proficiency. Based on a case study, in this paper, I attempt at sharing my experience of being an active participant in a speakers’ club and conducting it in the school for a couple of years. In the first section of the paper, first I introduce readers with the notion of speakers’ club; then, I briefly talk about how I collected data for the study. Next, I discuss the importance of speakers’ club in public speaking in general and language learning in particular as well as the challenges we faced to conduct it regularly. And finally, I present possible ways to minimize such challenges before moving to the conclusion at last.
Key words: public speaking, speakers’ club, language development, social skill
Background
When I was doing my Masters, I attended a Speakers’ Club in 2013, which was organized by senior English language teaching scholars at Kathmandu University. The speakers delivered wonderful speeches; in fact, they were so inspiring and motivating for me. The programme encouraged to take part as a speaker in the next Speakers’ club. In the following programme, I was one of the featured speakers speaking on The person who shaped my life. It appeared to be an easy and interesting for me as I had written an essay on the same topic. I prepared as much as I could but I felt nervous to speak in front of mass. Actually, that was the first time I had ever participated in any speech competition. I shared how a teacher transformed me from an average student to a teacher. The participants were found to have touched by my story and some of them praised my speech at the end. I do not recall exactly who got the prize on that particular day but I cannot forget the way the toastmaster and other judges analysed and gave their feedback on my speech. This proved to be bedrock for my passion I developed in public speaking. Then onwards, I became one of the regular speakers of speaker’s club. It has been more than five years, but I still love to be part of it.
After years of practice, I realized that I have significantly improved my public speaking skill which has been an asset for me as a teacher. As a regular participant, it worked as a platform for me where I got familiar with the ingredients successful speeches and practised them in my own speeches. I was able to grab best speaker awards a number of times. I was so influenced that I introduced this concept in my school as well. Some students were found interested and they successfully conducted it throughout academic year. After one year, they became so confident that one of the students from my school took part in KU Speakers’ Club and was able to raise the best speaker award from the hand of ELT scholars doing masters and M. Phil. Similarly, the other students also followed him and gave influencing speeches and were successful getting award several times. Despite the fact that we could not run it regularly every year; many students were found to be benefited from this club and have developed themselves as powerful speakers.
Reflecting upon my experience as a participant in KU and coordinator of Speakers’ Club in my school, I realized that Speakers Club can be used as an effective means of developing public speaking and language proficiency. Thus, in this article I attempt at exploring the use of Speakers’ Club in the EFL context of Nepal.
Notion of speakers’ club
Speakers’ Club can be simply defined as a platform for language learners to develop their public speaking skills. Like an international toastmaster, it is a club one delivers and observes each other’s speeches. Participating in such club gives students an opportunity for practising their public speaking skills and their language skills. First time, speakers’ club was introduced by a group of ELT scholars of KUSOED and it became so famous that many of us implemented it in our respective schools and college. I was one of them to take this program in school level.
The notion of speakers’ club was guided by the International Toastmaster which aims at developing public-speaking and oral communication (Sun, 2008, as cited in Hsu, 2012). While implementing this at my school, we modified some of the rules to make it suitable for school children. First, we became little flexible about the time in the beginning as students often ran out of ideas in the middle and could not speak for four minutes. Likewise, we paid little attention to grammatical errors so that they would speak freely without stress . Moreover, we created a post: highlighter, whose job was to give compliment on only positive aspects of the speech. This was found to be encouraging for students to take part in the club.
Besides these changes, the main notion of feature and impromptu speakers remained the same like in toastmaster. Thus like in toastmaster club, we also have two kinds of speakers in a session: four feature speakers and four impromptu speakers (see agenda sheet in Appendix 1). The feature speakers are given a topic of speech and they are supposed to speak for four minutes, not less than three and more than four. But the impromptu speakers, as the word suggests, are provided the topics for their speech on the spot and they have to speak for at least two minutes. This is found to be challenging for speakers as they are only informed about theme but the topics are unknown to them. Besides speakers, we have toastmaster, grammar checker, fidget counter, highlighter, and timekeeper. The toastmaster selects topic and theme of the speech and conducts session effectively. Sometimes, guest speakers are called to deliver mock speech and their experience of public speaking and sometimes we watch famous speech by professional speakers. Speakers’ club can also be significant for language learners in enhancing their speaking skills. In relation to speaking skill, Ur (1991) emphasized the importance of small talk that advanced or academic students need to develop ability to speak at length which can be developed through short lecture or talk. Likewise, Harmer (2007) takes student’s presentation as an activity for developing speaking skill by giving talk on a particular topic. It seems that when learners take part in speakers’ club, they get ample opportunity to deliver and hear many speeches and harness their skills by collaborating and learning from each other.
The case study
This program was introduced in our schools’ academic calendar and was conducted twice a month. Basically students from grade eight and nine participated in the program. In the beginning, the students were hesitant; I had to guide them in selecting title, themes and word for the day for speech. Sometimes, I had to play the role of grammarian and check their grammatical errors as they could do on their own. But slowly and gradually, they not only improved their speech but also learned to organize the event themselves with little support from teachers. Now, they seem to have become independent; they can organize the program on their own. After successful implication of Speakers’ Club for two years, last year the school introduced Nepali Speakers’ Club as well.
The respondents for the present study were M. Phil graduates and my students who had been actively taking part in Speakers Club. They were selected purposefully so that I can get the required information for the study. I used interview and FGD as data collection strategies and my own reflective notes. The participants were given pseudo-names to maintain confidentiality in the study. First, I interviewed three respondents using interview guideline (see Appendix 2), however, it was used just as a guideline to cover the emergent issues. It mainly covered three aspects: participants’ experience, challenges in conducting speakers’ club, and their learning as speakers and language learners. Similarly, I also conducted an FGD with my students focusing on the same aspects. Their interviewed were transcribed and finally I developed different theme for analysis and interpretation. These themes have been presented and discussed in detail in the following section.
Importance of Speakers’ Club
All the respondents expressed that Speakers’ Club has been beneficial for them in enhancing public speaking as well as other skills. Regarding importance, Bimala argued, “I have not found anyone who express speakers’ club is not beneficial or uninteresting”. All the respondents agree that they have benefited from speakers’ club in many different ways which was also reported by Yu-Chih (2008). Their responses can be presented and discussed under three major sub-themes: Building confidence, enhancing public speaking skills and developing language.
Building Confidence in speakers
Most participants expressed that they developed confidence as a result of participating in speakers’ club. Building confidence appears to be a common phrase in almost every respondent’s answer when they were asked to express the benefits of speakers’ club. In the process of sharing her experience as a speaker, Bimala mentioned that earlier she had habit of looking at ground while giving speech and she would become nervous when she looked at her audience. In her own words, she put “I learned to be normal” by thinking audience as nobody and herself to be superior to them. Similarly, Rajan emphasized that hesitation or fear of speaking is one of the main problems which he overcame by giving speech in speakers’ club. He believed that through practice one can decreases their hesitation and can become better speaker. This seems to be supported by students in the FGD and by other study (Iberri-Shea, 2009). Most students agree that after long practice, they felt confident while giving speech in mass.
Improving public speaking skills
Enhancing public speaking was found to be the main expectation of each respondent. However the way they express their development as speakers vary from one to another. First, Sunil opined that he adored being part of speakers’ club. According to him, speakers’ club is “a platform for learners where they can practice and develop their skills to deliver effective speech in the mass”. Furthermore, he shared that he learned to use quotation and personal stories in his speech which made him winner twice. But he believed that winning is not final goal; rather speaking is an opportunity to explore their ability and a process to collect required information on particular topic which can be used to influence our audience. So, he seems to have connected speaking skills to personal and professional development as well. This seems to be in line with Yu-Chih (2008) who states that through such club students improve their proficiency in public speaking and other various skills.
Next, the respondents of FGD view public speaking a way to develop research skills. They expressed that speakers club gave them opportunity to research on different new topics. As a result they developed habit of collecting information from different sources to prepare and give speech. Their understanding was found to be in line with Iberri-Shea (2009) who states that “public speaking tasks require students to conduct research and develop support for their arguments” (p.23). Likewise, Rajan articulated that he became conscious about his errors yet it did not decrease his fluency. He expressed to have learned to maintain both accuracy and fluency even after being aware of his error.
Above all, the participants were able to learn to present themselves as speaker, use anecdote and quotation, research on different topics and developed as speakers. By the same token, Al-Tamimi (2014) argues that “public speaking such as speakers club has been proved as a suitable pedagogical activity for ESL/EFL students to develop their speaking competence” (p.66). They can better relate their stories with the context, make inferences from observation and experience, and derive conclusion effectively. These skills can be important in real life situation besides learning language and public speaking. In this line Thornbury (2005) states that for language learners, the experience of presenting ourselves in front of class and giving talk can be an effective way of preparing for real life speaking.
Opportunity to practice target language
In response to my question regarding language development, they believed to have developed their speaking skill and improve their grammar. First, a respondent in FGD put that learning English or any other language is not limited to book; it can be learnt better by speaking. He belied that the more one speaks the more they develop speaking skill. In the same line, Sunil also echoed this respondent when he stated that speaking, as a productive skill, needs practice; so the more we speak the more we develop speaking proficiency. He also added that such practice can have positive impact on writing as well since speech can be turned writing.
Next, Rajan and Bimala expressed that speakers could improve their grammar by focusing on the comments given by grammarian in the speakers club. They believed that speakers club can be used as platform to reflect on our error in order to minimize them and become better speaker. In this line, Ur (1991) states that developing leaners’ ability to express through speech is an important factor in language course.
Thus, delivering speech in speakers club seems to provide EFL learners immense opportunity of using language to influence people. They learn to use their communicative competence – “knowing when and how to say what to who” (Hymes, 1971, as cited in Larseen Freeman, 2000) in their speech to influence people. Thus, such meaningful discourse can help EFL learners acquire language subconsciously just like in natural setting (Krashen, 1982).
Challenges in conducting speakers’ club
From the interview and FGD, I found three main challenges in conducting speakers’ club successfully. First, they expressed that most students were hesitant to participate in speakers’ club. Bimala and Sunil mentioned that some appeared to be unaware of the benefits that speakers club can offer and therefore they were not interested in being part of it. Similarly, Rajan added that some participants were even found to have fear of speaking in public as it might reveal their mistakes. Rajan was in line with Ur (2005) who mentions being worried about committing mistake and fearful of criticism or losing face as common problems in speaking activities.
Next, it appears to be challenging to run this program smoothly. Time management because of busy schedule was expressed to be a major cause for irregularity in speakers’ club both in KU and in my school. In addition, toastmasters’ inability of selecting suitable topic and conducting program was also viewed as one of the reasons for discontinuity in the program. Third and most importantly, most participants argue that voting system had negative impact provided that some speakers could get more vote because of their popularity. They mentioned particular session in which the deserving candidates did not win even after giving better speech; instead a popular friend was selected as winner.
Ways forward
Having shared the above challenges, I present some possible solutions offered by the respondents in order to overcome them. First, managing suitable schedule and time can minimize a number of issues mentioned above. As suggested by Bimala, it would be better to manage routine in a way so that maximum students can participate. Next, Rajan suggested that guest speakers can be called to deliver speech, especially inspirational speeches. This might make demotivated participants realize the benefit of public speaking and motivate them to take part in the club. And they can be the in charge of their leaning (Iberri-Shea, 2009). Finally, voting system can be modified giving fifty percent right to the judges and fifty percent to the participants. This can minimize the biasness so that deserving candidate will have better possibility to be winner.
Conclusion
Speakers’ club is proved to be an effective platform for me and my students. This seems to be beneficial in EFL context as it builds confidence in speakers, enhances their public speaking skills, and develops language proficiency. Running this program smoothly for long period of time appears to be challenging if the participants are not enthusiastic and hesitate to participate. This can be minimized by planning, preparing and conducting the program properly. Effective time management and inspiring speeches by guest speakers can lead to better participation.
References
Al-Tamimi, N. O. M. (2014). Public speaking instruction: Abridge to improve English speaking competence and reducing communication apprehension. International Journal, 2(4), 45-68.
