Category Archives: Teaching Tips

Games for Retaining Vocabulary

May 1, 2014Reflections, Teaching Tipsadmin

Pema Kala Bhusal

I would like to begin this article by stating what Wilkins said to show the importance of vocabulary – “Without grammar, very little can be conveyed and without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed” (Wilkins, 1972). Vocabulary acquisition is crucial for second language learning. However, many second language learners feel that learning new vocabulary is a tedious and laborious process. On this paper, I first discuss about the problems faced by my students while dealing with vocabulary. And then I will offer some guidelines and suggestions on ways to retain new vocabulary.

I remember my tutors at KU teaching ‘Teaching Vocabulary’ by using different games and by using flashcards, ball, realia etc. The games helped me learn collocations, synonyms, and different words very easily. I was not completely aware of those words, but now they are still in my mind. I came to realize that games are very effective tools for retaining new words.

During my school days, I never saw my teachers using games in the classroom. We learnt the meaning of difficult words through rote learning. When I started teaching, naturally, I didn’t have any knowledge that vocabulary could be taught through games. When I saw my teachers using different games at my university level, I seemed to be unfamiliar with them and I felt having very less knowledge about vocabulary. I imagined what if I had a chance to enjoy these kinds of games in school! My vocabulary knowledge would have been stronger than now.

When I taught lower secondary level students in the public school, I found that the students had many problems regarding vocabulary. For instance, when I asked them to describe a picture, they were unable to do so. They could not make logical connections among words. To make it worse, they couldn’t find the right words to describe the picture.

After gaining knowledge about using games in the classroom, I used different games such as ‘Kim’s game’, ‘Relia’, ‘What’s missing?’, ‘Erase’ and ‘TPR verb game’ to teach vocabulary. When I employed the different games through different physical activities, the students had lots of fun and they were learning the words quickly and effectively. Since that day, they kept telling me to use such kinds of games in my classroom as they had never done such activities before.

I realized that it is important to understand this issue from their perspective because they have been practicing and learning English in their native language from the very beginning. They always carry an unknown fear of using English, especially while speaking. This might be the result of the teaching trend as well, which is – the teacher comes in the classroom, asks the student to look at the book and he/she translates the passage into Nepali. The students are still taught English using a conventional approach like a grammar translation method. (I don’t mean that grammar translation method is not a good method to use in the classroom. We can use it depending upon the context and situations. Sometimes the students can understand more easily when teachers use this method.)

Similarly, if we teach vocabulary through drills, it might become boring for the students, especially those who have limited expertise in language study. Forgetting the word is also another problem. Most of the students complain that they forget words soon after learning them and they don’t exist for a long time. I recently observed an English language classroom of grade 8 at a public school. During my observation, I found the English teacher using Nepali language all the time. I felt very sad about the situation and thought how the students would never develop their English language that way.

Now let me share a few strategies I have used in my classroom for the enhancement of my student’s vocabulary. The first strategy was I asked them to read the passage before coming to the class, assuming that the more they read the more they can see new words to learn. Then, I asked them some words related to the passage. When I did so, some of the students responded from the context and some got confused. Therefore, I made them familiar by showing some pictures, realia and engaged them into conversation. This strategy helped them learn the words easily because I think interaction is the key to succeed in language learning.

Likewise, I asked the students to come in front of the class and touch some objects without looking at them, recognize the objects and describe them to the class. They were very curious and enjoyed the sensual learning activity. Another game I used frequently in my class was the game called ‘Erase’. I used this game to teach the name of the animals, classroom objects, etc. For this, I asked my students to tell me the name of the animals they knew. After that, I made a circle on the board and wrote them down around the circle. In this way, I elicited the names of the animals. After that, I randomly wrote them down on the board. First of all, I asked them to repeat the words in chorus so that they could remember the words for the game. Then, I arranged the students into two groups and lined them up into two teams. After that, I provided the first student in each team an eraser and they raced to the board to erase the word I have yelled out. The game was played in the same way to the end. The first student who correctly erased the word won a point for the team. Finally, I scored the group that won. This is one of the examples of a game I have used in my classroom.

In this way, I used several games to teach vocabulary. From their active participation and involvement, I came to know that integrating games, both physical and mental, helps the students to keep their mind alert. Not only this, they were able to reduce their boredom and retain the words easily.

To sum up, games play a very important role to motivate the students in learning activities. From these experiences, I have realized that acquiring and retaining vocabulary in a foreign language is a challenging job, but learning vocabulary through games is one of the effective ways that can be applied in any classroom. They can be used not only for mere fun, but more importantly, for the useful practice and learning purpose. There is a good Chinese proverb “tell me, I will forget; teach me, I will remember; involve me and I will learn”. This saying also proves that if we ask the students directly to write or tell the unfamiliar words, they would probably be unable to do so and feel discouraged, but they can write or tell if they are involved in different fun activities.

—
prema

Pema Kala Bhusal
M.Ed. ELT, 2012
Kathmandu University School of Education

Learner-Centered Teaching: Some Considerations

May 1, 2014Teaching Tipsadmin

Guru Prasad Poudel

There has been an enormous push to introduce learner-centered teaching strategies to pupils in both elementary and higher level institutions worldwide. The underlying assumption held by many is that learners will be more successful if they have an opportunity to enjoy while learning. However, the challenge is how to create learner centered teaching environment inside the classroom. This article aims to present few considerations on how to implement learner centered teaching in our daily pedagogic endeavors. In addition, the article includes tips, principles and challenges of learner centered teaching.

Over the past fifty years the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of what we teach has been the focus of much thought, research and deliberation. From Grammar-Translation to the Communicative Approach and beyond, the best methodology for English language teaching (ELT) has supposedly been discovered many times. While many changes have occurred in ELT over the past five decades, good teaching is learner-centered one. In learner centered class, an effective teacher helps each student connect to the material and the subject and pay more attention to their activities rather than his own.

As the years pass, the daily routine of teaching the same material through same method day in and day out starts to diminish the passion that was once so prominent years earlier. So what do we do? We do what so many of us have done when times get dull. The need is we have to recharge the batteries and break the routine of daily instruction. It is the time to employ new strategies to increase the intrinsic motivation of our learners so as to strengthen their language acquisition. Thus, learner centered teaching is assumed to be new recharge in our instructional practices. Equally, it is urgent to gear up teaching learning responsibilities to the learners, instead of having them only in the shoulders of teachers.

Tips for learner-centered classroom

The following ideas can be used in the classroom to create learner centered atmosphere in the classroom.

i. Cultivate a relaxed atmosphere before the beginning of instruction.

A relaxed atmosphere is conducive to free expression. A skillful teacher can create an atmosphere in which the student feels enough ease to struggle through a situation, and to find the words to express oneself.

ii. Praise the students when it is deserved

The teacher should compliment students when they do well. He/She should make it a practice to reinforce a good performance with encouraging comments. He/She should be careful, however, to be discreet along this line, setting high standards for the class.

iii. Be enthusiastic and engender enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is one of the most important factors to involve learners in a conversation class. The teacher should feel joy at the prospect of engaging them in learning, and put things into practice learned in the classroom.

iv. Listen to the students

The teacher should not dominate the learner’s responses. He should try to get the students to speak as much as possible.

v. Be patient

Patience, necessary in any encounter with students, is especially important in a learner centered class. The teacher should put himself in the place of the student. He should think of how he himself had to struggle to express his ideas when he was first learning a new topic.

vi. Be alert and foster alertness

Since the learner-centered class provides practice in both speaking and understanding what is said, the teacher should stay alert and see to it that the attention of the students does not wander. For example, when a student is not paying attention, the teacher can call him; ask him back to the practice by directing a question to him; or he can ask him to repeat something that has been said. The teacher can also ask him to repeat a question he has just asked him another student.

vii. Making corrections

What should the teachers do about mistakes in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and meaning? This is a delicate area in a learner-centered class. Students tend to insist that they want to be corrected. The teacher should let them find the good answers from the alternatives that he provides. He should always correct flagrant violations the moment they are made. As Halt (1980) says, “We must not fool ourselves…into thinking that guiding children to answers by carefully chosen leading questions is in any important respect different from just telling them the answers in the first place…the only answer that really sticks in a child’s mind is the answer to a question that he asked or might ask of himself”. The teacher should not overlook the value of an attention-getting-comment that might prevent a repetition of the mistake. He should not be necessarily rigid in their mistakes in such classroom.

viii. Avoid oversimplification

The principle behind the learner-centered class is that ‘learning is something only the learner can do’. The teacher cannot learn for the pupil, he can only provide good conditions within which learning may take place. If things are made too easy for the learners, they will not be inclined to use their own learning resources. As Halt (1980) says “If we taught children to speak, they would never learn”. What he means is that as teachers, we would want to break up the learning process into a series of gradable steps and prevent movement form one step to another until the first step had been mastered.

ix. Treat the individual student as a person, on an equal basis with all the members of the class.

A learner-centered class becomes successful if the teacher treats every students on an equal basis. He must look carefully at his classes to be certain that all the students are included equally. He shouldn’t be biased toward the brighter and more energetic students. A teacher’s effectiveness depends on his equal treatment toallhis students.

x. Leave emotional baggage outside the classroom

Another consideration for a teacher in learner centered classroom is that the teacher must manage his emotional activities. The classroom is a stage; and to be effective, the teacher must in some cases be an actor. For this, he must speak naturally with smile and concentrate on the student.

xi. Lead learners to understand language outside the classroom too

Krashen and Terrell (1983) argue that the purpose of child-centered language instruction is to lead learners to ‘understand language outside the classroom’ so that they can ultimately utilize the real world, as well as the classroom, for progress’. They indicate that the purpose of the child-friendly classroom instruction is to facilitate and encourage the students to interact with speakers in the target language outside the classroom.

General Principles for Language Lesson in Learner-centered Class

A good language class is much more than a series of activities and exercises that the teacher has strung together to occupy the available amount of time. As language teaching is a career in a field of educational specialization, it requires a specialized knowledge base obtained through both academic study and practical experience. A good language lesson, therefore, reflects the specialized thinking and knowledge of an educated language teaching professionals and in planning for their teaching, they should think carefully about how they understand the nature of the teaching and learning they will be participating in (Nunan & Lamb, 1996).

Some programs may seek to induct students into a particular method or approach (such as communicative language teaching, genre based teaching or task-based instruction) where, as other may operate on the basis of principled eclecticism, where teacher are introduced to a variety of teaching approaches and encouraged to blend or adopt them based on the contexts in which they will teach in learner-centered class (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). In most of the cases: teachers think of methods in terms of techniques which realize a set of principles or goals and they are open to any method that offers practical solutions to the problems in their particular teaching context heading to learner centeredness.

Kumaravadivelu (1994) purposes ten general principles that can be used as guidelines to be adopted or applied based on the need of learners as well as of specific situation. The principles are:

Maximize learning opportunities.
Facilitate negotiated interaction.
Minimize perceptual mismatches between teacher’s intention and learner’s interpretation.
Activate intuitive heuristics (for example, by providing enough textual data for learners to infer underlying grammatical rules).
Faster language awareness.
Contextualize linguistic input.
Integrate language skills.
Promote learner autonomy.
Raise cultural consciousness.
Ensure social relevance.

In developing learner-centered class, teaching should be much more than a performance by the teacher. Above all, a successful lesson makes the learners, rather than the teacher, the focus of the lesson. So an English language teacher must conceptualize the questions like – was the lesson content something students could relate to and that was relevant to their needs? Were the activities students took part in during the lesson sufficiently challenging to engage them but not so challenging that they became frustrated and lost interest? Were the students motivated during the lesson? Did the lesson provide opportunities for active participation by all the students in the class or was it dominated by one or two students who monopolized questions and discussion? These ideas will explore how one can move from a teacher centered approach to teaching to a learner-centered one, that is, on in which student’s needs, interest and preferences take priority in teaching (Richards and Farrell, 2011).