Harmer, J. (2007). How to teach English. London: Pearson Longman.
Hsu, T. C. (2012). Enhancing college students’ global awareness through
campus Toastmasters clubs. International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 1(1), 21-34.
Iberri-Shea, G. (2009). Using Public Speaking Tasks in English Language Teaching. In English Teaching Forum, 47(2), p. 18-23.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching (2nd edition.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. New York: Pergamon Press.
Thornbury, S. (2005). How to teach speaking. London: Pearson Longman.
Ur, P. (2005). A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yu-Chih, S. (2008). The Toastmasters approach: An innovative way to teach public speaking to EFL learners in Taiwan. RELC Journal, 39(1), 113-130.
Contributor
Gyanendra Kumar Yadav is a research scholar at Kathmandu University and teaches English language at different colleges in Lalitpur. He is pursuing his M. Phil. in English Language Education from Kathmandu University, School of Education. He is also a life member of NELTA, and has published several journal articles and presented papers in NELTA conferences. His areas of interest include teaching English through literature, teachers’ professional development, and critical pedagogy.
Appendixes
Appendix 1
Speakers’ Club-KU (Season 7, Session 1)
4th Floor, Building C, KUSOED Hattiban
10 September 2017
Topic for Featured Speakers: Introduction
Theme for the Impromptu Speakers: Teaching profession
Word For the day: Passion
Toastmaster: Gyanendra Yadav
Grammarian: CB Khatri
Highlighter: Raju Shrestha
Time Keeper: Anupama Manadhar
Ah counter: Sharmila Parajuli
Fidget counter: Kausalya Khadka
Tech-support: Manuka Adhikari
Prize Sponsor: Regent school
Featured Speakers
Impromptu Speakers
Damodar Poudel
Sudip Neupane
Ishwar Koirala
Keshab Prasai
Jhaggu Gahatraj
Deepak Regmi
Yogendra Ruwali
Birat Chaulagain
Best featured Speaker
Best Impromptu Speaker
Appendix 2
Guideline for interview (speakers’ club)
Experience sharing
Have you taken part in speakers club?
Would you like to share you experience of being part of speakers’ club?
Importance of speakers’ club
Do you find any benefits in participating in Speaker’s club?
Can you share any concrete changes that you notice after participating?
In Public speaking
In Language development /as EFL learners
Challenges and ways to overcome them
It is found difficult to continue the program for long. What is your view regarding it?
Perhaps, it was the month of December 2018. One of our classes in B.Ed. first year grouped into another section as the students were high in number in the former section. Then, I was asked to take class in the new section. The next day, I went to the classroom taking my laptop and few materials. I had few short videos and slides related to the subject matter that I was going to introduce in the classroom. In the very beginning, I asked few things to the students regarding their previous classes and the topics that they studied in earlier section. At the same time one of the students said, “Sir, we need notes”. Then I asked, “What notes?” Then again another student said that I need to write note of each and every topic on the board. Then I said, “If I have to give you notes, then what do you do from your side?” There was silence for few seconds. Then the students admitted that they cannot write themselves as they are very weak in writing. I leaned on the lecture desk, spoke nothing and thought for a while.
It was my first lesson for them. A question came into my mind continuously, why the students demanded written note in my first class before I started the lesson. Again I began to wonder how they were taught in their previous lessons. How did they practice writing in the past? Then I asked them to attend my classes at least for a month and assured them that if they were not satisfied with my strategies for teaching writing, the campus would address their problem immediately. After that, I started my lesson through PowerPoint presentation where I played few videos related to the topic to be introduced that day. I could notice that few of my students were enjoying the videos and my delivery but few of them were not happy as they were not given written note on the board. I asked my students to have patience and assured them that they would become independent writers if they followed my instructions well.
As I came out from the classroom, their words ‘we need written notes…’ were buzzing in my mind. It was obvious that they got the habit of copying notes from the board which must be the reason why the students had no interest in trying to write themselves. Although copying and memorizing notes for examination must be easy for them but that would certainly not help students develop their creativity and become independent writers. I always learned from my teaching experience that the learners require ample opportunities to explore by exercising to write themselves and it is teacher’s responsibility to give an appropriate environment. I always remember one Nepali proverb “Machha khana matrai hoina, machha marna pani sikaunu parchha.” which means we should teach a man how to fish instead of just teaching him to eat fish. Keeping this proverb in my mind, I started dealing with these students differently. That evening, I planned something different for that classroom.
My techniques of teaching writing
First technique: come near to me
It was my second day in that class; however, it was the first day of my intervention of a new technique. That day, I used brainstorming technique to encourage my students to come up with some ideas and write a short story. As I asked them some questions to stimulate ideas for writing many of them were too shy to respond. Then, I wrote few sentences on the board which was the starting of a story. Meantime some of them were ready to copy out from the board but I requested them not to copy but write similar expression changing the major words i.e. content words of my writing. I had also given few content words in a box and asked them to replace content words of my writing. Most of them did but again few of them were still confused. I told the students who already completed their task to help other students too. On that very day, I asked the students come near to me but did not let them stand on my foot i.e. copying my exact sentences. My students practiced writing in this way for five days and I also gave them few tasks as their home assignment to be done regularly. I was not very strict about their assignment; rather I encouraged them to write whatever came in their mind related to the topic. In this way in the beginning, I brought them near to me/my writing.
Second technique: hold my hand
During the third week of my intervention, I tried out another technique to deal with the writing of my students. I asked them to recall the story they all had read in my previous lesson. I then wrote some points that represented important events of the story that but did not write the whole story or the summary. Then I asked my students to write just two paragraphs including the given points in them and adding few ideas from the text. Few of them hesitated to start writing and few of them said that it was difficult to write two paragraphs themselves. I asked them to write what they know and how much they can without worrying about the correctness of the sentences. As I went through their writing, I found that some of my students did not write anything at all while some of them created good pieces adding very good points and joining the given sentences in the sequences. Thus, I did similar activities for a week and I could notice changes in their writing. Many of my students improved and developed confidence in writing. I felt that, I was somehow able to make them walk holding my hand in the journey of writing.
Third technique: walk now
‘Walk Now’ is another technique that I used in my writing lesson. It was the last week of my intervention period. Now, I wanted to make my students walk themselves or in other words I wanted to make my students to write freely and independently. To make this happen, I read aloud an interesting piece of writing, e.g. a story and asked my students to jot down striking and important ideas or points they find in the text. I read the text twice or even thrice giving emphasis on the important points with specific sentence structure or events and guided them to elaborate those points and write at least one page. The one page writing could be a summary of the text or they were free to modify the text and rewrite it or if the text was a story, they could give it a different ending.
The next day almost all the students who were present in the previous day wrote one page and even those students who struggled a lot in writing were improving rapidly. They began to talk about their assignments and write summary of the previous lesson. It was encouraging to see my students making progress in writing.
After a month of intervention, I gathered students’ response about my writing lessons. Most of them admitted that copying notes and memorizing could probably help them pass the examination but that did not help them build confidence in writing. One of my students said, “Sir, now at least we started writing ourselves and if we go on following these writing strategies, we can write easily on any topic. You made us to write rather than expect and wait for your notes”. I realized that my students at least started to walk themselves, although they were not ready to run in their journey of writing.
From that very day I continued teaching same class and the students were happy with me. However, I used to give note if I felt that the concept were somehow new and challenging. In other cases, my students of that very class started writing and exploring their ideas themselves rather than depending on the teachers even for the simple topic, issue or concept.
Conclusion
Writing is one of the most desirable skills of language. We need to make our students write something themselves rather than letting them to copy our note. If we give ready-made notes, they just copy out and read. But if the situation became slightly different than our note, students explore nothing because they have just ready-made answers for particular questions. My experience of one month teaching writing with my own techniques i.e. ‘Come Near to Me’, ‘Hold my Hand’ and ‘Now Walk’ became somehow successful in my writing lessons. So, to make our students walk themselves and make them able for fishing, i.e. to make them write themselves, I think we teachers need to create the environment to writ. We should avoid giving ready-made notes which, in my opinion, kills the learners’ creativity.
The author: Sagar Poudel is an MPhil in English language education from Kathmandu University. His areas of interest are Second Language Acquisition, Socio-linguistics, Academic Writing and ELT pedagogy and materials. He is currently working as lecturer and the head of English department at Aadikavi Bhanubhakta Campus, Damauli Tanahun.
I teach English language to Bachelor level students. And it’s quite challenging to teach them because they come from the public schools of rural areas with negligible English proficiency. English teaching- learning experience is not only challenging for teachers but also sort of daunting task for many students’ for some reasons. Firstly, the students don’t have enough exposure to English language during their school life. Secondly, the prescribed textbooks for undergraduate students is way higher than their levels. Last but not least, there isn’t not appropriate place and environment for them to practice English. To overcome this challenge, I employ some techniques and strategies. Here I’m going to discuss few techniques that I use with my students.
Icebreaking and warming-up
When we enter into anything unknown, fear grips us and we may suffer from nervousness. Because English in my context is considered a ‘haau-guji’ (bugaboo) to my students. Therefore, my first role is to create a safe, comfortable, and friendly environment. For that I do various things in the class before starting my lessons. As we know, a teacher has many roles to play – sometimes I’m their friend; sometimes I am their facilitator; sometimes a companion to their academic journey; sometimes an instructor; sometimes a guide; sometimes a supporter, and other times a nurturer or a gardener. Let me illustrate below some of the activities I carried out.
Now let me discuss an activity that I do in class as a warm up or an ice break.
Once I was going to teach a lesson called ‘The Joys of Motherhood’, one of the lessons in compulsory English course in the first year of Bachelor level. On that day, I put on a different get-up. Instead of wearing my usual checkered coat, I donned a black hoodie. When I entered the class, all of my students were staring at me surprisingly. Needless to say, my hoodie had succeeded in grabbing their attention. For a minute or so, I walked silently up and down the aisles holding my jacket. Then I came to the front and smiled at them maintaining eye contact. After that, I asked a question, “Do you know what it’s called?” Surprisingly, majority of my students’ couldn’t respond the right answer. It’s perhaps they were not getting the right word to say or because of their poor schooling background. Then I told them that it was a hood and wrote it on the whiteboard. Then I further told them that jacket with a hood is called a hoody and I wrote on the whiteboard again and they copied. I could see their faces beaming with new vocabulary. First of all, they learnt a new word ‘hood’ in an interesting way. After they learnt, I added one more new word ‘hoody’ to their mind which they received well.
After that I told them that ‘hood’ is not only a noun like the head cover of the jacket, it could also be a suffix to turn a word noun. Therefore, I wrote a word ‘mother’ on the whiteboard and I told them that ‘mother’ was a noun, whom they could see and touch. Then I added ‘hood’ with the ‘mother’ which became ‘motherhood’.
Here, I told them. “Look! now ‘mother’ became ‘motherhood’.” It’s still a noun but not like the previous one. You can’t see or touch ‘motherhood’. You can only imagine or think of it. Just to make sure they understood the meaning of the newly formed word I also translated it into Nepali (Maatrittwa). Those who were doubtful about the meaning of the newly formed term before were clear now and looked satisfied. Then I showed them, how they could form abstract noun adding ‘hood’ as a suffix. For instance, fatherhood, parenthood, womanhood, manhood, childhood, neighbourhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, girlhood, boyhood, and likelihood. After this was done, I encouraged them to search more words in their dictionaries or mobile phones that end with hood. This made the environment ripe i.e. ready for teaching and learning. Now I could begin the lesson with more elicitation from students. I could continue the lesson by engaging their attention and involving them.
Now I would like to share with you another techniques that I use to teach English language.
Use of pictures to tell stories
When the beginner or intermediate students’ can speak chunks of a sentence or a paragraph without looking at the written script, it’s a good achievement for them. They need support on how and where they could chunk. For this, I chose a video of a native speaker titled ‘’ Emmma Fierberg’s Account’’ and transcribed a paragraph. Then, I chunked the paragraph and sentences so that my students and I could do the reading without looking at the text. After this was completed, I gave them a task where they could chunk paragraphs and sentences to enhance their speaking skills. Here is the transcript of the video.
I wanted to test out for myself how waking up at 4:30 affected my productivity. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. for one week, like a Navy SEAL. I’ve read a lot about how Navy SEALs like Jocko Willink wake up at 4:30 in the morning. Jocko famously says that discipline equals freedom. It is Friday, two days before I start this experiment. Normally, my alarm goes off five minutes before 8:00 a.m. Setting my alarm a full three and a half hours earlier is gonna be really scary. Will I survive? (Source Link: https://youtu.be/5Kp–rm7N2M)
To tell the above story, I made 14 cards out of two A-4 size papers. Then, I drew pictures so that I could tell the story looking at them and even without looking script on it after some practice. Furthermore, after practicing telling the story at the pictures repeatedly, I wouldn’t even need cards to tell the story. The pictures don’t need to have perfection. Rather, they would be just a means to achieve the goal. Therefore, I didn’t waste much time to draw them. And hence, the drawings don’t look funny to you. Here are the fourteen images drawn on the cards along with the script below them.
1) I wanted to2) test out for myself3) how waking up at 4:304) affected my productivity.5) I woke up at 4:30 a.m.6) for one week
7) like a Navy SEAL.
8) I’ve read a lot about
9) how Navy SEALs like Jocko Willink
10) wake up at 4:30 in the morning.11) Jocko famously says that discipline equals freedom.12) It is Friday, two days before I start this experiment.13) Normally, my alarm goes off five minutes before 8:00 a.m.14) Setting my alarm a full three and a half hours earlier is gonna be really scary. Will I survive?
After showing the above examples, I divided the students into group and assigned them different texts to try to represent the texts through pictures so that they would be confident to try any other texts themselves.
I divided a text in the following way to give them to practice. Here are some samples.
A
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. She had put it aside, one cent and then another and then another, in her careful buying of meat and other food. Della counted it three times. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was nothing to do but fall on the bed and cry. So Della did it. (Source: The Gift of Magi by O.Henry)
B
While the lady of the home is slowly growing quieter, we can look at the home. Furnished rooms at a cost of $8 a week. There is little more to say about it.
In the hall below was a letter-box too small to hold a letter. There was an electric bell, but it could not make a sound. Also there was a name beside the door: “Mr. James Dillingham Young.” (Source: The Gift of Magi by O.Henry)
In the same way, I divided the story into eight other parts in the same way and assigned them to read the text and represent that through the pictures.
In a nutshell, I experience myself that the better images we produce the interesting our learning outcomes becomes. We can encourage our students’ to produce better thematic pictures/images then we can ask them to write a short story looking at the images. In doing so, the students’ get benefitted in two ways. The first thing is that they improve their drawing skills and also they develop story writing proficiency.
The author is a freelance writer and a life member of Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association (NELTA).
I adopted teaching as a profession some 18 years ago. My teaching career commenced from a private English medium school. It was after I completed proficiency certificate level examination. In this blog post, I am sharing my experiences from a novice teacher to a professional English teacher. The article explains that how I grow as a professional English teacher. It also depicts what different stages of my journey of teaching passed through.
Teaching is my favorite profession. It is my passion too. I have been turning my passion into action teaching in different levels and schools. What I adore is standing in front of enthusiastic pupils and delivering something. This passion led me to adopt teaching as a profession. Before I started teaching, I had some exposure of English Grammar and language for the Level I had to teach. After I had completed the examination of intermediate level, I started teaching. I was selected as the teacher after my class observation. In order to perform well and mark good impression on the part of observers, I had gone through all the topics of grammar that I studied in high school level. Furthermore, I went through an English speaking course book to improve my speaking skill. The book incorporated various language functions, vocabularies used in daily conversation, class room language, Nepali –English translation and so on. When I read the book twice, it broadened my horizon of knowledge in using the English language.
After teaching in two private English medium schools for a year, I joined a government-aided school. It was the school where I had studied at lower secondary level. The school proved a turning point in my life both as a student and a teacher. It proved a turning point in my student life in the sense that I could make my foundation of English strong as a volunteer teacher from the U.S.A. taught us. In the beginning, it was quite difficult to grasp what she uttered. She was the class teacher for a whole academic year. We, the students, were exposed to native tone in English in EFL (English as a foreign language) setting. Gradually I could get what she spoke. The way she pronounced English words or the way she delivered in the class helped me to grasp the native accent. Moreover, the school proved a turning point in my teaching career as I took my further study and teaching ahead simultaneously. I completed my Bachelor’s Degree (B.Ed in English education) during my service there.
Then I attended training on ‘Interactive Radio Teaching’. All the trainee teachers had been given one set of radio to each. A live program would broadcast from 2:05 to 2:50 pm by Curriculum Development Centre. I had to teach English taking the radio set in the classroom to Grade five. It was a formal training in distant mode. All I had to do was to turn on the radio in the class and make the students listen to. And I had to repeat after the instructor on the radio so that students could understand what was delivered through the radio. The program particularly helped me to improve my pronunciation of English sounds and pedagogical skill.
Moreover, I attended micro-teaching (also called peer teaching) by the end of bachelor’s 3rd year. Later on, I had to teach the 10th graders for one and a half month as practice teaching. I got acquainted with practicality of communicative approach of teaching during this period. The course book that I studied in Bachelor’s level and the practice teaching I was involved in proved fruitful for my teaching. This practice teaching added some teaching techniques, skills and application of knowledge in me. During 45 days’ practice teaching I received feedback from my peers who taught English in other classes. Moreover, my classes were observed by the internal and external supervisors as the subject experts. Thus, the peers’, subject experts’ feedback made me more competent and confident to handle the class and deliver subject matter effectively. To be well prepared, I came to know that the teacher’s guide was helpful. I borrowed and went through it during this period. It has multiple benefits in teaching in a way it provides clear direction to teach English.
Besides I grabbed an opportunity to attend short-term teacher training program which helped boost my performance. After having attended the training, I started teaching the students using learner centered approach. I also learnt how to teach grammar creating situation to the context. Furthermore, I learnt to teach the vocabularies more than just giving synonyms and translating. I grasped some techniques and ideas on how to motivate the students towards learning English too.
While teaching English in grade 10, I felt some difficulty to teach some poems. I consulted several practice books; went through questions and exercises in the textbook and made notes in diary. I could interpret the poems. However, I was not fully satisfied. I went through many hurdles at personal and professional level. On the one hand, I was only job holder in the family and the other I went through obstacles in teaching career too. As I had strong passion for reading from which I could get sheer satisfaction and joy, I pursued my higher study and completed my master’s degree. After the completion of teaching practice by the end and M.Ed. 2nd year, I was offered to teach in Grade XI and XII. I got a decent platform to consolidate the subject matter that I had learnt in campus and university level. In this teacher education program, I studied various course titles such as linguistics, phonetics, translation studies, grammar, semantics and pragmatics and so on. These courses made the foundation of language, linguistics and grammar stronger in me.
In the course of time, I joined a residential Military school in western Terai of Nepal. On the very first day, when the students had enrolled, the school organized an orientation program for the first batch. I had been assigned the responsibility to host the entire program. I did not have any difficulty to teach English and to speak in English. But I had never got the exposure of public speaking in English. I did not have much idea on how to conduct a program though I know what to speak. The principal just gave me the program details. I went through it. It struck my mind. It was the first time I was going to host a formal program in English. I mustered courage, I made notes; prepared rough draft; read it. Then I consulted one of my friends in the telephone who had the experience of conducting such program. I was well- prepared to host the program. I hosted the program. I received good feedback. It shows speaking in English in EFL setting is not an easy task. Furthermore, these types of real life contexts are really instrumental to enrich the professional growth. Like me, many students hesitate to speak English in different situations. Therefore, positive attitude toward target language can definitely enhance learning of the language. It also indicates that the abstract knowledge (competence) is to be brought out (concretized) through performance. The competence of an individual has to be sharpened through performance.
After I had attended 23rd international Conference of NELTA, I received a congenial atmosphere to learn more. The key speakers from foreign universities, presenters belonging to the expert groups and practitioner groups gave wonderful sessions. I received many insights on various issues and topics in ELT (English language teaching). Likewise, a mentor, my principal, who usually assigns me to work on various responsibilities – proof-reading the articles, writing articles and editorial for school magazine, writing proposals and certificates in English, inspires me to improve my writing skill. It shows that attending conferences and collaborating with experienced teacher or mentor helps to grow professionally.
Where there is a will, there is a way. In other words, every problem has a solution. During my teaching career in the school where I have been teaching for 8 years, I taught several course books in English. Almost every year or sometimes after 2 or 3 years the course book are changed. Moreover, a teacher has to teach three/four course books in a class. The teachers have to work hard to perform well in the class. I am not the exception. I taught an English Course book which mainly dealt with English literature to the 4th to 7th graders for two years. In other genres of literature, I had no difficulty. But I felt difficulty to teach poetry. It doesn’t mean I was unable to teach poetry; I could teach poetry to the students; I could interpret the poem. But I was not satisfied myself. Later I found myself less interested in poetry. It shows that teachers’ area of interest matters a lot in teaching learning process.
It is said handwork pays. Working as a teacher, I teach 4 to 5 periods a day. Besides classroom teaching, the teachers have to conduct co-curriculum activities in the school. Not only this, the teachers are assigned various other tasks- writing proposals, reports, certificates for various purposes, and articles for annual magazine and so on. Among the four language skill writing carries comparatively a greater importance. In this connection, the words of Francis Bacon are worth-quoting ‘Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man.” This quote highlights the importance of writing. Furthermore, writing is considered to be more difficult than other skills of language. One has to read a lot to enhance writing skill.
To conclude, in the journey of my teaching, day-by-day I began to feel more excited and motivated. Moreover, I felt more confident and competent. It was possible because of the readings, working with mentors, peer observation, feedback from the experts and most importantly my passion for teaching, a positive attitude toward the English language; an internal motivation to perform better.
Through my journey from a novice teacher to a professional teacher, I come to a conclusion that it is not difficult and impossible to transform ourselves. One needs to have desire to grow and enhance the professionalism in the course of time. He/ she needs to update to adjust him/herself in the changing context in a regular basis. It is possible only if he/she is dedicated, inquisitive and studious.
The author:
Narendra Airi is an M.Ed. from Tribhuvan University and the head of English department at Sainik Awasiya Mahavidhyalaya Teghari, Kailali.
Reflecting my experience of teaching in community campus in Sindhuli, I realized that very few teachers from community campuses have participated in professional development training or other aspects of teacher professional development. I am not aware if there are any training agencies active in providing professional development training for teachers of community campus. However, University Grants Commission (UGC) provides some grants for training, seminar, course refresher training, training on capacity development, etc. Few campuses apply for UGC grants to conduct small scale research and short-term academic training.
As a lecturer of a community campus of Nepal I feel that there is very important role of teacher professional development to improve teaching and learning activities of our community campuses. Professional development training is an opportunity for teachers to share their knowledge and develop new instructional practices. Teachers’ professional development (TPD) keeps academics up-to-date with the changing world and knowledge. Teacher agency is considered to be a core section of educational institutions, who can bring change in the performance of students as well as institutions. Teachers’ participation in all-round academic activities including their professional development training is expected to transform conventional practices of educational activities and produce dynamic graduates who can explore wider world across the border. Pokhrel and Behera (2016, P. 190) asserted “Teacher professional development is defined as a process of improving both the teacher’s academic standing as well as –acquisition of greater competence and efficiency in discharging her/his professional obligations in and outside the classroom”. Pennington (1990) considered that every teacher needs professional growth throughout their career. Gnawali (2008, P. 220) argues that continuous professional development of teachers is significant to enable them to understand classroom environment and changing pedagogies. Teachers can participate in various professional activities such as training, seminar, workshop, symposium, conference, teacher exchange, reflective practice, peer discussion, blog writing, researching, writing article, publishing, further study, online program, etc. Their participation in such programmes develops professionalism and strengthens their academic skills. Wajnryb (1992) emphasises teachers’ self-motivation in professional development activities increases their learning and becomes highly effective in their academic activities.