Features Focused on Learner-centeredness

An important skill in teaching is the ability to make learners the focus of teaching. This involves understanding learners’ needs and goals, communicating trust and respect to them, acknowledging diversity of needs and learning styles, giving feedback on their learning in ways that help develop their confidence and self-esteem and minimize loss of face, and using strategies that help develop an atmosphere of collaboration and mutual support among learners. Dornyei and Lamb (2003) mention that in some lessons, the focus is more on teacher performance than learner engagement, however, in learner-centered lessons, teachers achieve a more learner-focused approach to teaching, as is reflected in features mentioned below. These features show the focus of teaching on learner centered class.

the degree of engagement learners have with the lesson
the quantity of student participation and interaction that occurs.
the learning outcomes the lesson produces.
the ability to present subject matter from a learner’s perspective.
how well the lesson addresses learner’s needs.
how the teacher reshapes the lesson based on learner feedback.
how the teacher responds to learners’ difficulties.

Practical Benefits of Learner-centered Teaching

Undoubtedly, an English language class consists of many different kinds of learners – some with similar needs and goals and some with a great diversity of need. The nature of such class may be fairly homogeneous with students of a similar age, educational background, interests, goals and needs. In order to bring them in the mainstream of learning, learner-centered teaching becomes a tool of success. Benson (2001) argues that learner-centered teaching is practically more effective than other modes of teaching for several reasons:

It is sensitive to individual needs and preferences.
It encourages construction of knowledge and meaning.
It draws on and integrates language learning with students’ life experiences.
It generates more student participation and target language output.
It encourages authentic communication.
It breaks down barriers between in-class and out of class learning.
It opens up spaces for discussion of motivations, learning preferences, and styles.
It encourages students to take more personal responsibility for their learning.
It challenges the views that learning is equivalent to being taught.
It offers a wide range of preferences for particular kinds of classroom activities, styles of teaching, classroom arrangements, aspects of language and mode of learning.
It creates a community of learners by encouraging interaction within the class, helping them find learning partners and groups they are comfortable with, encouraging a sense of friendship among the students and to share interesting experiences to each other.

Challenges in Learner-centered Class

Keeping our students’ needs and interests at the forefront of our teaching is not always easy. Managing the processes and routines of teaching can sometimes distract us from the real point of teaching, which is to facilitate learning on the part or our students. Whenever possible, we should think through our lessons and the teaching activities we make use of from the point of view of our learners and use the focus points discussed above to help make our teaching more learners centered. According to Wright & Bailey (1999), some of the challenges faced by teachers in such classes can occur in:

the way in which teachers support and manage the processes of language learning.
the way in which teachers create opportunities to participate in the communicative and interactive uses of language.
the way in which teachers involve their learners in individual and group activities.
the way in which teacher use materials by all means to all the students of the class.
the way in which teachers address individual differences in needs and interests, background and cultural perspectives of the learners.
the way in which teachers focus individual learners in tests and assessments.
the way in which teachers manage time, routine, course and institutional conditions.
the way in which learners participate in classroom discussion, learning and evaluation

Conclusion

An important goal in language teaching is to create opportunities for students to participate in authentic uses of language in order to facilitate their language learning. Learner-centeredness is an approach which emphasizes on creating opportunities and giving optimum time and space to the students to participate in authentic classroom activities. Similarly, learner-entered teaching refers to teaching that reflects learners’ individual differences in cognitive styles, motivation needs and interests. Teachers have sole authority in teacher-centered teaching however such authority is deliberatively handed over to the students in learner-centered teaching. Developing a learner-centered focus to our teaching involves drawing on students’ life experiences, creating opportunities for students to interact and co-operate, and to develop a sense of shared interests and concerns. If we can engage our students in our classroom activities in real sense, we can ensure effective teaching and learning.

References

All Wright, D. & Bailey, K. M. (1991).Focus on the language classroom: An introduction to classroom research for language teacher, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning, London: Longman.

Durnyei, Z. & Lamb, T.E. (2003).Individualizing learning: organizing a flexible learning environment, Oxford: Cambridge University Press.

Jackson, A.L. (2012). The conversation class.English Teaching Forum, 50 (1), 29-31.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The post method condition: Emerging strategies for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28 (1), 27-48.

Richards, S.C. & Farrell, T.S. (2011).Practice teaching: A reflective approach,Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

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Guru-Prasad-Poudel

Guru Prasad Poudel
Department of English Education,
TribhuvanUniversity, Kirtipur.

Using a Portfolio for ELL/ELT

March 31, 2014Teaching Tipsadmin

Aadesh Bhetwal

Portfolios are collections of learners’ work that demonstrates the learner’s progress and achievement in a program or course of study. A portfolio used for assessment purposes can include examples of learner’s work, assignments, projects, improvements, self-evaluations, reflections, journals and case studies, among others. Paulson, Paulson, and Meyer (1991) say that portfolio is ‘a purposeful collection of student’s work that exhibits the student’s effort, progress in one or more areas.’ They also stress that a portfolio provides a complex and comprehensive view of students’ participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit, and evidence of students’ self-reflection.

There are different types of portfolios, such as assessment portfolios, showcase portfolios, and collections portfolios. And these portfolios are very useful teaching and learning tool in language learning classrooms. For instance, ‘assessment portfolios’ consist of items students choose to include according to certain assessment criteria. ‘Showcase portfolios’ contain students’ best pieces of work – their assignments, articles, journals, etc. Collections portfolios, often called working folders, are collections of all the pieces of work during a certain period of time.

Benefits of Using Portfolio

I have been managing portfolios of some subjects at my university for some years and my experience shows that having the portfolios has helped me understand the use of various language learning strategies. It has kept me motivated for further independent learning and has also encouraged me for collaborative learning. It has been very useful for me as it not only shows my learning process and progress, but also shows me the results of learning.

Here are some more benefits of using portfolios according to Shimo and Apple (2005):

Learners can reflect over their learning processes.
Portfolios make it possible to make a continuous assessment over a long time period.
Learners can make their original products and they can feel a sense of achievement more compared to traditional tests.
Learners can take control over their learning and feel more responsibility for it.
Learners can assess weaknesses and strengths, and progress in their ability, and (re-) set goals more effectively by looking over their work.

One of the main features of a portfolio is self-reflection, to which Schulman (1985) echoes that portfolio serves it the most significant purpose as scaffolding for reflective teacher learning. Similarly, Winzer (2002) asserts that portfolios create a context that contains multiple and diverse sources of information and perspectives in which students can examine, explore and construct meaning. He adds:
“One student chose the assignment in order to learn about the social and cultural biases that society may have toward people with disabilities. It was an opportunity to broaden my perspectives, and a chance to explore and gain a better understanding of disability. Finally, I believe that I will not be able to sincerely help any special needs children in my classroom without taking the time to study, research, and interview and open my awareness to the disabilities in society today.” (p. 4)

These findings show that portfolio is beneficial for the learning of students. It can cover all the aspects of languages such as the four language skills. For instance, one can collect and arrange written assignments in a chronological way, then self-evaluate and reflect on his/her improvement on writing skill. Similarly, a student can maintain a portfolio about different strategies he/she used over the time to develop speaking skills, and feel motivated seeing the progress made or understand the obstacles faced.
Few Challenges
When my teachers asked me to maintain portfolios for each subjects, initially I was very confused about what to keep in them and faced a lot of difficulties because I didn’t arrange and update my portfolios regularly. Hence, I want to share a few important questions which come with the use of portfolios – such as: What should be placed in the portfolio? How often should items be added to the portfolio? Who decides what goes into the portfolio? Who should be given responsibility for its safekeeping? What should be done with the portfolio at the end of the school year? In addition, a teacher has to decide if the assessment of portfolio will be graded as a part of the final examination and evaluation.

These are just a few of the “nuts and bolts” issues which surface while deciding to implement portfolio assessment in the classroom.

Students might take portfolios as an extra burden, and teachers might also feel the same way. Teachers have to teach and complete the course on time, check assignments, prepare and administer examinations, check and mark exam answer sheets – and portfolio might look like adding more to the work, demanding more time and effort. However, by implementing portfolio as a tool for continuous assessment and also a part of the final assessment, teachers practically reduce their work pressure and save time.

Portfolios do not have to be bulky, heavy and they certainly don’t have to be costly. For instance, a teacher can ask the students to write a short classroom reflection everyday and maintain a portfolio on a simple file. This can be done in pairs or groups as well which will lessen the ‘burden’ for both. The teacher can then check the portfolio every week or every month, and evaluate the students’ improvement in writing and give appropriate feedback.

For Further Reading

California Foreign Language Project http://www.stanford.edu/group/CFLP/research/portfolio/portfolio1.html
Kenji Nakamaya, www.paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL9/pdf/Nakayam.pdf
Etsuko Shimo, Matthew Apple www.tht-japan.org/proceedings/2006/shimo77-80.pdf
Winzer, M. (2002). Portfolio Use in Undergraduate Special Education Introductory Offerings. International Journal of Special Education .
HYPERLINK “http://www.internationalsped.com/documents/171winzer.doc” t “_blank” http://www.internationalsped.com/documents/171winzer.doc

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Aadesh Bhetwal
M.Ed. English Language Teaching
Kathmandu University, School of Education.

Interactive Language Fair at NELTA 2014 with Photo Feature

March 8, 2014ELT Resource, Photos, Teaching Tipsadmin

Laxman Gnawali

NELTA added a special event to its 19th International Conference 2014: Interactive Language Fair (ILF) designed after the IATEFL’s ILF. In this event, 16 presenters showcased their research, innovations and experiments. As I coordinated this event, I would like to briefly describe the process of preparing and organizing the event.

Once the NELTA Conference Organizing Committee approved the proposal for the Interactive Language Fair and entrusted me with the responsibility to coordinate it, the call for proposals was made via emails, Yahoogroups, Facebook and the NELTA website. I received queries from potentials presenters asking me what it was and how they could participate in it and I did my best to explain the nature and the process of the Fair. The proposals were submitted from home and abroad. Once the proposals were accepted, I asked the presenters to get ready with their slides and other the materials for the Fair.

ilf-1

The Fair was scheduled for Day 3 of the conference, i.e. 1st March. Sixteen presenters came ready for the presentation. The hall opened for setting the show one hour before the Fair actually started. The presenters arranged their tables along the walls of the hall and displayed their materials on the laptops, tables and the walls.

When we opened the door for the participants, the hall was filled with very inquisitive ELT professionals and enthusiasts. The presenters made two-minute thumbnail presentations introducing themselves and highlighting the innovations they had made and invited the participants to visit their tables. Once the thumbnail presenters were over, the participants visited the presenters of their choice and asked questions, listened to the explanations, played games, tried the materials, clicked through the slides and also exchanged the information. What follows is the brief description of each of the presentations.

Babita Sharma Chapagain from Nepal shared samples of the reading materials developed by trainee teachers based on the local/rural context. She shared photos and sample books that were developed by the trainees and interacted with the visitors. Manju Bajracharya from Nepal shared the report of an action research she carried out with aim attempt to improve English spellings. She engaged visitors with some interesting spelling tasks and games. Dipesh Kumar Shah from Nepal shared his ideas on critical thinking that he tried out in his EFL classroom. Md Mahmudul Hasan from Bangladesh showcased his innovation called Smart Gamification. Illustrating what a flipped classroom is, he engaged visitors in games and exercises based on the concept.

Naheed Haq from Pakistan shared her research on formative assessment as a systematic part of teaching. Claire Bradin Siskin from India described and demonstrated the ESL Writing Online Workshop (ESL-WOW), an online multimedia program designed to guide non-native speakers of English through each stage of the writing process. Jeevan Karki from Nepal shared introduced a webzine and shared the ideas of encouraging students for creative writing by publishing their writing instantly in the webzine. Prof. James Crocker from Japan showcased The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, a publication which focuses on language teachers and learners’ writing about their experiences as language educators abroad and at home. Dinesh Kumar Thapa from Nepal shared the art of making learners engaged with reading texts at a deeper level with the aid of graphic organizers. Kshitiz Upadhyay-Dhungel from Nepal shared an experience of a Principal of ECD pre-school in learning/teaching English language in a more lucid way in the Nepalese context.

Durga Prasad Pandey from Nepal highlighted self-management as a way to self-leading professional development. The visitors discussed ‘Doing’ (Physical), ‘Thinking’ (Mental), ‘Feeling’(Social), ‘Being’(The self). Shyam Kumar Shrestha from Nepal got the visitors to share their experiences of teaching children who are uninterested in reading authentic materials. Praveen Kumar Yadab from Nepal shared the experience of professional development in ELT through blogging on NeltaChoutari. Dhani Ram Yogi and Bir Singh Nayak from Nepal showed the link between the content from social studies and EFL teaching and learning based on project based learning concept. Sagun Shrestha from Nepal argued that technology brings amicable language learning environment in the ELT classrooms and demonstrated the use of some online resources such as nicenet, delicious and others. Teachers of English Access Micro-Scholarship Program Mandira Adhikari, Radha Krishna Humagain, Gokul Sharma and Kalpana Poudel and some of their students showcased a non-traditional classroom through a ‘poster presentation’ for a ‘gallery walk’.

During and after the Fair, I reflected and made two conclusions. First, when we visit other countries and participate in ELT events, we can and we should return with ideas to add new activities and try them out here in Nepal. I initiated this ILF event because I had attended a similar event in the IATEFL Liverpool Conference in 2013. I feel this is a way to enrich our practices. Two, the ELT professionals in Nepal are comparable at the international level which was demonstrated by the quality of the presenters in the Fair. The visitors/participants said that the Fair was a good learning opportunity for them.

The Interactive Language Fair will continue at the NELTA 2015 Conference.

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Laxman Gnawali
Associate Professor (ELT)
School of EducationKathmanduUniversity

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Some of the photos of the ILF:

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Photos: Umes Shrestha

Storytelling for Learning Language with Fun

February 1, 2014Creativity, Miscellaneous, Scholarly Article, Teaching Tipsadmin

Santona Neupane

As teachers, we often ask ourselves, “How can we develop creative thinking of our students? How can we ensure that our lessons are fun making and useful for them?” We, the teachers today always seek to find new ways to help the learners unleash their creativity. In this post, I share with you some thoughts about how we can use storytelling to help our students learn language in effective and enjoyable ways.

When I was a young, my sister used to fascinate me and the rest of the family because she had a very captivating way of unfolding events that kept the audience glued to their seats. I remember getting so engrossed in the story that I fell off the stool. Stories, and creative and effective expression still fascinate me, because stories not only made my childhood fun but they also greatly enhanced my language development. As the old Nepali saying goes, those who can tell good stories are worth adorning with garlands of flowers and . Hearing a story is heartwarming and a storyteller can make the world come alive for the listener. The power of storytelling is attested by sayings like this in many cultures. And as language teachers, we all know that power. When telling stories, speakers develop language skills, as well as build confidence for communicating their ideas.

Storytelling in the Context of Teaching/Learning Language

In the context of learning language, storytelling allows learners to learn and express new ideas, use new vocabulary and grammatical structures, and put such language skills to use within the broader context of events and ideas in the story. Storytelling gives learners the opportunity to use language in a holistic way.

Highlighting how the use of story in language classroom is a powerful tool in the language learning process, Jones (2012) argues that “Once learners get into conversational storytelling, it is an enjoyable experience for both them and the teacher.” There’s no doubt that stories can be fun and also there is more to storytelling than it meets the eye. One has to ensure successful learning of language as well. According to Morgan & Rinvoulcri (2003), successful second language learning is “far more a matter of unconscious acquisition than of conscious, systematic study.” The stories could be such method of unconscious input that can ensure creative output. Stories unconsciously draw a learner towards them. “They capture and hold the imagination of learners; they create empathy as children identify with characters and situations in the stories; they present language in authentic contexts, thus promoting both grammatical and vocabulary development; they facilitate acquisition through multiple repetition (both of the language in the story, and as the story is told over and again)” (Maley, 2008, p. 4).

Hence, storytelling can be a powerful tool for teaching language. Stories also help students to be expressive, imaginative and capable of using language naturally in real context. Telling stories is a natural way of engaging students to communicate complex ideas. Stories when used in classroom help students practice communication and expression. If we as a teacher can help students love stories, we will pave way for them to be extensive readers in the future.

It is worth noting at this point that storytelling is more than just reading aloud. Actually it is NOT reading out loud. When a story is told live, the teller can engage listeners and can create an intimate bond through his/her voice and eye contact. Another obvious benefit of storytelling over reading aloud is improvisation through the use of mimes, gestures and body language.

What Type of Stories?

It is not enough for us as a language teacher to go to a class with any story. If you plan to tell a story to a class full of eager minds, there are two questions to consider first.

Is this the story I enjoy telling?

Is this the story my students would find entertaining or thought provoking?

The stories that you choose to present in the class should touch you and your students should be able to relate to it the way you relate to it. Your reaction to the story and your enthusiasm can really ignite a desire in your students to be better recipient and eager participants. Choosing a good story is a crucial part of storytelling. Don’t tell a story just for the sake of storytelling. Let the story be a part of you. Know your students well and choose a story that might easily be their story.

For my English lesson, one day, I chose a fairly easy story about a tortoise, having a bad day, decides to run away from home. I planned my lesson around it and decided to use this story in two different levels: one primary and another secondary. I chose grade 5 in the primary level and grade 10 in the secondary level. I told the same story to the classes, improvising and detailing the story as per their level. After an initial round of storytelling, I got the students talking about their feelings. I asked them if they could relate to the character and if they have ever in their life felt like running away. All the students responded with “Yes”. When I asked them to write down a similar story, I saw them eagerly opening their notebooks and writing energetically. In the story, the main character returns home after learning the value of his family and friends. The story not only helped them in their language learning process, it also helped them to meditate on their lives by relating themselves to.

Stories are everywhere; in fact stories are our way of life. “Stories are central to what it means to be human. The human mind seems to be hardwired for the creation and reception of narratives. It is even true to say that we are the stories that make us up: stories we have heard, we have told, we enact daily” (Maley, 2008, p.4). There are lots of sources of story. We can choose our stories from fairy tales, traditional folklores, culture, proverbs, pictures, newspaper clippings, films, personal anecdotes, rumors, imagination etc.

Who can Benefit?

As a teacher of language, I have found storytelling very helpful. However we should not just limit its use in language classroom. Stories can be used in a math, science and social studies classes as well. Stories are not limited to kindergarten only but can be useful for secondary classes as well. Stories can be told to any level of learner. Beginners can benefit through it and it will aid their literacy and language learning. Even advanced learners are benefited through storytelling; they can refine their already learnt language skills and polish their ideas. Stories give them opportunity to be creative with what they have already learnt.

Classroom Activities

Storytelling is an effective alternative to traditional language teaching activities. There are a lot of ways through which we can use storytelling in our classroom. As stated by Morgan & Rinvoulcri (2003), storytelling activities range from introspective to interactive, beginner to advance, written to oral, individual to group. Stories can be planned and delivered in such a way that it achieves its objectives. If our objective is to help students with grammar, then we can choose a story with recursive pattern of words and phrases. Our telling can give them exposure to the target language. Apart from grammar, we can focus on vocabulary, intonations and phonetics to help them acquire English language easily and successfully.

Choosing a good story is a crucial part of storytelling. The main part is storytelling itself. Your relation and attitude towards the story matters a lot. Once the story has been delivered you need to plan various activities to help the students contemplate the impact. Group discussion based on various probing question can help the students relate to the story. You can prepare the questions beforehand and have the students talk about it with each other. The questions can range from their reaction to various elements or aspect of the story. If your students are advanced learner you can have them discuss the literary aspect of the story. Have the students paraphrase the story individually and they can even write a reflection on it. Another activity would be to write a similar story on a totally new context.

Dramatizing the story is another method of exploiting stories. Either you dramatize the storytelling itself or have your students retell it in a form of drama. Role playing and role taking helps the students with revision and in doing so they get familiarized with the grammatical, semantic, structural aspect thus unconsciously learning language. Retelling a story is fun and enjoyable. Getting the students to narrate their story in the class often creates a receptive environment in the classroom where more than one student will be willing to share similar experience. Tannen (1984) has stated that one person’s narrative may often be taken up by one or more of the listeners who will add similar narratives of their own to create what she refers to as a “story chain”.

Apart from storytelling, creating similar stories through parallel writing helps them a lot. Get the students create a story with the help of theme words either individually or in a group. Instead of the teacher telling the story, students can also do the telling. This will help in a successful two way communication in a language classroom while giving an opportunity to the teacher to evaluate the learner.

Using pictures and shapes, together the teachers and students can create a new story to tell. Sometimes we can tell an incomplete story and have the students complete it and tell it. Taking an event from a newspaper clipping and telling it in a form of story can also help the students.

Conclusion

Storytelling, which is an integral part of human life, can be vital in language teaching. Basing the language lessons on stories have creative impact on the students. If we cultivate a love of stories in our students through storytelling, we can help them learn without giving them the monotonous drill and bland role play. Stories add a humanistic element in teaching making it quite effective. Various classroom activities based on stories not just make your lesson comprehensible and useful, it also adds fun to your teaching.

References

Jones, R. (2012). Creating a storytelling classroom for a storytelling world. English Teaching Forum, 2-9.

Maley, A. (n.d.). From story literacy to reading literacy. Literacy in the language classroom, 4-7.

Morgan, J. & Rinvoulcri, M. (2004). Once upon a time: Using stories in language classroom. Cambridge: CUP.

Tannen, D. (1984). Conversational Style: Analyzing talk among friends. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Wright, A. (n.d.). Creating stories. Literacy in the language classroom, 23-34.

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Santona Neupane is a scholar pursuing her M. Ed. in ELT at Kathmandu University, School of Education. She is an English teacher in a private school in Kathmandu. She has recently joined the editorial team of Choutari.

An Access Teacher’s Reflection on ELT Training

February 1, 2014ELT Resource, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsadmin

Mandira Adhikari

I have attended a number of training sessions on English language teaching facilitated by both national and international trainers. And I have conducted some training sessions myself. Whenever I attend or conduct such sessions, I ask this question about their significance: Will I be able to translate (transfer) the ideas into my classroom? If such session doesn’t seem relevant to my classroom setting, I return with a sad face, thinking that the time, money and resources invested in that session went in vain. However, I returned home with a happy face from a recent training organized by NELTA in Kathmandu on 20th and 21st December, 2013. Access teachers from the different parts of Nepal participated in the two-day English teachers’ training. I found it very effective for my classroom and I learned several new ideas and concepts to implement in my classroom. In this blog entry, I am going to reflect on my experiences.

FIRST DAY

Following the introduction of the participants, the first day of the training began with ‘Gallery Walk’ and concluded with two different sessions ‘Songs in Access Classroom’ and ‘Co-Teaching’.

Gallery Walk

Through a gallery walk, we reflected on our success stories from Access Program being implemented at different district branches of NELTA. I found the activities of the Access Centers unique, fascinating and different from one another.