Importance of TPD for Teachers
Teachers’ professional development is significant aspect of teaching profession. It helps teachers develop various professional skills and knowledge Continuous professional development activities upgrade teachers’ teaching skills and help teachers survive in the profession. Their learned skills and ideas bring a kind of shift in classroom teaching and learning activities. Teachers’ professional development, which has direct association with students’ learning, improves institutional performance, particularly academic achievement. They become creative as well as energetic through various exposures in TPD programme. They learn to understand the problems of students and they can address and handle students’ needs. TPD programme may encourage teachers to do researches in academic fields.
Teachers’ Expectation of TPD
As I mentioned above, I am unaware of university teacher professional development programmes where I have been teaching for many years. If I were one of them who develops university programmes, I would priorities professional development programmes for university teachers. I would say at least my campus could develop such programmes for faculties and administration staff for upgrading their skills and knowledge and for improving academic activities of the campus. Similar to Western universities, I have observed that my university needs to emphasise conferences, seminars, workshops, orientation and visiting programs. Academic activities particularly research and publication, which promote the university, would develop individual teacher’s professional personality and institution. I wish I would have such opportunities for participating and developing my academic knowledge and skills.
TPD in Community Campus
There is mixed perception about autonomy of institutions for the educational performance. Crossroad conversations in Nepal lead to criticisms against the current system of university management, a single body governance over all universities, which has spoilt educational quality. However, all the community campuses in the country are autonomous in their management as they rely on students’ fees similar to private colleges. Does this matter in educational achievement? Many may argue that autonomous institutions can develop better and perform outstanding like the ones which are totally privately managed. Why are the majority of community campuses not able to perform at the level of private colleges? There is always a strong financial support for community campuses from University Grants Commission although they are autonomous. Does this make any difference in academic performance? If so, why are they unable to demonstrate educational qualities in results and academic activities? These areas can subject to researches in Nepal. Regarding TPD of the teachers of community campuses, I believe that teachers themselves need to understand their professional role and development of their professionalism, and they need to explore learning opportunities for their own career. . They need to be conscious and enthusiastic to take different training for their own professional development. However, there is always a greater role of institution to inspire teachers to find professional opportunities.
Conclusion
Qualification is of course a valid document to join an academy, but it is not all that can work throughout one’s professional life. With the changing context, an academy needs to upgrade own life skills for the place where he has been working and is going to work. An academic tutoring hundreds of students has a great role to change their lives whereas an institution has a greater role to all-round development of many youth generation and the country itself. Therefore, universities have to provide academics with options of professional development so that they can contribute to the development of institution and society.
References
Gnawali, L. (2008). Teacher development: What is it and who is responsible? Bodhi: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2(1), 219-223.
Pennington, M. C. (1990). A professional development focus for the language teaching practicum. In J. C. Richards and D. Nunan (Eds.) Second language teachereducation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pokhrel, T. R., and Behera, S. K. (2016), Expectations of Teachers from Teachers Professional Development Program in Nepal. American Journal of Educational Research, 4 (2), 190-194. doi: 10.12691/education-4-2-6
Wajnryb, R. (1992). Classroom observation tasks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The author:
Nani Babu Ghimire is a lecturer at Siddha Jyoti Education campus Sindhuli, (TU) Nepal. He is currently an MPhil scholar in English education at Tribhuvan University.
Moving forward with ELTChoutari.com rejoicing new years and new tastes of academic curries, here we come with new issue of the online magazine. While saying big bye to 2018 and wishing Happy New Year 2019 to you, the editorial board would like to thank millions of readers and those who have contributed something to the magazine in the past ten years and so. We would like to express our gratitude to the past editors for giving birth to Choutari and their invaluable effort to give it a shape. On this occasion, Dr Sharma, Dr Phyak and Bal Ram Adhikari also share their reflections on the journey, contributions and the future of ELTChoutari.com. We, Karna Rana, Jeevan Karki, Ashok Raj Khati and Praveen Kumar Yadav, the current editors, would like to collectively extend sincere gratitude to millions of readers who have ever supported us and many other writers by reading varieties of articles published on this magazine and by providing feedback to develop our works. Your continuous support has ever made us promising academics and ever inspired to volunteer our time and effort to promote this magazine and we hope you continue your academic activities and share your reflections in the future issues of this magazine.
In the previous ten volumes, ELTChoutari.com has published teachers’ experiences of learning and teaching English, university students’ reflections on their academic writing, researchers’ views, ideas, arguments and suggestions on improving academic productions and teacher trainers’ experiences of training Nepali teachers to teach the English language in public schools. Particularly English as a medium of instruction(EMI) in government schools in Nepal, teachers’ poor English, under-developed research culture in Nepal, learning to research, teaching writing skills, unclear language policy, ICT in the classroom teaching, and reflections on learning and teaching English have attracted the attention of thousands of readers in the past 89 issues of this magazine. We believe that the writings would have positive influence on academic activities of teachers, students and professionals. Also, this magazine would have contributed something positive in policy making, language planning, classroom teaching and research writing.
ELTChoutari.com, an open online magazine, allows professionals, researchers, teachers and students from across the world to share their writings as few issues in the past have published international articles from various countries such as India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, Jordon, Ghana, and so on. Many articles published in various issues have received good impact with citations in standard peer-reviewed journals. We hope the magazine will have much brighter days in the future.
This issue includes various reflective writings including instinct responses from the founder editors, teachers, ELT practitioners and workshop participants’ (the participants attending the reflective writing workshop the last month) on-the-spot lived reflections on reflective writing.
While releasing this issue, we take the pleasure of welcoming and introducing two new energetic colleagues Babita Sharma Chapagain and Ganesh Kumar Bastola.
Babita Sharma Chapagain is a Hornby Scholar (University of Warwick, UK, 2014/15) having completed MA in ELT and Master’s degree in ELT from Kathmandu University. She is a freelance teacher educator from Nepal having gained 15 years experience of working as a teacher and teacher trainer. She also brings in experiences of writing and reviewing articles.
Likewise, Ganesh Kumar Bastola is an M. Phil graduate from Kathmandu University in English Language Education. He is a teacher, teacher educator, and researcher and translation practitioner, who also brings writing and reviewing experiences.
They will work together on our editorial team.
Finally we, the current editorial team, would like to thank the contributors in this issue and founding editors for their continuous support. Jeevan Karki, a leading member of our editorial team, deserves special thanks for his overall support in this issue. Thank you Ashok Raj Khati and Praveen Kumar Yadav for your cooperation. We hope we will have brighter days ahead.
Generally, pedagogical capital is the capability of teaching effectively to the learners by applying various methods and techniques such as pair work, project work, group work, power-point presentation, etc. In this reflective narrative, I will share my journey of gaining pedagogical capital as an English teacher while also aligning my reflection with the available literature.
Prologue
It is very hard for me to visualise how teachers would come to my classroom when I was schooling but when I joined higher education (+2), I found my English teacher having an attractive outlook. Perhaps, I thought, a very impressionistic ideology he had. He would immediately start delivering his lectures. The classroom would be pin-drop silent, he was only the all-in-all inside the classroom. There was no autonomy of questioning in the classroom. After my +2 graduation, I became a private school English teacher. Since I was guided by my teacher’s philosophy, my prior focus remained on how I could be the best kind of teacher as my teacher was. I practised the same practice I learned from my mentor. My classroom would also be silent because I wanted to be as strict as my teacher was. Later on, when I was called by the school principal to report the student progress and achievements, I had no words to explain. I tried my best to know how to teach but I never tried to know how they would learn better. Then, I realised that I did not facilitate them to put forward their views and also I did not encourage them to practise in a pair or in groups.
Recollecting Experiences
I became quite aware of the philosophical construct of Lovat (2003) who quotes pedagogy as ”a highly complex blend of theoretical understanding and practical skill” (p. 1). More specifically, I envisaged theoretical ideas into my classroom to reflect my own practice blending different assets of language teaching in the context of Nepal.
Finally, I realised that the conventional practices of teaching and learning were counterproductive in my classroom because my teaching hardly transferred knowledge, rarely practised innovative thoughts and didn’t use internet sources and electronic devices to facilitate learners in the digital era of 21st century. I knew technology facilities to my learners would increase their learning habits. Moreover, it is primarily expected to use power-point presentation, bring online mode of learning and practise technology blended teaching-learning activities in the 21st-century classroom. Enriching teachers’ experiences and shaping the way we do is always embarking on behalf of the learners. I experienced there must be mutual understanding, positive attitudes, pedagogical reasoning for every teacher, thereby; they can offer various effective strategies in their classroom.
As I already confessed that I didn’t allow my students to make noise in the classroom. I either facilitated them to practice in group/pair or encouraged them to work in projects. I hardly paid proper attention to the sitting arrangement of the students in the classroom. Time passed by, I happened to consult various e-sources and learned various activities to empower my students. I made them work in groups. Every weekend I organised cyclical sitting arrangement. I realised cyclical sitting arrangement would really foster positive vibrant in lower level. I also tried to bring innovative ideas of language games and strategies. More specifically, I facilitated them with ‘Chaining Stories’, ‘Word Linkage’, ‘Essay writing’ and ‘Storing Vocabulary’ etc. to improve their language learning proficiency in lower level. I consulted different websites and pages such as ‘Coursera’, Learn on Demand’, etc. to practice in the higher level classroom. I realised blending the philosophical notions and the theoretical praxis could be the innovative ways of empowering learners. I also realised that I had not gained much pedagogical capital during those days.
I experienced that the philosophical constructs of teaching have not only been the notion of bread and butter rather it has been the aesthetic part of human life. Teaching, in some point of time in history, was taken as absolute phenomena. The teacher would be all-in-all. The teachers were treated as the great persons who deserve to know everything and their every advocacy would be correct in spite of the fact that they were wrong. But unfortunately, it does not currently exist.
Teachers’ Pedagogical Capital
In course of my learning as a teacher I linked the two terms Pedagogy (comes from education) and Capital (comes from the economy) to recapitulate its cognitive layer and the educational intelligibility. More specifically, I explored as to how I gained the greater amount of exposure to contribute to my storehouse. I began theorising any asset an individual owns is capital since there are different forms of capital such as economic, human, educational, pedagogical, professional, materialistic, cultural and symbolic, etc. Bourdieu (1998) claims that economically any property an individual owns is economic capital and any educational asset which an individual owns is educational capital. Therefore, for me, pedagogical capital refers to the profound knowledge that a teacher gains in his/her subject. Thus, I envisaged that the teaching and learning activities are always grounded on the belief system of teachers where their perceptions, knowledge, and realisation become the key components to impart knowledge in favour of the students. So, I questioned myself about my own profound knowledge about subject matter.
I also experienced different types of problem and employed some strategies to overcome students’ problems in the classroom such as guidance and counselling, focusing on practical activities, motivation, and encouragement, raising awareness, and telling success stories, etc. I also developed sharing culture among and between students. In doing so, the students at the lower level had to share their diaries and students at the higher level had to share their experiences or success stories or other events. Realising the classroom culture, I developed classroom planning. I designed communicative activities to improve their communication skills in lower level and games to teach content effectively. Moreover, in case of a higher level, I began teaching using power-point slides. I stopped my lecture method and initiated student-centred approaches in which students freely put forward their views and understanding. I divided the whole course content among students and asked them to prepare and present themselves, which resulted in the main benefits for them. The first is to know about the content in detail and the second is to learn presentation skills in a standard format at the higher level. I began guidance and counselling as positive tools at the higher level. For adult learners in higher level, I very often motivated them towards their study. I provided plenty of reference materials for my students collecting from different sources.
Munro (2007) emphasises that the pedagogical knowledge base of teachers includes all the required cognitive knowledge for creating effective teaching and learning environments. I realised if I needed cognitive skills to teach my lessons. Following Yousif and Aasen (2015), I considered teachers as the analytical thinkers and realised that they have a crucial role in their professional life. Eventually, I got opportunities to teach at university campuses and I learned teachings from professional forums, conferences, seminars, workshops, etc. to develop the proficiency of my students. I not only followed what my mentors did but also I practised innovative styles to contextualise in our Nepali classrooms. I gradually joined several online groups such as Facebook group, internet channel, skyping, twitter, blogs, etc. I integrated cell phone in the classroom teaching at a private institution. It was a great challenge for me, however, I was able to convince the campus administration. It really helped me empower my students and self to grow professionally.