Let me begin with GorakhaCenter. The teachers had their students engage into convening an educational fair and they learnt that the students could learn different things when they are engaged in organizing such programs. Similarly, they had organized a literacy campaign targeting the illiterate people of their community with a view to raise awareness, motivate, and encourage them to be literate by joining literacy classes.

Kathmandu Centers had done something remarkable. They had taken the Access Students to the US Embassy, Kathmandu, where the participant students observed various equipments operated with the help of solar power. And the painting titled ‘Wall of Hopes’ highlighted violence against women. On the International Human Rights Day, they showed a movie related to human rights. They also made their students participate in ‘English by Radio‘ program, which is aired through radio stations in partnership of NELTA and the US Embassy.

Unlike Gorkha and KathmanduCenters, PokharaCenter had facilitated their students to prepare and perform a ‘Drama’ on the occasion of ‘Thanks Giving Day’. I like the concept of students’ engagement in the drama as it helps them to be confident, creative and to improve their speaking skills.

BirgunjCenter had their own uniqueness, in celebrating ‘Raksha Bandhan’—a popular Hindu festival of the love between brothers and sisters celebrated in Terai, southern part of Nepal and also in many parts of India and Mauritius. In this festival, sisters tie the thread and attractive rakhi (simple, woven and colorful thread or may be intricate with amulets and decoration on top of it) on wrist of their brothers for their long life, welfare and protection. Other remarkable activities in Birgunj —Traffic Week and Ocean Day—impressed me. Students’ engagement in traffic management over a week has not only helped traffic police but also they have learnt traffic rules. Considering busy traffic in Kathmandu and need of traffic knowledge in our students, I wish I could replicate such activity for LalitpurCenter where I am an Access teacher. I think that the celebration of Ocean Day could be adapted in the context of our Access Centers too.

I was fascinated by the special idea of developing reading skills among our students from KanchanpurCenter. They have formed a readers’ group and a book reviewers’ group. We had conducted classes on ‘Book Review’, students, however, have not been confident enough to write the book reviews. I think the idea of forming of groups of readers and reviewers would help me further building on their confidence.

Songs in Access Classroom

Following Gallery Walk Session, Suman Laudari, former Access teacher facilitated a session on ‘Songs in Access Classroom’. Based on his own experience as an Access teacher, he highlighted on the effectiveness of the use of songs for language learning. Songs are the great exposure to our students and using songs is one of the best ways to teach pronunciation with a fun. We can also develop classroom test activities such as gap filling, match the words with their meaning, and put the shuffled stanzas of the song in order. Through this way, language learning can be a fun making for them. On the other side, while using songs in the classroom, some possible challenges such as offensive words and deviated forms were explored in our discussions. However, the learners should be pre informed not to use offensive words and consider deviated forms because they are more often used in songs.

Co-teaching

Access Program has a salient feature of co-teaching at its Centers. As an assessment for such a feature, Ganga Ram Gautam and Miriam Corneli jointly facilitated co-teaching. During the facilitation, they introduced ‘Tree Metaphor’, as a tool for effectively analysing our co-teaching. Using tree metaphor, the assessment and analysis of co-teaching was carried out by participants from different Centers in terms of fruits, shoots, seeds and roots. We found our analysis of co-teaching almost similar. For instance, when I and my co-teacher analyzed our co-teaching classes, the fruits of our co–teaching –making classroom a fun zone, our shoots –utilizing our experience to make our classes effective by discussing with each other, the seeds—about five hours’ discussion to prepare a lesson plan and though we haven’t been successful in executing it yet to and the roots—we both are from education background and quite familiar with different methodologies. We both are co-operative and flexible. As a result, our co-teaching has always been successful.

The co-teachers at Access Centers are co-operative and they have been successful in making their classes effective, applying a variety of teaching methods. Before both the facilitators concluded the session, they provided us the effective model of co-teaching, which further helped us to improve our co-teaching further. Our co-teaching would have been more successful and we would not have faced challenges in managing the roles while implying this concept if the training on ‘co-teaching’ was provided before the Access classes started.

SECOND DAY

The second day of training consisted of four different sessions; ABCD model of lesson planning, public speaking, group discussions and American culture.

ABCD Model of Lesson Planning

Upon the presentations of the lesson plans made by respective Centers, Hemant Raj Dahal, president of NELTA made comments on them. Based on his observation and experience, he shared that most of the teachers usually miss the important parts ‘context’ and ‘expectation’ of our learners while planning their lessons. The discussion became livelier when Access teachers shared their challenges for preparing an effective lesson plan. To address those challenges, facilitator Dahal concluded the session with the introduction and use ABCD model of lesson planning for preparing effective lesson plans.

Public Speaking

The second session ‘Public Speaking’ facilitated by Motikala Subba Dewan was worth effective as it provided us the ideas of public speaking in various contexts. During the session, we were divided into different groups and each group was assigned a topic to prepare a speech. After the group leaders delivered their respective speeches, they were analyzed in terms of both strong areas and the areas to improve. I found the session constructive for not only for speaking in public but also for facilitating students to present their ideas in our regular classroom instruction.

Group Discussions

In the third session, Sara Denne Boltan facilitated us how to conduct group works effectively in our classrooms. She presented to the idea of evaluating the involvement of group members with the help of questionnaire. It can be an effective tool to actively involve all our students in a group work. The handouts and materials provided by her were helpful for our Access classes while organizing group discussions. She also facilitated us with how to play ‘Dice Game’, which can act as an important catalyst to energize our students for developing speaking skills.

U.S. Values and Culture

Besides improving English language skills, Access Program aims to impart the knowledge of the U.S. values and culture to the participant students and sensitize them about cultural differences. The session facilitated by Sara helped us better understand the American culture that students are expected to learn. Her presentation included contextual conversational patterns, different meaning of facial expressions, and notion of leadership, concept of ‘self’ and other different American cultures. She further clarified that Access students are expected to learn visible parts of American culture such as the food Americans eat in different festivals, their language and music.

Acknowledgements:

As an Access teacher, I got this wonderful opportunity to attend the training I have reflected above. For this, I am grateful to ‘English Access Microscholarship Program (Access Program)’ implemented by Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association (NELTA) with sponsorship and support of the U.S. Embassy Kathmandu/the US Department of State.

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Mandira Adhikari is currently working as a teacher for the Access Program in Lalitpur. She has completed her M.Ed in ELT from Kathmandu University. She is also a life member of NELTA.

Easier said than done …

December 1, 2013Native Perspective, Teaching Tipsadmin

… but if worse comes to worst, just hang in there!

Umes Shrestha, Lecturer, blogger and a podcaster

Right on the outset, let me state that I am taking a very controversial stance here. Because many supporters of World Englishes believe that for second language learners of English, gaining native like competence of English is a myth. It’s not possible, and, in essence, it’s not necessary. Let’s face it, they also tell you that the‘coded-down’ version of English (or the English as Lingua Franca) is the only way forward because English will eventually lose its standard-ness.

Fine by me but here’s my stance. If a learner wants to speak (or write) English better, he/she has to try and learn how the native speakers of English use the language in real life context. In addition to acquiring the sense of vocabulary, structure, forms and semantics, the learner also has to develop the pragmatic fluency in English. (I am not talking about American accent or British accent or any such accent, though.) Therefore, I strongly believe that only by learning and acquiring unique characteristics and nuances of English language will the learners become more competent and proficient in it.

Some of the areas of such nuances in a language are the use of figurative expressions (idiomatic expressions, phrases, proverbs, etc). Similar to our own Nepali language, English language is also very rich in such figurative expressions. Using these expressions (let’s say: idioms) add color and imagination in speech and in writing. This obviously holds true for all the language. Nepali language would most certainly be pretty bland if it didn’t have any figurative expressions. So, by mastering the use of English idioms, one’s English can become more natural and less awkward, more articulated and less dull. Learners and users of English will be able to produce and interact in English at a different creative level.

Normally, we don’t find any trace of this concept in standard textbooks because the curriculum and syllabus are usually ‘water-downed’ for general learners of English. Just flip through Our English books for Class 9 and 10. Why there’s no focus on this aspect of English is quite beyond me. English magazines, newspapers, stories, TV shows, movies are however full of figurative expressions. Imagine the shock and dismay when learners discover the real English used in real contexts, when they find that the English in real life can be quite different than the English in textbooks. Hence there are always chances that students and learners know English language but do not know how to use and understand English language competently and fluently.

And even when students use or try to understand the meaning of idioms, they try to translate them word-for-word at a very literal level. But translating the idioms into one’s mother tongue will only compound the problem. Figurative expressions are unique properties of a language and when translated into another language, they usually lose their true essence and purpose.

For instance, let’s consider the sentence with a very common idiom:

Sentence 1: He insulted me and I lost my temper.

In Nepali the literal meaning of ‘to lose’ is ‘haraaunu’.

Sentence 2: I lost my money. (maile paisa haraaye)
Sentence 3: I lost my book yesterday. (maile hijo kitab haraaye)

These two sentences 2 and 3 make sense even when translated into Nepali. But. If a Nepali learner of English translates the Sentence 1 in the similar vein, he/she will only come up with confused and even nonsensical meaning. This is the reason why the figurative expressions are difficult to learn, acquire and eventually master.

Similarly, the following sentences can be difficult for Nepali learners to understand and to use in their real contexts because, again, translation doesn’t help.

Sentence 4: I can’t stand Science class because it is way over my head.
Sentence 5: You don’t stand a chance of getting good score in Science because it is
way over your head.

And, here are some real instances from my classroom.
Me: Alright students, let’s wrap up today’s lesson.
Student: (with a confused face) Sir, wrap ta gift lai garne hoina?
Sir, we only wrap gifts, don’t we?

Me: Guys and girls, keep it down.
Student: What to keep down?

Thus, unless a learner ‘develops a knack’ for figurative expressions through practice and enough exposure, it will be difficult for him/her to develop English language competency.

Moreover, using figurative expressions adds ‘fun’ to the English language. It’s thrilling and it’s entertaining. Many a times, it’s defamiliarizing. (Here’s the buzzword!). And it goes without saying that ‘enjoying the language’ is one of the most essential requirements to learning and acquiring a second language. We can also call this fun element an ‘intrinsic motivation’ or ‘internal drive’ to get better and to prosper in the language one is learning.

So, I request my fellow English language teachers to incorporate figurative expressions in their teaching as per their discretion. We all know… we will have to put in a little extra effort because it may not be in the textbooks. But don’t give it a second thought. Implement it. You’ll enjoy it. The students will enjoy it.

I hope you will just give it a shot!
Great!

—

Some links:

Devil’s Advocate vs Vicki Hollett on ELF
http://chiasuanchong.com/2012/03/04/devils-advocate-vs-vicki-hollett-on-elf/

Chia Suan Chong speaks about English as a Lingua Franca
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB6traNccQQ

Developing creative- linguistic abilities through classroom poetry

December 1, 2013Native Perspective, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsadmin

Dinesh Kumar Thapa, Lalitpur

“Poetry and hums aren’t things which you get; they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”-Winnie.

Classroom poems are funny and full of variety. They make a class really lively and motivating. Poetry can be oral or written, or both. They can be read aloud for developing oral- pronunciation ability, or they can be written to develop creative- linguistic abilities in English. Poems demand a lot of expressive ability on the part of the learners, so they engage the learners for the creation of meaning. Besides, using poetry in the class allows the children to express in the ‘little English’ they have developed in the beginning years of learning. It develops confidence in the learners for producing English and motivates them to learn more English. Poems are interesting for all, and even more interesting for the little kids.

For the purpose of this article, I have used the term poetry to encompass all English teaching activities which involve musical quality, which are aesthetic and expressive, and which do not demand rigid grammar rules to carry them out. Activities such as rhymes, songs, riddles, musical compositions, jingles, etc. have been included under classroom poetry here. The teacher here does not need to worry about such concepts as the theme, form, metaphor or the criticism of poetry, as they are not such academic poems for critical study. Rather, for us, poems are simply a tool of developing English in the learners! The activities suggested here are appropriate for junior/ primary level students, yet they can equally be employed in the higher levels with modifications.

1. Naming poems: This technique involves creation of a poem out of the names of the students with some additional details for the name.

Laxaman is always late and Geeta is great,
Hari becomes hungry, but Rabin becomes red.

The list goes on for each student. Here, the initial sound of the first name has been matched with the corresponding initial sound of the adjective that tells something about the person.

2. Event- making poems: Here, learners create a poem based on the theme of an event, e.g. making a party, celebrating the school day, organizing a cultural show, etc. Each line in the poem will be telling who will be involved in the event in what way.)

Making a Party
This is Bina with a big banana,
This is Suman with some soup,
This is Rabina with red raspberry,
And this is Kanchhi with a clean cup.

Each upcoming line here includes the necessary preparation to be done for the event including each student’s roles. Here, the initial sound of the name has been repeated with the corresponding initial sound of the adjective and the noun that tell about the event.

3. Attribute poem: It is a technique which involves creation of a poem using common adjectives and nouns in a pattern of rhyme.

My Family
My mummy is thirty- nine
But she is very fine.
My dad is good,
But he has a sad mood.
My puppy is nice,
But it eats much rice.

The lines continue until all/ most family members are included through with appropriate attribute words. Here, common nouns and adjectives have been used in patterns, both in structure and rhyme; the use of conjunction, ‘but’ shows a contradiction in meaning.

4. Chain poem: It is a technique to create a poem expressing as much as possible on a single topic, possibly adding something on each upcoming line.

Wai Wai Noodles
Wai Wai,
Wai Wai is delicious,
Wai Wai is delicious, marvelous,
Wai Wai is delicious, marvelous, satisfying,
Wai Wai is delicious, marvelous, satisfying, so tasty,
Sweet Wai Wai for all.

Here, more and more words have been added to tell different feelings about the topic.

5. Narrative poem: In this technique, a poem is created for telling a story, a past experience, a journey or an event.

Lagankhel Trip
I was going to Lagankhel,
And I was carrying my favourite bag,
My little, brown beautiful bag,
My father had recently bought for school,
And it was the rainy time,
I was looking my head downs and ups,
Into the tall houses and big shops,
And I slipped on the banana cover,
Very painful, I felt so bored,
Because me and my new bag got splashed in the muddy road.

The lines go on until the complete story is narrated. Here, more and more past experiences and feelings are added to the initial beat.

7. Instructional Poems: for creating a poem using instructional lines, students here think of diverse ethical/ moral codes of conduct and write either positive or negative statements with expression of results intermittently.

Mind Your Manners
Don’t drum on the table,
Don’t play with your food;
Don’t talk while you’re chewing;
Because it’s terribly rude!

Don’t litter the room,
And don’t slam the screen door.
Don’t throw dirty laundry;
Because it’s making mom angry more!
Don’t fight with your young sister,
And don’t pull the cat’s tail;
Don’t pelt stones on the street,
It might be more dangerous than a nail!

8. Metaphorical poems: in this technique, the teacher and the learners work together to brain- storm ideas and create a poem using poetic devices like metaphor and simile.

[Theme: My Country; associated adjectives: small, famous, peaceful, amazing, historic, etc. Other nouns associated to the descriptive words, as for the adjective ‘small’- doll, fingers in the hand, etc.; for ‘famous’- our president, Meri Bassai Serial, Pele, etc.]

My country is small
Like the doll in the bag and the fingers on my palm;
My country is peaceful,
More silent than the market and school.
My country is amazing,
With so varied cultures, languages and mountains.
My country is so beautiful,
I must feel proud and grateful.

Here words (especially noun words) related about a theme are collected first; then adjective words are associated to each initial noun words, and further extensions are made until students’ vocabulary permits. Then the associated words are stated in sentences attempting a higher order of imagination.

9. Bio- poem: Employing this technique involves creating a poem using biographical information of persons/ places using WH- question probes, real or metaphorical.

[Topic: Nepal; Some words that describe the place: beautiful, peaceful and romantic

What it has? Who loves? Who gives? Who feels? Who wants? Who fears? Etc.].

Nepal
Beautiful, peaceful and romantic;
Has a lot of mountains, lakes and rivers;
Who loves the varied races, cultures and people;
Who gives education, peace, security and progress;
Who wants us all to grow and to learn the best to live happily;
Who fears war, insecurity and national challenge;
My motherland Nepal.

Here the teacher arranges for a brainstorm using different WH- bio probes in order to include most salient pieces of information as they are needed for a biographical understanding of a place/ person or thing. After having adequate information, lines are composed in line with the probes.

10. Other techniques

We can also use jingles, rhymes, mimes and other expressive techniques. We can also ask the students to tune the poems with the local rhythm, like folk song- tune, pop- tune, etc. and to perform to the whole class individually or in groups.

Some thoughts about teaching English in Nepal

The English language is the most important international language in this century. These days, English is not only the language of Britons and Americans; rather it has become a world language. It is now the language of international trade, business and diplomacy, language of higher education, wider cultural understanding and more job opportunities. Recognizing the very importance, the public and the Government have also given due consideration in the promotion of English in Nepal. Expenditure on teaching English is also huge for developing courses, materials, assessment and so on. Besides these, every workplaces and classrooms are also ripe with the talks of learning English. Today’s parents also demand at least communicational literacy in English for the children. Also, many Nepali medium community schools have started teaching through the medium of English at different levels. Besides, the charm of English medium school is quite obvious for us. But, despite all these assets, the result of our children is not so encouraging. The exam results and different assessment studies show that the proficiency of learners’ English in Nepal is not on par with the expectation; be it in the primary or tertiary grades.

The low level of student achievement, however, is the result of multiple factors. The teacher alone is not and cannot be made responsible for such. It is true that our children come from difficult backgrounds; parental level of conscious is low. We also may not have audio- visual support in the classroom. Besides, we are also not well trained in teaching English. These are our realities. However, we cannot get free from our responsibility; neither can we skip from the problems. So it is wiser to search for the bright side of the dark cloud. At least our parents have believed in us and have sent their children to us; at least we have the physical presence of the child, so we become teacher. If there would be no children, whom would we be teaching to? So, it is upon us, specifically the English teachers, and all teachers in general, to realize the aspiration of the parents and the students. Our sincere efforts and dedication are the only solution for the time being, as we cannot expect a drastic change overnight. Our small initiatives will definitely result into the improvement of English teaching scenario. The future of the innocent ones is in our hands, is not it English language teachers!

[I was inspired for writing this piece by the Asian English Teachers Creative Writing Group Seminar held in Nepal in 2009, especially from the presentation by Mr. Lekhanath Pathak and Ms. Maya Rai.]

Motivation Through Writing

October 1, 2013Creative Writing, Creativity, ELT Resource, Teacher Training, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writingadmin

Myrtis (Doucey) Mixon, Ed. D.

University of San Francisco

How can we motivate our students to be excited about their classes? One way is to tell them stories. Another way is to ask them to write stories.

Stories educate, enrich, and entertain everyone. Find easy stories in English. But for now, I will whet your appetite by sending you two of the stories that will be published in the forthcoming book of stories called “Untold Tales” written by English ACCESS Microscholarship Students in Nepal, These are the stories that they wrote at the winter camp in 2013 in Pokhara.

These anecdotes and tales of exprience provide an enjoyable opportunity to increase vocabulary, reading comprehension, listening and speaking and, ultimately, writing. The stories and exercises together are a whole-language anthology designed to improve communication skills. These stories include exercises that employ the cooperative/collaborative learning philosophy and address multiple learning styles.

Using stories is a magical way to teach, effective at any age. Here’s a summary of how stories aid language-learning:

provide motivation for reading
heighten listening skills
develop speaking skills
use cooperative learning strategies
foster creative language growth
provide content-based material
Serve as model for further writing

All learners, from babies to grandmothers, learn better with stories; they are energizers. Integrating stories as an adjunct to the teacher’s repertoire in the classroom setting is not only simple, but makes perfect sense. We hope you use these stories to open new worlds of content and learning possibilities. We also hope they serve as a springboard to motivating your own students to write stories.

Enjoy the stories. If you want some more, write to me at “myrtis101@mac.com” and I will send you more. These two are from Kathmandu and Gorkha, but I have many others, some from Butwal and Birgunj.

My Story

One early morning, on my way to temple, I saw sparkling eyes in ragged clothes. I saw their creative hands and bright smiles. These children are strangers to me but no different from our own children whom we always love and support.

Two days later, I visited the prison of Sundhara, Kathmandu, for my class in social work. I saw many such faces who reside in prisons alongside their incarcerated parents and I became sad. These children have done nothing wrong. They are simply caught up in something they don’t understand.

I couldn’t forget them so a few months later, along with some friends, we opened up a child daycare centre in a rented house. My parents were not happy and they told me to leave it. However, I was determined to take those children out of prison and look after them and educate them for the future.

When I started this, I was 21, and nobody believed in me. People thought I was crazy. They laughed at me.

After two years, in 2005, I established The Butterfly Home for the children. Then, I travelled to many other places, speaking with jailers, parents and authorities, preparing to bring children out of prison. My own parents now understood and helped me. We were so touched by the children’s plight, that they are forced to live with their impoverished, incarcerated parents because there is no one to look after them on the outside.

It has been eight years since I began gathering the children from Nepali prisons and bringing them to live in a centre in the capital, Kathmandu, providing them not only with food and shelter, but also education and motherly love. I am happy to be recognized as their mamu. Now I have become the second Nepali woman to win the 2012 CNN Hero Award at the star-studded award ceremony held in Los Angeles. But still 80 children are living in prison and I am going to take them out of the prison soon.

My name is Puspa Basnet and children are my hope. I believe the world is their place where they can carve their future with their own hands.

Prashanna Mahat, 15

Kathmandu

Exercises

Understanding the Story

How did Puspa Basnet get involved with helping the children?

Vocabulary

sparkling reside incarcerated determined plight impoverished carved

1. The stars were ______________________________________________ in the sky.

2. The children’s parents are __________________________________ in the prisons.

3. The children have nowhere to ____________________________ out of the prisons.

4. Puspa Basnet was _______________________ to get the children out of the prisons.

5. Many people were affected by the ______________________ of these poor children.

6. To make something out of something can be to ____________________________ it.

7. The parents in the prison have no money; they are __________________________ .

Now you Talk

1. What would it be like to be one of those children living in the prison?

2. Where do they go to school?

3. Is there a way you could help these children?

Now you Create

1. Write a letter to the mayor of your town asking for help.

2. Draw a cartoon strip about this problem.

Role Play

1. Mother in prison, her son: talking about his going to school.

2. That son, another student: talking about where he lives.

3. Two Girls who live with parents in prison: talking about their lives.

4. Two guards in prison: planning to help the children

5. Puspa Basnet, mayor of town: talking about helping more children.

The Kidnappers

This is a true story that happened in Dada Gaun village near Laxmi bazaar in 2012.

One Saturday, Rina and Rehan, a brother and sister asked their parents if they could go to the park. Their parents said, “Please, go safely. There are so many bad people in the road.”

Rina said, “Don’t worry. We will be careful.” They crossed one town where many busses went here and there. They went to the park. While they were walking on the road, a micro bus stopped just beside them. The door opened and a man jumped out, grabbed them both and put them in the micro bus.