Moreover, there were some issues left to address. Ahmad et al. (2012) argue that classroom teaching has issues not due to the learners alone but due to the lack of the teachers’ competency to create the setting, to decorate the classroom appropriately and to speak to the children clearly and to respond to their questions. Due to teachers’ pedagogical richness, they very often address the issues in the classroom but sometimes they fail to address those issues because of different circumstances. Of course, I realised students had different problems such as psychological, linguistic, physical, disciplinary, academic, etc. Additionally, I confronted with different issues such as classroom setting arrangement, students’ disruptive behaviours, teachers’ lack of planning and preparation, etc. in the classroom. For addressing classroom issues, I repeatedly used guidance, counselling, motivation, threat/treat, encouragement, focusing on different practical activities, technology-oriented teaching, student-centred approach, sharing success stories and experiences, etc. Thus, I understood a pedagogically enriched teacher is to have content, confidence, continuation, collaboration, coordination and technological awareness to grow professionally.
Therefore, I earned my pedagogical capital rationalising the huge evidence of my own learning as a student and a practitioner teacher. I implemented my own pedagogies succinctly, for example, preparing proper lesson planning before going to the classroom, consulting my seniors and various sources and being updated and upgraded in my own repertoire. I fundamentally valued teachers’ pedagogical knowledge which includes teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment, etc. Thus, I didn’t impose my vested interest on students because I knew my increasing experiential knowledge would help me disseminate content better day by day.
Conclusion
In course of my teaching journey, I gained actual knowledge of English language and how to teach the language.
Moreover, I perceived the use of different methods/ strategies enable teachers to be determined, rigorous and professional. I am with those teachers who consider the internet as a good source of learning. Teachers’ technological awareness and experiences help them apply modern pedagogies in the classroom. It is believed that experience contributes to one’s pedagogical storehouse. Teacher’s self-reflection develops their pedagogical capital.
*Ganesh Kumar Bastola is an M. Phil graduate of Kathmandu University in English Language Education. He is a teacher, teacher educator, and researcher and translation practitioner.
References
Ahmad-Shaari, M. Z., Jamil, H., & Razak, N.A. (2012). Exploring the classroom practices of productive pedagogies of the Malaysian secondary school geography teacher. Review of International Geographical Education Online, 2, 2.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason: On the theory of action. California, CA: Stanford University Press.
Lovat, T. J. (2003). The role of the teacher coming of age. Australian Council Deans of Education. Discussion Paper, 2003.
Munro, J. (2007). Pedagogical capital: An essential concept (and tool) for effective school leaders. Seminar paper. Jolimont, Vic.: Centre for Strategic Education.
Yousif, A. H., & Aasen, S. F. (2015.). Ways of making teachers’ pedagogical capital visible and useful. Journal of Workplace Learning, 27(5), 332-344.
The main purpose of most language courses today is to facilitate communication in the target language, formulating a successful and effective lesson plan becomes indispensable. The idea of how to prepare a successful and effective lesson plan fundamentally depends on the alignment of assessment activity with the objective(s) of a lesson plan. This piece of writing deliberates on the different parts of effective lesson design and assessment and keeping the discussion into consideration, a sample of lesson design and assessment has been provided. Even though the current discussion focuses on the classroom teaching activities at the tertiary level, the same lesson plan and assessment can be applied in other classrooms at different levels with minor adaptation.
Firstly, an ELT (English Language Teaching) professional needs to have a clear picture of putting those actions words/verbs that would fit his or her in the portion of the lesson objective(s). In addition, he or she needs to know that his or her lesson plan objective encompasses a clear statement of measurable outcomes which can be achieved by providing action words, such as ‘identify’, ‘state’, or ‘demonstrate’, not words like ‘comprehend’, ‘feel’, ‘learn’, etc. since the latter cannot be measured or evaluated.
Furthermore, an ELT practitioner needs to have knowledge of an effective warm-up activity and its objectives. Then, he or she needs to investigate whether his or her warm-up activity makes an attempt to get students’ attention, recall of prior learning, and introduce new ideas and connect these ideas to the past learning. Likewise, an English teacher (ESL/EFL) also requires to include objectives, which consist specific aims of the lesson.
Moreover, an EFL/ESL teacher needs to have knowledge of “instruct and model” while formulating his or her lesson plan; under “instruct and model”, he or she needs to apply the use of teacher talk, to know how to keep things conversational, and to employ activities that would make the instruction sticky (memorable, usable, durable). He or she necessitates having the knowledge of either using traditional modelling (teach, model, question) or inductive reasoning (model, infer, elaborate).
In addition, we as English teachers require to understand the importance of “guided practice” and “independent practice” that would be included in our lesson design. Under “independent practice”, English teachers (EFL/ESL) should check and allow students to show that they have understood the instruction provided by the teachers. Finally, under “assessment” activity, an ELT practitioner needs to check that his or her assessment activity is aligned with the objective, and the assessment activity is authentic (The situations, where the students are placed in during the assessment, are as similar as possible, to situations they may encounter outside the classroom).
Now, here is a sample of such a lesson design and assessment to have a better understanding of the ways that could be employed while formulating a lesson design and assessment.
A sample of a lesson design and assessment
Basic
Intermediate
√ Advanced
Theme: travel
Objective: Students will be able to use the simple past tense to describe and write a paragraph describing their travelling experiences in Bangladesh.
Business/Materials: Pictures, videos and question prompts and model paragraph
A warm-up activity: I would place some pictures of attractive and historical visiting places of Bangladesh on the whiteboard E.g. the pictures of St. Martin Island of Bangladesh and the Red Fort of Mughal Empire in Dhaka city. Then, I would show the video clip of “beautiful Bangladesh”, prepared by the government of Bangladesh.
I would mention the pictures of other places we discussed in our previous class to relate to the previous lesson. Then, I would ask my students whether they can recognize the pictures and places of Bangladesh and provide positive feedback to those willing to speak.
Asking questions is one of the ways of triggering the recall of prior knowledge; thus, it would bridge old to new information.
I would also draw students’ attention to the written prompt on the whiteboard by offering a quote from St. Agustine:
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”.
An example of prompt:
Level
Theme
Prompt (Statement)
Advanced
Travel
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. Agree or Disagree?
I would ask them whether they agree or disagree with the statement. In addition, as my students are in the advanced level, I would ask them “What do you think this quote has to do with what we talk about today?”
I would ask them to write their agreement or disagreement in their notebooks. Then, I would record their answers on the whiteboard and provide them feedback (mostly encouraging ones)
I would write a phrase ‘travelling experiences in Bangladesh” and ask them (by getting their feedback) to relate the discussion of some beautiful places of the previous class. After that, I would ask them whether their experiences were pleasant or bitter. I would mention the probable reasons for having mixed experiences and concerning issues, like safety, accommodation, food problems and so on. I would make some groups and ask them to discuss various points among themselves and come up with answers by brainstorming. Likewise, I would record their answers on the whiteboard and offer them feedback.
I would mention that we were going to discuss more on the travelling experiences in Bangladesh and write in a paragraph ensuring there is the topic sentence, supporting details and concluding the sentence.
Objective Discussion
I would ask my students whether they would like to go abroad for their further study. If they would like to, they need to sit for international language testing systems (e.g. IELTS, TOEFL) or any other competitive tests for the job search in Bangladesh. In these tests, they need to write some paragraphs. Then I would motivate them my writing class would be helpful for them to learn the structure of paragraphs (*this is important for the objective) and practice developing good paragraphs.
I would tell my students that they are going to learn the basic structure of paragraph writing and provide them with a model of a narrative paragraph with topic sentence and three supporting details with the use of transition words, and finally, tell them about the concluding sentences. The model would help them to internalise the structure of the paragraph. (*This is for specific details/instructional objectives). I would ask them whether they can relate or differentiate the structure of the previous lessons and the present one.
I would mention here about the structure of other types (for example, descriptive or cause-effect type of paragraph writing) of a paragraph in from the previous lessons. Then, I would ask them if they would be able to differentiate between or among the types of structures of paragraph writing (*this is for the check for understanding).
I would ask them to get ready for the next class whether they would be asked for a paragraph writing impromptu in the class. Similarly, the evaluation of their wring will lead to their final grading. (*This is for stating the objective)
Instruct and Model
Even though I would prefer using the inductive reasoning (model, infer, and elaborate), I would wait for quite some time to see whether my students would be able to grasp (wait for an opportune time) before providing the models of the paragraphs.
First, I would tell them a very popular folk story about a king and his four daughters (narration of a story is to keep things conversational). I would ask them whether they could come up with any structure of the story. I would note the responses on the (teacher talk: using board work to introduce the topic). I would clarify that a story generally has a beginning, middle, and ending; so does a paragraph have (use of analogy). I would repeat those key sentences and check their understanding (teacher talk: repetition). I have chosen the story keeping the objective of the lesson plan in mind. The story uses the past tense; as I am going to focus on the use of past tense in the paragraph writing.
After that, I would show my students some of the models of paragraphs using multimedia and I would also give them hard copies (photocopies) of the models of paragraphs (more than one) from the Book by John Langan (part of teacher modelling) to my students, and also my prepared samples of paragraphs (‘Sharing your own work so that students can see what you have done’ is a part of teacher modelling) for suiting the learning of past tense and a structure of a paragraph. I would ask my students whether they can see any beginning, middle, and a concluding part of a paragraph (the analogy is a part of teacher talk). I would provide them copies the model of paragraphs and form some pairs or groups (‘Giving students a problem to solve in pairs or groups’ is an example of inductive reasoning) to do the brainstorming to figure out the structure of the paragraph.
After getting my students’ feedback (‘Getting feedback’ is a part of keeping classes conversational), I would write the main concept on the whiteboard; ‘topic sentence’, ‘supporting points’, and ‘concluding sentence’. Then I would emphasise the following:
Topic sentence of a paragraph: the main idea of a paragraph is known as a topic sentence. The two parts of a topic sentence is called subject and the controlling idea.
Supporting point/details: when we provide the main idea of a paragraph, it must be supported by three main points. Each supporting point needs to have an idea that supports the topic sentence
Concluding sentence: the paragraph is summarized with a concluding sentence. In this part of the paragraph, a new concept or idea is not introduced but the idea the topic sentence is rephrased using the transition words.
I would also mention or elicit the importance of using transition words, such as using ‘firstly’ with first supporting point and ‘secondly’ with second supporting point and ‘finally’ with concluding sentence (sign post expressions).
I would ask my students (‘asking questions’ is a part of teacher talk) whether they can compare and relate the three things mentioned in the story and in the models provided. By asking questions, I would check whether they have understood my elicitation (‘Elicit reactions and responses from your students’ is a part of keeping classes conversational); even sometimes students say that they have understood, I would repeat (‘clarifying and elaborating when students don’t understand’ is part of teacher talk). My experience shows that repeating the same concept more than once help students remember the concept better and use for a long time (As the learning sticks, it becomes usable and durable). All through my lecture, I would use warm language and speak clearly if any of my students fail to understand.
Guided Practice
Since I would be working on a paragraph writing unlike an essay writing, I would pick up the three parts (topic sentence, supporting points and a concluding sentence) of a paragraph writing as a whole under my guided practice in the class.
Firstly, I would mention “A topic sentence is”, and ask one from one group of my students to complete the required information of the sentence, and then I would inform “there are three supporting points in a paragraph”, and invite others from other groups of students to complete the three supporting points. The same goes for “the concluding sentence” (A teacher-led activity includes responses from a variety of students; it also encompasses starting a sentence and inviting students to complete the sentence). For each correct response, I would give them “thumbs up” and encourage them to speak more if they would be able to add up more information.