They were taken to the jungle which is near the park. They were so afraid and they cried a lot. Many hours went by. The kidnapper went near Rina and laughed. Rina asked, “Why are you laughing?”

The kidnapper said, “You are my one corore rupees. That is the ransom we will get from your parents. Give me your phone number. But Rina didn’t give it to him. He slapped her and said, “If you don’t give me your father’s phone number, I will kill you right now.”

Rina was afraid of him and gave the number. Meanwhile, the children’s parents were worried when they didn’t come home by evening time. Then their mobile phone rang. The kidnapper demanded one corore rupees as a ransom. The kidnapper said to him, “If you don’t give me the ransom money, you will see your children’s dead bodies.”

Hearing this, the father became more afraid. Then the father thought of a trick. “Where are you?” asked Rina’s father. The kidnapper said, “I am in the jungle near the park.”

While the father kept talking to the kidnapper, the mother called the police station and said, “Please save my children. They have been kidnapped. They are in the jungle near the park. The kidnapper demands one corore rupees as ransom. I don’t have even thousands.”

The police hurried and drove very quickly. They stopped the car in the park and walked into the jungle. They surrounded the microbus and caught the kidnapper. The children were saved.

Their parents gave many thanks to the police. They told the police not to let the kidnapper free because if he is free he would kidnap other children. After that he was put into the jail for his whole life.

Kasam Ale, 15

Gorkha

Exercises

Understanding the Story

What is a moral for this story?

Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks of the summary with the words below.

ransom surrounded kidnappers tricked

microbus worried careful grabbed

The children wanted to go to the park. Their parents were __________________ They said, “Be very _________________ . While the children were walking, a _________________ stopped and a man jumped out and _______________________ them. The men were __________________________. They demanded a _____________________ . The father ________________ the bad men. The police ____________ the kidnappers.

Now You Talk

1. What would you do if a kidnapper grabbed you?

2. How can you solve a crime with a mobile phone?

Now You Create

1. Draw a picture of the kidnappers.

2. Write another ending to this story.

Role Play:

1. Mother, girl: warning about bad people.

2. Girl, kidnapper: he asks for her phone number.

3. Sister, brother: planning how to get away from kidnappers

4. Father, police: planning to catch kidnappers.

5. Mother, girl: talking about their capture.

Effective Practice for Vocabulary

October 1, 2013Miscellaneous, Teacher Training, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsflashcard, vocabularyadmin

William Wolf

Chittagong, Bangladesh

Students often ask me, “How can I learn English better and faster?” and I have trouble giving them an answer. I have taught English for more than 20 years and I have been a student of languages for more than 30, but I am still not sure how to answer their question. The problem, I think, is that they are looking for the one way to learn a language. But learning a language effectively requires that we use a number of different methods. In this blog, I want to address what I think is the single hardest part about learning a language to a high level—vocabulary—and to suggest a number of ways that learners can improve their knowledge and skills in this area.

Learning vocabulary is a real problem

In my experience as both a teacher and a student, the most time-consuming part of learning a language is usually vocabulary. People often worry about the problems of learning a new alphabet, script or other writing system, but although this is a problem in the beginning, it is really something in which we can make a lot of progress in just hours. There are some exceptions, Chinese being the most famous. But if someone wants to learn Arabic, Greek, Russian, Burmese, or some other script, ten or twenty hours of careful practice spread out over a few weeks will usually be enough. People also often worry about grammar, and it’s true that this will take longer. Here, it’s a matter of many months of practice.

But when it comes to learning vocabulary, it’s a matter of years, not of weeks or months. Many language learners discover that when they’ve reached a high intermediate level, they’re able to discuss, with some difficulty, many topics, but that even books written for ten-year-old native speakers are often too hard for them to understand. Why? When I ask students to take a page from a text and then to use two different colors to mark the grammar and the vocabulary problems they have with this text, they quickly see that they usually have only a small number of grammar problems per page, but they might have 20 or 50 or even more words whose meanings they cannot understand.

Reading even a book for a fifth grader requires a knowledge of thousands of head words. Ordinary conversation probably uses no more than one or two thousand head words. This means that simply relying on conversation will not give us a vocabulary large enough to read even texts that teenage native speakers can understand. If our goal is to be able to read university level materials, our work will be even harder.

Of course, if the language we are studying has a vocabulary that is closely related to a language we already know, then learning vocabulary won’t be so difficult. Spanish and French share a large percentage of their vocabulary. Both are descended from Latin and both have borrowed many technical words from Latin, so a person who knows one will find it quite easy to learn the vocabulary of the other. Similarly, most North Indian languages are closely related. Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Gujarati, and many other languages are both descended from Sanskrit and have borrowed many of their specialized words from Sanskrit. A knowledge of one of these languages helps immensely in learning any of the others.

But when we are learning a language whose vocabulary has few connections with other languages that we know, we will have to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of hours reading, using dictionaries, memorizing, and practicing if we want to be able to function at a university level.

Learning vocabulary is a real problem. So what to do about it?

1 – Choose the right things to read

The simplest piece of advice for learning any skill is “practice…a lot.” But it’s not enough to simply practice, we must use effective practice, and this is where things start to become more difficult. In addition to the problem mentioned above—the very large number of vocabulary that must be learned—there’s another problem, namely, that to effectively learn vocabulary we need to concentrate on words that are appropriate for our level. The best way to do this is to find texts that are at the right level. If the texts are too easy, we won’t find enough new words to learn, but if the texts are too difficult, there will be too many new words and these words will often be too hard for us to use (that is, to practice) in our own speaking and writing.

The most important thing we can to do make learning vocabulary more effective is to choose texts that have about the right number of new words. Dr. Willy A Renandya is a senior lecturer at Singapore’s National Institute of Education, and he has done a great deal of research on extensive reading. He argues that the best texts to use are ones that are rather easy for the learner. What does “rather easy” mean? In percentage terms, this means that for extensive reading we should be using texts where only about 2% of the words are unknown to us. A paperback novel might have about 250 words per pages, so he suggests the Rule of Five. If the text is the size of a paperback novel, count the number of unknown words on page, and these should be fewer than five. If they are more than five, the learner will probably only be able to read a small number of pages before giving up in frustration.

There are several ways we can find such “rather easy” texts. One way is to use texts written for younger native speakers or language learners. Children’s books and school textbooks are two obvious choices. Poetry and songs will usually be harder than prose, and comic books are often not a good choice since they use so much slang.

Another source is graded readers. Graded readers are books that are written to match different levels (here called “grades”) in terms of both vocabulary and grammar. There are many publishers of graded readers: Oxford, Cambridge, National Geographic, as well as South Asian publishers. Most of them use some form of a 6-level scale to describe the difficulty of a text. They also publish a wide range of titles and genres; there’s fiction (both original and adapted), travel, science, geography, history, and many other topics. I urge my learners to start with a book at level 3 and read a few pages and apply Dr. Renandya’s Rule of Five. If the book is too hard, then they should choose a level 2 book and try it. If the book is too easy, then they should try a level 4 book.

But choosing the right level is only part of the solution. It’s also important that we chose the right kind of book. If we have a very specific purpose in learning a language, we should concentrate on texts connected with that purpose. For example, if our only interest in learning a language is to read biology texts, then we should focus on vocabulary connected with that field. Of course, we need to find levels at the right level of difficulty, so we could use graded readers about science and the environment or books for primary and secondary school students. However, if our goal is to function at the level of an educated person, we should not limit our reading. Instead, we should read texts from a variety of genres and about a variety of topics: science, fiction, travel, politics, religion, movies, food, sport, family, holidays, everything.

2 – Find the definitions

Finding the definitions sounds easy but actually can be the most boring part of learning vocabulary. There are a number of common mistakes people make but also several solutions.

The worst thing to do is to stop everyone time we find an unknown word and to then look it up in a dictionary. This completely breaks our attention. What should we do? I recommend using a highlighter (I happen to use an orange one for this purpose) to mark the unknown words as one reads. After I reach the end of the chapter, I’ll then go back and choose which of the highlighted words to actually look up in a dictionary. If I’ve chosen a book that’s not too difficult, there should be no more than five unknown words per page, which would mean perhaps 20 to 100 words per chapter.

I am a big believer in using flashcards. These are pieces of stiff paper on which we can write things that we want to memorize. I should emphasize three things. First, many language learners think that all they need to do is make flashcards and memorize the words in order to learn a language. That’s not true. We also need to practice how to use these words correctly, an issue I’ll address a bit later. A second problem is that many native speakers of English don’t like using flashcards and urge their students not to use them. In my experience, these native speakers tend to recommend that learners simply use context to guess the meanings or that they just absorb new vocabulary from books, TV, movies or other sources. In my experience, such people very often fail to learn any language to a university level. Although using context to guess meaning is very important, most learners are not able to learn thousands of words simply through methods like these. Third, many monolingual native English speakers insist that their students only use English-English dictionaries. I have little patience with this. Although once we reach an advanced or superior level, we might use such dictionaries, for lower levels the best choice is a bilingual dictionary.

Once I have finished a chapter or some other part of the text, I will choose which of the highlighted words to learn. Often I will try to learn all the words, especially if I’ve chosen a text with not too many unknown words. I use flashcards that are 3 centimeters by 6 centimeters and that are made of stiff paper like that used to make business cards. Some people prefer to use larger cards, but I find that this size, although small, is easy to hold in my hands. I write the unknown words on the cards and then I organize them alphabetically. Next, I use a dictionary to find definitions and I write these on the cards. I know that the next point will sound foolishly simple, but it’s important. When you write the definition on the card, make sure you write it on the back of the card (English on one side, and your own language on the other) and also be sure to turn the card upside down. Having the words on one side written upside down with respect to the other will make it much easier to flip the card for learning and reviewing.

3 – What kind of information to include on the flashcards?

For learners of English, it will often be necessary to write the pronunciation of the word on the flash card. If you are right handed, you will probably be holding the cards in your right hand, so I suggest writing the English word in the center of the card and then writing the pronunciation in the bottom right corner. This way, you can hide the pronunciation with your right thumb and use it to help to guess and study the pronunciation.

It also makes sense to write irregular forms (especially for verbs), and for this I recommend also using the lower right corner. And for the small number of irregular plural nouns (child – children, ox – oxen, woman – women, etc), you can do the same.

Another kind of information to include is derivatives. For example, for the card with the word reason on it, you might also want to write reasonable and rational on the English side and then to give the definition of each on the back.

It can also be useful to include together words that you often confuse. For example, beginners often have trouble with kitchen and chicken. Putting both on the same side of one card can help you practice them and can help you remember that they’re different.

4 – Collocations are important, too

Learners should certainly also include collocations. A collocation is a fancy word for a group of words that often come together. Some of these might be phrasal verbs: get over, get across, break up, break through, come off, drag into, see off. Others can be phrase: have a good time, be on top of the situation, find a solution to the problem. It’s not possible to learn all of these, but when we’re making flashcards, we should probably include some collocations.

5 – Moving beyond the dictionary: finding useful phrases

A dictionary won’t have every phrase that we want to say, but a could source to find this is our extensive reading. When we are reading, many times we’ll see a phrase or a sentence and think, “I didn’t know this before, but I can guess the meaning and I really need to learn how to say this!” When I read, I underline these useful phrases with a green ink pen (green = “go forward” in my mind, so I use green since I want to be able to go forward with these phrases). For example, when I was studying Bengali, I didn’t know how to ask “What does this word mean?” but one day I saw a sentence in a Bengali book and I was able to use context to understand that sentence. I immediately underlined it in green and also made a flashcard so I could practice it.

6 – Going from the discrete to the holistic

So far, most of the things I have emphasized have been discrete skills or discrete pieces of knowledge. “Discrete” means “in small pieces”. Although important, we also have to practice more holistic kinds of language. “Holistic” means “in wholes, not in pieces”.

One way to do this is to make short sentences from the words we see on our flashcards. We shouldn’t always just memorize these words as discrete (isolated) items but should also use them holistically (to make sentences, to have conversations). It’s especially easy to do this with collocations, but we should also try to use individual vocabulary items in sentences.

And what next?

Learners will find that after they get about a thousand or more flashcards, they will have trouble organizing them. It will no longer be possible to review all of these cards each day, nor will it be effective. Many words won’t require daily review to be remembered. In a future blog, I’ll consider the issue of how to organize one’s flashcards. I’ve been using flashcards regularly since the 1980s and for at least half a dozen languages I have more than 5,000 flashcards (for each of these languages). I agree that organizing them and also using them to maintain one’s knowledge of vocabulary is a real challenge, but I think I have some useful ideas. But that will have to wait.

Let’s Integrate Technology with Teaching

September 1, 2013Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsadmin

Maheshwor Rijal

Technology has affected all the aspects of our life and pedagogy is not an exception. The use of technology in teaching English as second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) has an immense value. Before I conclude this blog entry with the importance of technology in ESL or EFL classroom suggesting the integration of technology into pedagogy, I will share my reflections on the online teacher training course offered by an American University (I have recently attended) and experience of integrating technology into pedagogy. I believe such sharing based on both the reflection and the experience of learning and using technology in the classroom through this blog entry will be worthwhile motivating the readers especially the teachers to introduce and integrate technology in the classroom for effective teaching learning activities.

Reflection on Online Teacher Training Course

A couple of months ago, I attended an online teacher training course titled Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web’ offered by the University of Oregon, USA.

I spent altogether 10 weeks for this course, which gave me lots of inputs to use technology into the classroom. The course was designed so systematic and practical in the sense that I had to do lots of assignments. Creating professional blog, nicenet and wiki classroom were the most useful tasks assigned to me. As a result, this web skill course enhanced me searching for innovative ideas.

First, I have bookmarked useful websites in my delicious bookmarking page. Like the name of the host page, this which encompasses the bookmarks of useful websites, offers really delicious tips for teaching and learning. Then, I created my blog on blogger, where I have shared my ideas, experience, reflections and learning. I found that using blog is an effective means for sharing ideas and professional development. Nik Peachey, freelance learning technology consultant, trainer and writer has developed learning technology blog (click here) which combines video tutorial with pedagogical suggestions to help teachers exploit free web based technologies. Likewise, Peachey (2011) says, this blog and also this are useful blogs for the teachers’ professional development. I have used them and found very much useful for enhancing my professional career as Yadav (2011) argues that blogging is a helpful technique supporting the professional development of English language teachers largely through collaborative learning. He further adds that the blogging helps in building networks among English language teachers and promoting professional dialogues. Using technology in learning was a great opportunity for me to share experiences, knowledge, thoughts or plans with teachers of the same interest around the globe.

The use of nicenet is equally useful for organizing online English project which helps to run parallel to face to face tutorials. This is all about virtual English classroom. This web tool is useful for organizing interactions among the participants around the globe, link sharing, uploading information, sending the personal message to tutors and others. Learning technology for teaching and experience of integrating technology into teaching has realised me the fact that I am in novice stage and I need to update myself with the changing need of technologies as per the demand of the time.

My experience of integrating technology with teaching

It was difficult for me to introduce technology in the classroom because there was no internet connection and lack of computer in the school. However, I used my own laptop without internet connection in the class for teaching and learning. I had already figured out how I could incorporate it into my lessons and it was—listening activities. First I connected speakers with my laptop and then played the audio materials related with lesson, which I had already downloaded at home. I found the students really enjoyed my lesson which was different from previous times. When asked them what they had learned, majority of them replied the correct pronunciation. They further added that they felt difficult to listen to the sound but later they easily understood. After I got back from the class, I downloaded more different listening activities, authentic speeches, and sometimes captured radio programs using internet at home. For example, I have used this website, as it consists of different communicative exercises and these were helpful for making the classroom more interactive and recreational. Moreover, I have downloaded and used different games, riddles with the help of internet to make my teaching more interesting.

After I have used technology into the classroom, I found that students’ motivation and interest has increased in a greater amount, making a difference when compared to the classroom without technology. Now I realised that it is useful for revealing the great potentiality of the students and bringing a variety of changes.

Importance of technology in the classroom

Using technology in the classroom does not only associate with the PowerPoint presentation but also the use of different web tools for teaching and learning four language skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing. The use of technology shows the teaching and learning is not only limited within the periphery of the classroom but the teacher can do many more beyond the classroom using blog, nicenet, and wiki class. As a result, students can have access to learn beyond the class with the use of different web tools and the same set of tools can make the language classroom more interesting and lively. Such activities will certainly make the classroom activities fun and interaction oriented. My experience and learning show that these stuffs in the EFL classroom are also helpful for developing professionalism on the part of teacher. To conclude, the use of technology in the classroom opens the windows to access the free and open treasure of vast and worldwide knowledge.

Bill Gates says, “Technology is just a tool, in terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important”. This is age of networking and this is possible by connecting with virtual world. The teacher development is an ongoing process through networking. For this, the use of nicenet, blogging and creating wiki class will certainly have enormous effect for making classroom interactive and bringing synergic effects. By using this, you can post the course information, different assignments and hyperlinks. Moreover, such kinds of web tools are helpful in establishing stimulating environment. This also provides access to authentic learning materials and considerable amount of exposure to a wide variety of native sounds.

The following sites will be helpful for the teacher to make teaching and learning more interactive:

We need to start doing something different, new and extra through the use of new web tools before it is too delay. Now, it is the time to believe in technology, which is today’s reality.

However, using web technology in the EFL classroom particularly, in remote public school in Nepal is not feasible due to lack of availability of technologies and facilities like electricity, internet access, computer, and other resources and infrastructure required. And, the places where there is such access and availability have challenges like illiterate teachers in terms of knowledge and skills to use technology and reluctance to adopt and adapt modern teaching techniques. Fullan (1991, as cited in Maggioli, 2004) opines that schools are facing problems and challenges because of the “fragmentation, overload and incoherence resulting from the uncritical acceptance of too many different innovations”.

Conclusion

The above sections of this blog entry suggest that there are both opportunities and challenges ahead while integrating technology with pedagogy. Maggioli (2004) adds that language teaching profession is faced with accountability issues that call for improved teacher development as means of improving student learning. While integrating technology in the classroom, teachers ask themselves key five questions for professional development and this will be useful for implementing any new ideas in the classroom.

1. What am I doing?

2. Why am I doing it in this way?

3. What impact is it having on learners?

4. How might I do things differently?

5. If I did things differently, what impact might it have on learners? (Nolan and Hoover as cited in Maggioli, 2004)

The journey of thousand miles starts from a single foot. There is a need to change the traditional methods of teaching with integrating with technology. The curriculum developer, subject expert and others concerned need to introduce and integrate technology into the course of study for B. Ed. and M.Ed. degree. And such integration should be included in pre-service, in-service and refresher training modules too.

We can bring avenue of progressive change in Nepalese ELT and this is only possible when we have passion to update ourselves adopting and adapting modern global trends. We are not only the teachers but also change makers in ELT. Let’s integrate technology with teaching!

Author:

Mr. Rijal is pursuing his M. Ed. in ELT at Kathmandu University, Nepal.

REFERENCE:

Maggioli, G.D. (2004) Teacher centered professional development. ASCD: USA

Peachey (2011) A checklist of digital skills for teachers and trainers. The Teacher Trainer, Vol. 25, No. 1: A Pilgrims Publication ISSN:0951-7626

Yadav, P.K. (2011) Blogging as a Means of Professional development for ELT professionals. Journal of NELTA: Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association (NELTA) ISSN: 2091-0487

Teachers’ Perception and Practices on Dealing with Homework to Young Learners

September 1, 2013Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsadmin

Dipendra Kumar Khatri

Homework! Oh, homework!

I hate you! You stink!

I wish I could wash you away in the sink,

If only bomb would explode you to bits

–By Jack Prelutsky

In the above stanza, the poet Jack Prelutsky speaks of the feelings and attitudes of young learners towards homework. Many a time homework has become a cause of corporal punishment in many schools of Nepal. It has destroyed students’ fun, laughter, games, confidence, etc. It embittered parents- children relationship, teacher- student relationship, etc. It has appeared as a villain for young learners and does not seem to disappear until a foreseeable period of time. Teachers, on the other hand, like to assign homework with a hope that learners better learn the things they have taught. In this connection, I like to share how teachers perceive and practice homework.

I, as the training co-coordinator NELTA Surkhet, facilitated a session on ‘Dealing with Homework in Primary Level’. The main objectives of the presentation was to find out the participants’ perceptions and practices on homework and share how teachers deal with different issues on homework.

In the sharing session, most of the teachers reported that they would always give homework to their students with a view to engaging them in learning at home so that they could consolidate what they had studied at school. They also shared that most of the teachers assign writing or reading or project work as homework. The teachers from the private schools said that they would give a lot of homework, and spend some twenty to thirty minutes to correct it.

The teachers from public schools shared that they were assigning homework ‘sometimes’; not every day; whereas the teachers from private schools shared that they were assigning homework ‘everyday’ and they would give a lot of homework if there is long vacation.

All the teachers shared their bitter experiences of hearing that voice of students as the responses for not doing homework. Despite their expectations, often teachers have to listen to their students speak out the following utterances:

Sir, my brother tears my notebook.

Sir , yesterday I was absent’

Sir, I had gone to my mamaghar.

Sir, another teacher check it.

There was a lot of homework yesterday.

Sir, I asked father but father did not learn about it.

I only copy it, I do half only.

Sir, it was difficult.’ No idea.

I have lots of work in home. ‘I have no time to do.’

‘I did not copy the homework. You rubbed out the questions so fast.’

Sir, I forgot my copy.

‘Sir, I have new copy today.’

I forgot to keep in my bag.

I lost homework copy, sir

Sir, you no give me happy. So I have don’t write.’

Yesterday, I didn’t come to school.

Sir, my mother did not buy copy today.

‘I lost my English book.’

I have not a pen.

Sir, I am sick.

Sir, you check yesterday, I no do today.

‘Sir, you don’t find me very good.’

Some students just stand up still and remain silent; they do not speak but seem to have been terrified. Their face looks gloomy. They do not respond verbally. Those were the common verbal and non-verbal responses to the teachers who check homework. I believe that such responses certainly make both students and teachers feel bad and degrade their zeal for learning and teaching respectively.

Strategies to deal with homework

The teachers shared that they are using many types of strategies to deal with homework effectively. Some of them are: asking the students for not doing homework, asking parents to come to school, asking learners to do the tasks while the teacher is checking other students’ homework, etc. Some of the teachers even reported that they would get angry when they do not find suitable reasons for not doing homework.

Harmer (2008) advises teachers to ask the students’ interest and try to set homework which are relevant to them; not only in terms of their interests but also in terms of what they are studying. The teachers tend to assign homework related to what the students are studying. They never consider their interests. Similarly, they are willing to contact guardians to conform the reason for not doing homework by their children.

The teachers do not visit the guardians to encourage their children who keep doing homework regularly. They do not telephone the guardians whose children do not have the problem of homework, but they telephone those guardians whose children have the problem of doing homework. Most of such parents also cannot support their children in doing homework. Therefore, not only students but also parents feel embarrassed for being called in the school just to listen to the same thing: Your child does not do homework.