Less Guided Practice
After that, I would divide my students into different groups, and I would provide some samples of topic sentences (without three supporting points and concluding sentence-‘backwards fading’) to one group (group 1) and some samples of paragraphs with topic sentence and three supporting points without concluding sentence to other three groups (group 2, 3 and 4). Under the instruction and model section of lesson template, I have already provided the models of a structured paragraph to all my students. As the strength of my class is around 30, I would make 5 groups. I would ask my group 1 to deal with a topic sentence (to discuss the two parts of a topic sentence; the subject and the controlling idea). Then the other three groups; 2, 3, and 4 would deal with each of three supporting points (the use of transition word and the idea that supports the topic sentence), and the group 5 to discuss on the concluding sentence of a paragraph (to come up with the idea of rephrasing the topic sentence and use of transition words, and not to introduce new concept or idea again). I would give low-performing students the most difficult task under each group and ensure that groups are of mixed levels and abilities. While my students are working on their assigned task, I would go round the class, observe, and ask them to see if they needed any support. (‘Walking around the room, checking work and answering questions’ are known as facilitators of independent practices).
I would make sure that each group would have a scribe to jot down the summary of their discussion, a spokesperson to present the summary of the group work and a controller to ensure that everybody is taking active participation in the group activity. I would give 10 minutes for each group to discuss and prepare for the presentation and give three minutes to present their work.
Independent Practice
I would ask each group to present their work in the class (students give a presentation relating new information to the class’- an example of independent practice activity). After finding that they are able to get the fundamentals of the structure of a paragraph, I would ask each student to write a paragraph on their travelling experiences abroad (or different places of Bangladesh or similar topics) as home task, and they would make sure that their experiences and writing would be different from one another. Then I would ask them to submit their home tasks in my pigeon hole one day before the next class (Generally, in my institution, students get one or two days break before the next class). I would check all the home tasks before going to my next class.
I would provide feedback on the written tasks and discuss any improvements required for them (with positive and motivating words). In addition, I would ask them to submit their write- up again at the end of the class.
Assessment
From the objective of my above lesson, it can be gauged that the lesson assessment would relate to knowledge learning, not memory learning (recalling). The objective of my lesson plan is to teach my students how to write a paragraph, so I would provide them the actual model of a paragraph in my assessment before the final examination; as a result, this task would be authentic and require them to apply their learning of writing the paragraph. By doing this, I would be able to assess that students should be able to transfer classroom knowledge to the real world; for example, at the time when they would go for different examinations in writing paragraphs in English.
After finishing the independent practice (which is a part of formative assessment-given below) [in my class] mentioned above, I would take a test (which would be upgraded; and the reason for that is that in order to get the best idea of performance of the students, a teacher does not need to grade everything that students do in the class) on a paragraph writing, providing the outline of a paragraph. A sample of such a test is given below:
Instructions: Write a paragraph within 150 words on the basis of the outlines provided. You will have 15 minutes to complete the task.
I had experienced some wonderful memories while travelling the picturesque island of Saint Martin in Bangladesh. (Topic sentence). Firstly, (the first reason) —————————————————————————————————————————————————. Secondly, (the second reason) ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————. Finally, (the third reason) ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-. Moreover, (concluding sentence) ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————–.
This type of assessment would help us understand that the students would have higher order thinking (analyse, evaluate and create) since such as assessment requires them to talk what they know about a topic, and what the structure and organisation of a paragraph, and combine the two into a coherent product.
I would also provide them with a scoring rubric for a paragraph writing; as a result, they would be able to have a clear picture of how their work would be evaluated in their final examination.
Name: …………………………………………… Score: ……….. /10
Criteria
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Formatting
The paragraph has proper indentation ½ inch
Mechanics
Use of Tense
Uniformity of the tense
Spelling
No spelling errors
Content
Task Fulfilment
Clearly demonstrates the use of past tense and his or her experiences
Quality
Carefully written
Body paragraph
Provided all the three supporting points in details
Cohesion and coherence
Ideas are connected to each other
Summary
Restates the main idea (the topic sentence); no new ideas are introduced again
Errors
Very few errors that do not interfere with the meaning of the sentence
Total: ……/10
*Dr. Hasan is the assistant professor, English, English Language Institute, in the United International University, Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh. You can reach him at: md_kamrul_hasan@ahsgs.uum.edu.my
These days, teaching has been my passion though I was not clear about my profession when I initially joined this job. Now I have been striving for the improvements in my profession so that I can update myself of the latest. I can experience a lot of changes taking place in the field of teaching and learning globally. So, I’m interested in exploring the modern trends in English Language Teaching (ELT). While talking about modern trends, I’m focusing on the techno-friendly. My experience says that students are more curious about techno-based learning. Students are found more curious and attentive in digital-based teaching-learning compared to the traditional lecture or book-based teaching method. Hence, these circumstances drive my mind for exploring modern trends in ELT.
I always focused my interest on teaching and practised it in a normal way, but it was the day when I brought a poem from YouTube entitled, “I Wandered Lonely as Cloud” by William Wordsworth for High School students particularly for Class 10 compulsory English. My teaching took a new turn. I made my students listen to the poem through YouTube in the classroom. It was a nice video with clear audio backed by thematic pictures to help the students catch the theme easily. Here, students learned speaking skills such as pronunciation, enjoyed the rhythm and also practised English reading by following the records. This made the students excited to tell the summary of the poem and then do the exercises given in it. More than that the interesting part was finding the students humming the lines from that poem. Students who were often engaged in math-science work were humming the poem with perfect music. So, this particular event touched me a lot and made me realise the importance of technology in class and further motivated me to explore the other ways using technology in the classroom.
For instance, I commonly use British Council website and app as the supportive digital education materials, which are convenient for achieving learning outcomes. Here I used British Council learn English site, which is for all level, Kids to University, here I used Learn English Teens level with exercise sheet for dialogue and equally I used British Council Podcast which is an app and could be used at any time without internet after we download it. While teaching a dialogue, tuning audio record of the dialogue was more productive than just my lecture as the high school students started speaking naturally. Then I started bringing audio clips of dialogues in the classroom, they started learning the conversation in a real sense with the use of figurative language, gesture, mood and many more. Hence, they not only participated in conversation but also developed writing competency than before.
Nowadays, I have been searching for and adopting the technology in my class to yield more learning outcome than before. Technology has been a part of my teaching which eases my teaching and plays a supportive role for students using technology in my class.
*Ram Chandra Pokhrel, is a high school teacher of English language at Him Rashmi High School, Dandagoun, Tarakeshwor – 9, Kathmandu.
I worked as an English language teacher, then worked as a teacher trainer. Now I have taken the new role of basic reading skills development expert in the Nepali language! Actually, it has been an interesting experience for me to work in the teaching-learning of both languages. Now, I am now trying to see how English language teaching can help Nepali and vice-versa. With the recent development of the five component- based reading approach around the world, the focus of reading skill development in native language has been shifted. And the latest approach is giving better results. In this post, I am trying to explore the trends and gaps in reading skills teaching in English language and share some encouraging changes in the reading skills in the early graders in the Nepali language. Finally, I propose to borrow the five component- based reading approach from the Nepali language classrooms into the English classrooms.
Reading skills in English language classroom
Though the curriculum states English as the second language in the classroom, there are students from many different backgrounds, which makes Nepali the second language for them and English after that. In a way, it is taught and practised as the foreign language. One of the general objectives of primary level English curriculum (Primary Education Curriculum, 2063) is “…to help them develop enthusiasm for reading so that they will be responsive and knowledgeable readers” On the other hand, one of the objectives of reading in early grades (1 to 3) is to “put sounds together to read words and sentences and read words and simple sentences, and understand them.” English teaching as a subject in early grade aims of developing students’ ability to use English effectively in real life situation as per the national curriculum framework of Nepal.
As the curriculum suggests teaching-learning activity is to be based on oral-situation-approach. However, during my time of working closely with teachers and students as well as the close observation of teaching-learning in classrooms, I found only a handful of teachers using target language i.e. oral situational approach in the classrooms and most of them use the grammar-translation method to deliver the lessons. Mostly, teachers are active and take more talking time in the learning process, while students are passive receivers and get no or insufficient time to use or practice the language in the classroom. As a result, students learn about the language only not the language itself. During the lessons, for instance in alphabet teaching, teachers ask students to follow him/her like, a… for apple, b… for ball, c… for cat… The early graders are provided with the Nepali translations of new words from the teachers and they are also supposed to mug up the meaning of a particular word in Nepali. Even teaching chant is done in a very unsystematic way where students read chant like reading any other text. Yes, read not sing! Students are seen decoding the letters but cannot decode (read) words or utter them at once. On the other hand, those who decode do not understand the meaning. In my observation, a very few numbers of teachers engage students inchild-centredd activities as prescribed by the curriculum. Group work, pair work and other learning strategies with specific learning tasks are very rare in the classroom activities. As the most popular strategies the teacher uses are; explain unfamiliar words and text in Nepali, read aloud, choral reading, reading by a few students, and answers the comprehension questions using the grammar-translation method. During my observation, I found few measurable gaps in teaching English in early grades (1-3) such as;
Less exposure of English language: Not only the students get less exposure to use the target language in the classroom but teachers themselves use handful expressions of English. Few short expressions of English is used such as stand up, come in, ok, you read, did you understand, now read, your turn, turn page no are the most common expressions as the classroom language.
Focus only on teaching items rather than skills: The teachers only cover the teaching items of the textbook where they focus only on the contents. They are less aware of the basic reading skills such as phonological awareness, concepts of print, letter-sound association and blending of sounds, syllable reading, vocabulary building, comprehension and fluency.
Comprehension teaching is less focused: The main emphasis of teaching is mostly based on the drills and deliver the meaning of the whole text in Nepali. Although reading comprehension is regarded as the essential part of reading, it is mostly neglected during the lesson. Actually, teachers read the text and write the answers on the board and students are asked to copy that. Now the question is who is learning here- teacher or students? Students are not prepared to strengthen their reading comprehension.
Nevertheless, a few good examples of letter recognition is seen in English learning. Few teachers were seen using readymade domino game to link relationship with sound and letter. Students were able to utter correct pronunciation of English letters after the domino practice. They were able to decode the letters in words. When it comes to the matter of word reading, a few students were able to decode words with proper pronunciation. Generally, they were able to decode the monosyllabic words such as bus, high, red etc. but had difficulty in multi-syllabic words. In my observations, I found most of the teachers struggling in making students read words at once. In addition, teachers are struggling to develop vocabulary, reading fluency, and reading comprehension in students.
Reading skills in Nepali language classroom
While working closely with teachers and students and closely observing the Nepali language classes, I found some changes in teaching the Nepali language. First, there is an extension of time for the Nepali language in schools. With the emphasis of giving more inputs and exposure of Nepali language to students, two periods a day is allocated for it. Second, a new approach called five components based learning approach is used in teaching the Nepali language. And third, a new strategy called gradual release of responsibility is used in teaching learning process.
Now let me basically share about the five component based reading with a short account of classroom activities and the gradual release of responsibility strategy. The five component- based reading includes phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, reading fluency and reading comprehension.
Teachers start his/her ninety-minute class with the everyday lesson with Phonemic Awareness activities like sound recognition, blending syllables into words and segmenting words into syllables. Then they gradually move to Phonics activities like introducing letter, its corresponding sound and possible words that it comes with. In addition, they involve students in stroke writing, syllables (Brahakhari) reading, word reading and reading a short decodable text. Moving onto the next component of Vocabulary, teachers introduce the vocabulary before presenting a decodable text/story. They introduce three new words with proper pronunciation, meaning and use in a sentence. Then the students are asked to read the text/story to improve their reading Fluency followed by necessary support and model reading from the teacher. Then to assess the reading Comprehension, teachers use factual and inferential questions. Finally, to test the students reading and writing skill, teachers use dictation technique.
In order to teach these components, teachers use the Gradual Release Responsibility strategy. There is basically three phase of presenting a learning item according to this strategy. At first, the teacher demonstrates the new skill of language for a few times, which is known as “I do”. During this time, students are only supposed to watch and listen to the teachers. Then the teacher and students practice the skill together, which is known as “We do”. Finally, the students are given the responsibility to demonstrate the new language skills, while the teacher observes closely and supports them. This phase is known as “You do”. This concept is developed to transfer the new skills of language from teacher to student in a non- threatening way. After all, the ultimate goal of teaching is to enable students to demonstrate knowledge and skills themselves. Gradual release of responsibility believes that students should be presented with a good demonstration of what the teachers expect from them. Then the teacher should slowly engage students in the activity. This phase is mostly teacher guided but both teacher and students are involved. Finally, the students are asked to practice and demonstrate the skill. This concept can be illustrated in the following figure:
Gradual Release of Responsibility- Pearson & Gallagher (1983)
Student learning in the class
I was surprised to see that most of the students in classrooms were able to decode the taught letters and bring themselves into storybooks of different genres from classroom corner library. Teachers, on the other hand, were seen feeling comfortable in doing the lesson in a structured way. They shared that they had never ever experienced such a learning environment in the classroom since they begin to teach the Nepali language. And they believe that this approach is significantly supporting even the students from non- Nepali background to learn Nepali in a better way.
In the follow-up discussion, the teachers expressed that a majority of students have been dropping out from schools when they reach the upper grades. They also revealed that the majority of droppers could not read the text properly and comprehend the meaning. Consequently, they feel ashamed, disheartened, ignored and are punished in many cases and leave the school. Those who continue their education struggle to achieve better.
Researches have shown that students who do not learn to read in the early grades are more likely to repeat the grade. Those who are upgraded are more likely to drop out of school. In Nepal, if 100 students enroll in grade one, only 30% of them stay in school till the end of their school education. About 70% of students drop out of the school system. It is believed that this horrible situation will lessen once they get competency over the language during their early grades and achieve overall academic success.
Achieving the objectives of the English language curriculum primarily in early grade is inevitable in order to retain the students in upper grades. If students cannot achieve competency over the English language in early grades, their academic success in upper grades cannot be ensured. To address the lacking part in English learning and make the students competent reader in English, Nepal government should introduce five components based reading approach as the core approach to teaching language in early grades. As discussed with cases of Nepali language above, students in this approach get good opportunity to practice reading skills in a carefully guided environment. Moreover, it controls teachers from being active every time and gradually releases the responsibility of learning from teacher to students.
References:
Curriculum Development Centre (2007). Primary Education Curriculum (in Nepali). Curriculum Development Centre, Ministry of Education.
Pearson, P. D. and M. C. Gallagher, (1983).The Instruction of Reading Comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, (8), 317-344.
* Mr Koirala is an MA from Tribhuvan University. He has been working in the capacity of literacy officer in an organization. His area of interest also includes writing, theatre performance and art.
Many formal and informal discussions emphasize that developing EFL reading at public schools of Nepal is challenging. In this narrative writing, I am therefore trying to investigate the existing scenario of EFL reading in our public school, its impact on developing reading habits and some hints for promoting it.
Let me share an incident that took place in my class. I asked a student to read a simple reading text. In the beginning, he was ready but he tried a little and stopped. I asked him why he stopped but he had no answer to it. He felt insulted in front of the class and flushed in anxiety. At first, he thought he could but as he tried he couldn’t because his reading skill did not support him. Majority of the students who belonged to public school had a similar story (perhaps, still have), a sad story of having difficulty in reading an English textbook fluently. This story reminded me to recall my first stumbling days where I put my full effort, mind and heart to memorize those individual letters ABC…XYZ without knowing what reading actually means. So, till the date, I remember the interesting way of our reading. We were taught to read word meaning in such a way, h-o-u-s-e- house mane (means) ‘ghar’ and gradually started to read sentences.
Reflecting back to those days, what I feel now is that our reading in my time was probably focused on developing the ability to read English alphabets. Later, it was associated with the production of words and sentences than context, meaning and many more. So based on my experience as an ELT practitioner, I do not find any significant difference between past and today. No doubt that reading is definitely a skill, an active skill along with other three fundamental skills of language. Some studies (e.g Dabarera et.al, 2014; Ismail, 2015& Lee, 2012) related to reading skill reported that reading is one of the significant skills foreign language students need to learn for academic success in English. . .
Firstly, we were taught in Nepali even in English language class. Our teacher translated English text into learners’ native language (Nepali) as far as possible. As a result, we are compelled to think in Nepali and literally translated the language into English. This process involved the use of grammar-translation method in language learning and we are still practising it (nani dekhi lageko bani). In our English class, our English teachers used to explain the text into Nepali and asked us to memorize the difficult word meaning. When he taught a lesson, he followed the ethics of grammar-translation method. He read the text and translated into Nepali language, so did the students. Thus, we never felt that it was our English class and we were reading in English. On the other hand, we felt bored like my SEE students when their teacher starts giving a lecture in English class. The interesting thing happened in both classes (classes of my time and now) were similar where students requested their teacher to tell the text into Nepali. In this respect, I would like to add a statement of my SEE student.
She shared, “Miss, can you please explain it in Nepali? We did not get you?” (Translated)
This is only the very common example. As we are using the Nepali language in most of the English class, it automatically creates a problem in reading. Throughout the observation, we experienced the same and even understood that students might have felt difficulty in reading due to the deep impact of the dominant method. There is a lack of concern and exposure of English inside the class. The contexts are also limited. It is my experience that the teaching and learning English in public schools is oriented to how to pass the exam.
The students of public schools did not have exposure in reading from English teacher, parents and elders for developing reading skill since the past till now. So, reading becomes a complex process for them. The students do not know what makes them a good reader and what the right way of practice developing reading skills is.
Another reason behind the lack of students’ motivation in reading is due to the lack of additional reading materials. Most of the public schools of Nepal do not have the access to reading room i.e. library in schools. Even though there is a library, students are not trained how to find appropriate books and read fluently. Moreover, lack of trained English teachers, lack of enough teaching aids students of the public school are poor in reading. If we could provide reading related book like English magazine, storybook, poem, drama and so on to our students from the early grades, there might not be seen such problems in the field of English language teaching. So, establishing a resourceful library is essential for the development of students’ better-reading habit.
Similarly, the reason behind our students’ demotivation in reading (mostly in public school) is the teachers’ own reading habit. Therefore, teacher and their reading habit can be one of the sources of inspirations for the learners. I, thus, think that to improve the quality of present government aided education system and more importantly to develop the reading habit to the student, every school should establish a teaching community of practice. McLaughlin and Mitra (2000) emphasize that teachers’ community of practice is an important vehicle for sharing ideas and getting help from each other in their educational practice. I hope schools can be the best model for teachers along with their students for developing reading skill. In my view, only establishing a library is not sufficient to promote reading habit, but there should be an environment for reading community to enhance the better reading of their young learners. It means there should be a practice of taking children to the library, choose appropriate books and read, then share what they read with their friends and others.
Finally, motivation is one of the key strategies a teacher can use to make his/her students sound in reading. Motivation has positive power for transforming individuals towards wellbeing, Therefore, I felt that at the beginning, mostly the students require a great deal of support and guidance from their ELT teachers. If they get the proper guidance and motivation, they can enhance their reading.
Ms Roka is a recent graduate from the Department of English, TU. Her master’s thesis explores identity construction of female EFL teachers in Nepal.
References
Dabarera, C., Renandya, W., & Zhang, L.J. (2014). The impact of meta -cognitive Scaffolding and monitoring on reading comprehension. System, 42,462-473.
Fairbairn, J., & S. (2001). Reading at university. A guide for student. Philadelphia: Open University Press. USA
Harmer, J. (2001). The practice of English language teaching. London: Longman.
Harmer, J. (2007). How to teach English. London: Pearson Longman.
McLaughlin, M. & Mitra, D. (2000). Theory based change and change based theory: going broader. Journal of Educational change, 1(2), 1-24.
Middleton, E (2011). Reading Motivation and Reading Comprehension. An unpublished thesis of Master of Science in Graduate School, Ohio State University.
Richards, J.C., Rodgers, T.S. (1999). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Original (1986), Third Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wyatt, M. (2012). Issues in supporting the teaching of reading in English as a second language to Arabic speaking children. The reading Matrix.vol. 12, 2.
I began teaching English some eight years ago in a way that I could not help commencing it as the profession. One of my friends requested me to take classes on her behalf when she was not able to continue teaching in the middle of the academic session. When I recall the first day, I was really nervous standing in front of the staring eyes of several students, though it was my luck that I was appreciated by them. The appreciation from the students and my own rewarding experience during this period motivated and encouraged me to take teaching as the career. In the beginning, I found many reading texts quite difficult to interpret to the students. I had had many sleepless nights to prepare those texts. In this short blog post, I share my experience of teaching reading texts in post-secondary level in far-western part of Nepal.
Experience
During these eight years, I taught English in a few community and private English medium schools from secondary to university levels. I mainly collected experiences at the post-secondary level i.e. grade 11 and 12. I facilitated both compulsory and major courses of English which contain various genres of literature such as poem, story, essay, drama, novel and so on. While teaching these genres, I have gained some inspiring experiences.
When I was teaching reading an essay “Look At A Teacup’, the girls of grade 11 hid their heads. Furthermore, they were seen absent the next day. I learned that the reason of their absence was the sexual context in the text. They did not feel comfortable with the content. I consoled them separately and made them feel comfortable. And I also adopted a rapid reading strategy for that particular text. However, I have had quite contradictory experience of teaching a story i.e. “About love” to the students of grade 12. The students were too curious to listen to me. I observed that they were found excited to listen to the story. They paid full attention with no hesitation and wanted me to translate the story in the Nepali language. I realized that the content about love attracts those teenagers.
Another different experience was teaching a dramatic story “The Three Day Blow”. Students became quite passive and felt bored while reading the text thoroughly as it is too lengthy. They reported me that it has some unnecessary conversations. I made a summary of this particular reading. Then I realized that they made meaning in a way that love is like ‘The Three Day Blow’ at the present-day world.
One different situation that I had gone through was while teaching a poem entitled “My Heart Leaps Up When I behold”. Even though it was simple and short, students became quite confused with this paradoxical line: The child is the father of Man. Later on, I changed the strategy to impart the meaning showing a chart to make the meaning clear and they received the hidden meaning of the paradox. I felt quite happy when they comprehend the figurative meaning and internalized it.
I love reading poems but it is hard to deliver the underlying meaning of those poems to students in some cases. Most of the students prefer reading stories and novels to other readings as it has denotative meaning, whereas poem has connotative meaning. One of the girls from grade 11 said, “reading novels and stories interest me because it is easy to grasp the meaning of reading and provide us pleasure.” And a boy also said, “Novels are real-life based, and the stories reflect our characters and lives.”
Challenges and my Strategies
Like other teachers in this region, I also faced a lot of challenges to teach reading texts regarding the contents, students’ behaviour, learning environment and teaching techniques. At first, I used to apply the lecture method. Later students’ progress and my deep engagement motivated me to use student-centred techniques to make students more active and engaged in their classroom and improve their reading ability.
While teaching reading in one of the government schools of a remote area in the region, I had to face a lot of challenges because students were very weak in reading and writing in English. So, I used the Nepali language for every English words and sentence. When I read in English, they were startled and had no responses in the beginning. However, while I was reading something in Nepali, they were quite happy as they found the texts easier to comprehend and grasp the meaning of them. In that situation, I had to take extra (out of office hours) classes to facilitate reading and focus on simple grammar rules, structures, vocabularies and pronunciation of the new words.
As English is a foreign language in my context, there is no doubt that everybody feels some difficulty to master over it. Children in the school coming from different linguistic and social background also feel hesitation and difficulty to speak English. Practice makes man perfect. In earlier days, I used to stay the whole night for reading, underlining the words and write down their meaning. I constantly scanned my own comprehension. This is not something happens at the end of every page but this happens at the end of every sentence. I was scared of thinking that what I should do if I do not understand what I am reading. So reading helped me to deliver the content confidently. I was particularly inspired to see my students’ progress in reading and I think, reading never ends.
Therefore,
I feel that students need to be engaged in reading books of their interests, magazines, newspapers, stories, novels, comics and so on in Nepali, English and the languages they feel comfortable to enrich their reading habit. During these eight years, I find that reading allowed me to expand my knowledge, explore and understand my own identity and made my mind creative and critical.
Ms. Yashoda Bam is a post graduate teacher (PGT) at Sainik Awasiya Mahavidyalaya, Teghari Kailali.
This paper recounts my professional journey as a university teacher that I started nearly one and a half decade ago. In this narrative account, by exploration I mean textual exploration, experience stands for direct contact with language, working in and through language, and expression has to do with communicating ideas through writing.
Underlying assumptions: i) learning ceases with over-repetition; exploration gives continuity and safeguards against fossilization; ii) language has to enter into and move through the experiential zone; iii) expression is vital for communication; communication failure leads to professional alienation.
First two years and repetition of sickness
When I started teaching at the university, the entry requirement I possessed was the Masters degree. It was the only professional competence I possessed to teach Masters course. I had some level of confidence because I was going to teach the same course I had studied. The campus where I started my university career was like my home. However, I did not have extensive reading and writing experience apart from coursework, particularly the Masters thesis. My knowledge in the subject was limited. I was confined to the given course, but the subject I thought, for example, Translation Studies demanded interdisciplinary readings in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, contemporary critical theories like post-structuralism. Apart from reading across these different subject courses, the courses also required me to have experience of translation.
When I recall those early days, particularly the first two years or so, I was a course-teller rather than a teacher. Gradually, I felt more comfortable with the course content, since I had repeated the same course. Also, I felt more secure in the class. However, the lack of job satisfaction led to the devoid of academic charm. I was suffering from what Nietzsche has called “repetition sickness” (Myerson, 2001).
My key professional responsibility
What lies at the heart of my profession is teaching the prescribed courses to prospective English teachers. That is, my first and foremost duty is to stand in front of the class and deliver lectures to the students in the classroom. Other professional responsibilities include supervising researchers, training teachers, designing courses, compiling and editing course materials. Again, all these revolve around the key responsibility i.e. teaching.
Classroom teaching has limited reaching
After some years when I started attending the conferences and visiting the academic forums and creative writing workshops, I began to realize that classroom teaching has limited reaching. I was alienated from the broader academic community. It often struck me that only by confining myself to classroom activities, I might not be able to expand my professional presence beyond university premises. Only by teaching one cannot grow professionally. This feeling would often strike me.
I often asked myself:
To what extent can I call myself a professional teacher?
Do I only teach or do I also READ?
Do I only teach and read or do I also WRITE?
Do I only teach, read and write or do I also SHARE?
Do I only teach, read, write and share or do I also CARE the emerging writers?
These questions were in fact inspired by Penny Ur’s (1991) notion of professionalism. The questions like these urged me to set on the journey of exploration, experience and expression by means of reading, writing and translating documents.
Desire for expanding my professional presence
I prefer not to limit myself to the reading and writing within my profession. I love plunging into the open space of reading and writing beyond the given profession so that I can traverse neighbouring disciplines, and bring back insights and information to expand and strengthen my profession. I have sensed that it has helped me expand my core identity as an English teacher. Apart from a teacher, now I can also call myself a writer and translator. Translation and creative writing have connected me to the broader audience.
Reading for exploration and experience
Reading is a process of exploring texts as well as information. I normally explore three zones of texts. I often begin with the core zone i.e. the texts prescribed in the course. It’s vital for my professional survival and success of my students in the examinations. However, reading the course texts is not enough. Then, I explore additional texts related to the core zone. I call them the texts from the peripheral zone. I need to deepen and widen my reading experience. To this end, I site the prescribed topic or text in the neighbouring disciplines like linguistics, literature, philosophy, and also refer students to such disciplines to broaden their understanding. Whenever I have time, I choose one of the areas and take to independent reading. I call this the texts from the outer zone. Let me give an example, poststructuralism and translation, a topic from the course. The course requires me to deal with the topic from the linguistic perspective only. Apart from linguistics, I move to peripheral texts that shed light on the topic from the literary and philosophical perspectives. Later I suggest students to carry out an independent study of poststructuralism when they have time. Thus, as an advanced academic reader, I encourage my students to move to the outer zone from the core.
This exploration helps the reader experience the content and language from different disciplinary perspectives, with varying degrees of intensity. Moreover, it is the process of reading across the disciplines. With such exploration, we become the members of broader academic and creative communities. However, there is a risk involved in such a reading. The reader should not forget to return home i.e. his/her own discipline, say ELT in our case. The only aim of reading beyond the home profession is to enrich one’s professionalism in terms of language and content, not just to become a textual wanderlust.
Writing for exploration, experience and expression
I realized, very late though, that writing is equally intensive and hard to reading, but it is also a source of self-satisfaction. This exploration needs more physical and mental preparedness, more commitment and more motivation than reading. While writing this article, I am exploring my inner and outer worlds simultaneously. Writing requires me to explore my own consciousness by reflecting on professionallywho I am, what I am doing, what my expectations are, what my students expect from me, and how I can contribute to my professional community. In a similar vein, I need to explore relevant information available in the textual world to such questions. Writing is the combination of information that I collect from various sources.
Writing is an event. It is the event that engages the writer in language, in content and in context. For example, I, while writing this article, am experiencing English directly. I am not just thinking about English but thinkingin and doing through English. I am face-to-face with its components ranging from spelling at the lowest level to discourse at the highest.
I always find myself in crisis while writing because every time I am unsure of spelling. I look for suitable words, proper structures, natural flow in the texture, effective rhetorical devices, relevant information and striking insights. Moreover, by writing I am linked with my students beyond the classroom. It has extended my presence beyond the classroom and multiplied the number of my audience. It has also helped me become a producer of knowledge rather than a mere consumer.
Translation for exploration, experience and expression
Translation has been instrumental in shaping and expanding my profession in terms of language, content and my identity. My early inclination to translation was due to my desire to improve my English. Later this inclination morphed into a life-long passion and profession. When I start translating a piece of work, I find my English inadequate. So, I need to search English dictionaries for better words, suitable expressions, natural sentence constructions and effective rhetorical devices. It has compelled me to be a tenacious language learner. Moreover, supplementary reading is a must in translation. In order to translate a Nepali book in English, I need to read peripheral English books. For example, when translating Yasodhara, a poetic play in Nepali by Sharada Subba, I had to explore several books and even movies in Buddhism. That led me to the path to Buddhist literature. Old Path White Clouds is one of them. Apart from being helpful in translation, insights from reading of the books like this have broadened my understanding about life and my relationship with students. This book has changed my attitude to teaching as service rather than merely a means of livelihood.
Moreover, while translating, I am engaged in the double helix of reading and writing. My reading is directed to writing. I need to read the text in the deepest possible level and (re)write it in the most accurate way. In both the cases, I am in intimate contact with language. Drawing on my experience, I agree with Sujeet Mukherjee’s (1981) revelation – Reading for translation is the highest form of reading. This acute process of reading has given me a means of expression. I have been expressing myself through translation for many years by now. I believe that I can contribute to the disciple by translating and writing about translation.
Benefits I have reaped from this triune journey
I have reaped a lot of benefits from this triune journey. Some of them are as follows:
Contribution to university courses: Selecting texts for such courses as Interdisciplinary Readings is next to impossible without wide reading. With this, I have been able to contribute to university reading courses, particularly in the text selection from literature, philosophy and critical theories.
Exposure to language and content across disciplines: I find myself shuttling back and forth across different reading zones. It gives me a sense that I am studying about language, content and its style. This makes my reading interesting and exciting. I can directly experience English used in other disciplines. Such reading exposes me to a variety of language and content. It has helped me guide students, earn their trust. This has improved my English and given me content to contemplate, to teach and to write.
Safeguard againstprofessional lethargy: Constant reading, writing and translating has freed me from professional lethargy.
Knowledge contributor: My role as a teacher is not only the consumer of knowledge but also the producer of knowledge.
Sharing beyond the classroom. I have been able to share my ideas beyond the classroom by means of print and electronic media.
Self-humility: Finally, the journey has taught me self-humility i.e. I don’t know but I try to know.
References:
Mukherjee. S (1981). Translation as discovery. India: Allied Publishers.
Ur. P (1991). A course in language teaching. Cambridge: CUP.
*Mr Adhikari is a lecturer of English Education at Tribhuvan University. Moreover, He is also a translator, editor, poet, and essayist. You can follow him on Twitter @balaramadhika14/bal ram adhikari
I have been teaching English for a decade and a half. I started teaching English from a private English medium school in Kailali. As a novice teacher, I had an energy and ideas to teach.
Later I got a mentor; a head teacher of a reputed school in the region. She was quite inspiring for teachers. It was a turning point in my career. I found myself motivated to make changes in the classroom as I learned many things from her.
Chalk-and-talk method was the main teaching way in this part of the country in those days. It does not promote student-centred activities nor does it enhance their creativity. Many English teachers wish to improve students’ writing skills. However, it is not an easy job. Writing skill receives less attention in my context although it is well specified in our school curriculum. It has been evident that writing plays a significant role in improving overall English language proficiency.
Writing practices
I teach the English language to the upper primary and secondary level students. Writing is an expressive skill and it is felt one of the most challenging language skills to be taught and learnt in my context. I believe writing is not merely a transfer of ideas from one’s brain to paper; it involves organising and structuring ideas. Writing skill begins with copying the given text and ends with free writing provided that students have mastered the skill of combining letters into words and basic vocabulary. Learners have to learn vocabulary and a pattern of writing. Likewise, they need to generate ideas to be organised and a point to be developed; the theme to be explained in the piece. Many students are fluent and coherent in speech but they do not produce coherent pieces in writing of the same speech.
Students do the writing tasks both as homework and classwork. These kinds of writing tasks they do are completing exercises given in textbooks or practice books, answering comprehension questions, filling in the blanks and so on. They are also required to write short paragraphs and essays on different familiar topics.
Here is an example of a paragraph on the topic ‘library’ written by a student of upper primary level:
One of the other examples are writing is book reviews. The following is the book review on ‘The Alchemist’, an international bestseller written by one of my students:
In general, one of the objectives of teaching writing at the upper primary level is to develop skills in students’ to express their personal thoughts, insights, feelings and ideas. Teachers assign various activities depending upon the level of students and objectives of the lessons in this level. Some writing exercises aim to develop the ability of students to think independently giving them room for innovation. Students generate ideas on paper, construct paragraph and develop abilities to use grammar, vocabulary and punctuation marks properly.
My Experiences
Students usually answer questions, write paragraphs and essays. Most of the exercises are based on textbooks. I follow learner-centred activities to develop writing skills rather than writing on the board and making students copy it. Learners go through different stages of writing and they learn to write by doing. Furthermore, I provide maximum opportunity for them to think on the related topics, generate ideas and make notes of them. Then they are encouraged to organise those ideas.
In my experience, my students show a positive attitude towards writing. They pay attention to writing, describe the surrounding nearby them and try to get the meaning from what they write. They practise reading out what they write. They are careful of their spellings. Some of them also summarise the written texts in some instances.
However, it is not always easy for my learners to write as they lack confidence in it but I feel happy with them when they try improving the use of new vocabulary and sentence structures and make a flow of writing. My students commonly make errors in writing but for me, the errors are of great interest and usefulness. I collect the errors, study them, classify them in various ways and implement different ways to tackle them. The learners primarily commit errors in grammar, punctuation marks, contextual vocabulary and parts of speech. I have experienced that the more exposure they receive in the English language, the less error they commit. Therefore, I recommend teachers to provide maximum exposure in English and provide specific feedback to their errors rather than saying good, excellent or try again, improve your writing etc.
Conclusion
Students frequently write answers of short and long questions, write paragraphs and essays. Most of the exercises are text book focused. I employ learner centered activities to develop writing skills excluding write on the board and make student copy it. I attempt to provide maximum opportunity to think related ideas and make notes of them. Then they are encouraged to organize those ideas.
Ms. Shanti Upreti teaches English at upper primary and secondary level in Sainik Awasiya Mahavidyalaya, Teghari-Kailali.
Reading skills in English language classroom 