All the teachers shared that they were giving the exercise or lesson of the book as the homework. To write, read and memorize. They generally do not make it fun i.e. give varied types of work; not only the questions from the book but also some funny tasks. Students want to be involved not only in the routined tasks, but also some serious things or some slightly crazy tasks. The homework can be given in envelops or sent them in e-mails jut to make them feel like doing homework.

The private school teachers said that they would use homework diary to keep record of homework. But it was not used by public school teachers. The teachers in Surkhet valley did not give extra-activities as the homework. They gave homework from books only. They gave tasks orally or in written form face to face; not in envelops and e-mails. The teachers do not give the individual (solo) work, but only one type of task to the whole class.

The teachers form private schools shared that their first duty entering into the class is to check the homework. So they check the students’ homework very often. They do not use pair or student checking strategy. A teacher checked all the students’ homework. They spend as many as thirty minutes for correcting homework. How long do they actually teach! They did not have sufficient time to check properly with constructive feedbacks. As a result sometimes guardians complain their strategies, sometimes the students themselves question to their teachers. The teachers from the public schools often face the problem while checking the homework because of the large no of students in a class.

Teachers do not forget assigning homework, because they believe that if students do homework, they have learned well. They are overwhelmed by the right responses of their students and keep correcting assignments, no matter how long they are.

The teachers only respect the right answers in the students’ homework, which is also not so good practice, because from the students’ mistakes or errors they can notice how much they have learned and how much they need to help them learn. They can make their further plans in such a way that they can significantly decrease the number of errors to be committed by their students.

Generally, the teachers do not think how they can make post-homework productive. They rarely manage the class where the students correct their mistakes and learn from one another. The teachers have not been successful to provide their learners with opportunities to get students to correct each other’s homework in supportive and cooperative way.

It was also shared that the teachers form public as well as private schools took many trainings that helped them to create home wok friendly environment i. e. if the students are not doing homework, the teachers will help them do at school during the class time. They were not using the punishment as the strategy to deal with homework. They also mention that they were in favor of finding out reasons why their students do not do homework and act accordingly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, homework seems to be an integral part of teaching and learning activity from teachers’ perspective. The teachers who teach to young learners should particularly think of some ideas of making homework a fun activity and should not make learners feel any kind of burden, which can have a lot of repercussions on intellectual, emotional, social, etc. aspects of youngsters.

Author:

Mr. Khatri is a life member of NELTA and a Teaching Assistant at Surkhet Campus (Education) and he has been teaching English at the campus over the last four years.

REFERENCE

Harmer, J. (2008). How to teach English. London: Pearson Longman.

Interaction in English language classrooms to enhance students’ language learning

August 1, 2013Creativity, ELT Resource, English as a Global Language, Miscellaneous, Teaching Tipsadmin

Chura Bahadur Thapa & Angel M. Y. Lin *

Introduction

EFL contexts like Nepal seldom provide students with opportunities for authentic communication in English. Therefore, deliberate ‘interaction in the classrooms’ is emerging as one of the leading conventions to enhance the students’ linguistic resources as well as equipping them with appropriate skills for communication. The major intent of this entry is to share a teacher’s insider experiences of developing interactions in an ESL classroom in Hong Kong while fully recognizing that the contextual differences between Hong Kong and Nepal will necessitate teachers’ own creative adaptation or re-invention of whatever tips shared from elsewhere. We shall, first of all, present the concept of interaction from sociocultural perspectives and discuss various challenges for the front-line EFL teachers to plan and implement lessons that incorporate interactions in ESL or EFL classrooms. Then, insider experiences of the first author of this entry in overcoming those challenges are shared. Assuming that the textbooks and teaching materials play a vital role to promote and facilitate the interactions in classrooms, a sample activity designed for the Secondary Two (Class 8) ESL students in Hong Kong is also included and discussed.

Interaction in language classrooms

Classroom interaction has been considered one of the most important pedagogical research topics in language classrooms in recent decades, mostly due to the influence of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotskian sociocultural theory (Hall & Walsh, 2002) views the act of language learning as a social activity in which children build their knowledge through the help and scaffolding of more knowledgeable peers or teachers. Interactions in language classrooms are important social activities for students through which they not only construct knowledge, but also build confidence and identity as competent language users (Luk & Lin, 2007). In an in-depth ethnographic study of teacher-student interactions in Hong Kong, Luk and Lin (2007) found out that students develop multiple identities through their classroom interactions with their language teachers. Although the study took place in an ESL classroom where native English language teachers are available, Luk and Lin (2007:188) present a telling story about how students negotiate identity and cultural resources, which are “translated into non-institutionally sanctioned language practices and identities”. Perhaps, the social knowledge students bring into the classrooms might be those “non-institutional language practices”, which schools and teachers are supposed to build on in order to enhance their learning.

Interaction in the classroom refers to the conversation between teachers and students, as well as among the students, in which active participation and learning of the students becomes vital. Conversations are part of the sociocultural activities through which students construct knowledge collaboratively. Conversations between and among various parties in the classroom have been referred to as educational talk (Mercer and Dawes, 2008) or “exploratory talk” and “presentational talk” (Barnes, 2008:5). Presentational talk is the one-way lecture conducted by the teachers in the classroom, mostly featured in Nepalese EFL contexts, which contributes little to encouraging and engaging students in a communicative dialogue. Exploratory talk is a purposeful conversation, often deliberately designed by teachers, which provide opportunities to students to engage in “hesitant, broken, and full of deadend” conversations enabling them to “try out new ideas, to hear how they sound, to see what others make of them, to arrange information and ideas into different patterns” (Barnes, 2008:5). Given the limited linguistic resources the EFL students possess in their school years in EFL contexts like Nepal, these hesitant, broken and deadend conversations could be developed into spontaneous conversational skills. When students engage in interactions, they produce “symmetric dialogic context” (Mercer & Dawes, 2008:66) where everyone can participate, get respected and get the decisions made jointly. Students’ participation in interactions, therefore, can help them enrich their linguistic resources and build their confidence to communicate with others in English.

Designing interaction: challenges and ways ahead

When I started teaching English in a Hong Kong school, I noticed that students in Hong Kong like to talk a lot. These talks are often characterized as responses to the multiple stimuli such as various gadgets and social media. To realize the importance of students’ talks in their knowledge building was a paradigm shift in me, as my high school days in Nepal still remind me of the very quiet classrooms where often only the teachers talked. The process of designing lessons with meaningful interactions in my ESL classroom in Hong Kong posed several challenges such as incorporating various forms of interactions, achieving the lesson goals through such interactions, participation of students in meaningful interactions, and making sure that all the students engage in conversations and learn from the teachers as well as from themselves.

Secondly, of course students’ varying language abilities, topics that generated the conversations among them and matched their abilities presented a micro level challenges in managing interactions. Students in my class came from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and I believed that they brought with them their own unique knowledge base. Their varying English language ability might sound simple to some or unnoticeable to others, but addressing them in the classroom would very much influence how they view themselves and others (Luk & Lin, 2007) and make them feel how their cultural and linguistic knowledge base could be important in furthering their academic journey.

To overcome the underlined challenges, I took a closer look at other teachers’ practices and suggestions by researchers (Jong & Hawley, 1995). I found Jong and Hawley’s (1995) suggestions particularly setting up group roles, teacher monitoring and evaluation, peer evaluation, appropriate group size and configuration quite useful. Assigning group roles and group configurations could be thought during the planning stage. Teacher monitoring should be conducted at the while-teaching stage, and teacher and peer evaluations are elements to be incorporated at the post-teaching stage. I often incorporated three stages of interactions in my lessons.

Interaction of the students with the teacher (Teacher Student Whole-Class Interaction): I often asked students to respond to a certain question related to a emerging topic or a topic that was already taught as part of the whole-class interactions. For the responses, students were randomly selected based on their ability, seating arrangements, gender and cultural groups to make sure that they all get represented in the interaction process.
Pair Interaction (Interaction with their peers sitting together or next to them): This interaction often took place during the pre-teaching stage, for example to activate their schema on a topic. As part of assigning group roles, students were usually asked to interact with their partners on a topic given by the teacher and present it to the whole class.
Group Interaction (Groups of 4-5 students): This form of interaction often took place during the while-teaching stage. After students read a text, for example in a reading lesson, they could pick up a concept for discussion. Their discussion could dwell on expanding the practical meaning of the concept, finding solution to a problem or bring up a creative issue out of the topic. Based on Jong and Hawley’s (1995) suggestions, students’ roles were often divided based on the nature of the topic such as a note taker, a facilitator, a presenter, and so on. Assigning these roles was crucial to prevent the students to digress from discussion their topics or and contribute meaningfully in the whole learning process.

The idea of teacher monitoring took place during the process of pair or group interactions. Teachers could evaluate the extent and forms of interactions students conducted during the process, and at the same time, provide feedback and support to the weaker students. I often walked around the class and monitored the students’ interactions to make sure that they are up to the tasks and are supported when in need.

Timing the interactions was another important aspect handling the students’ conversations purposefully and meaningfully. I often gave the students 5-10 minutes to interact among themselves and prepare a presentation poster or speech. The timing depended on the topic’s extent of difficulty and students’ ability as well.

Students were often asked to present the outcome of their interaction to the whole class in poster or speech forms. In order to ensure every students’ participation, they were trained and assigned with roles to make contributions individually even during group presentations. This was at this stage that the teacher and peer evaluation took place. I often adopted a range of techniques to evaluate students’ performances such as asking students to fill in an evaluation rubric or asking students about their peers’ performances and grade them on the board. Sometimes this process generated heated debates and quarreling, friendly though; among the students because they thought that some of their peers were not evaluating them fairly.

Last, but not the least, I also created teaching materials and worksheets conducive to the diversity of the students particularly in order to scaffold on their linguistic and cultural resources. Textbooks nowadays are found incorporating activities for some forms of interactions, but they often become irrelevant in the classrooms because these textbooks cannot address the range of students’ ability levels, skill levels and their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Most textbooks in Hong Kong, for example, incorporate elements of Chinese and Christian festivals and ask the students to interact on that. However, students from Nepal, Pakistan, India, or Sri-Lanka in Hong Kong would not be able to use their cultural resources and construct knowledge from the interactions. Although English language textbooks in Hong Kong are considered to be the most advanced resources for ESL students, modifications often needed to suit to my students’ needs. These changes sometimes also needed to address the students’ willingness and skills to spontaneously engage in interactions. For example, some students in my class were very poor in English and found it hard to even properly construct questions to ask their friends, while others were at a native English speaker’ level.

Taking these questions into consideration, we present an activity (Activity 1) that can potentially be used to promote pair interactions in an EFL classroom. This activity is a modified activity from a secondary two (Class 8) English language textbook in Hong Kong, which is believed to suit students with moderate English ability. The moderate language ability in this context is the students’ ability to use connectives and quantifiers in authentic situations. This activity incorporates multicultural elements in the context of Nepal as it contains pictures of various Nepali festivals as well as Western festivals such as Christmas. Students can ask their peers about their likes or dislikes and jot down their answers to present to the class. Phrases given in the boxes are meant to cater for learner diversity. For higher proficiency students, this activity can be presented in a different way to suit their levels.

___________________________________________________________________________

Activity 1:

Worksheet A

1. Study the pictures in the boxes in pairs. Ask questions to your friend about items that he/she prefers or doesn’t prefer more (or less) and why. Write your friend’s responses in the checklist at the bottom.

You may begin like this: Which festivals do you like more/less/most/least? Why?

………………………………………………………………………..

Check List

2. Write your friend’s answers below. You may need to present it to the class.

* My friend likes ___________________________ more, because ______________

* My friend likes __________________________less, because _________________

______________________________________________________________________

* He/She likes ___________________________ the most, because _____________

______________________________________________________________________

* My friend likes ___________ the least, because __________________________

Conclusion

This entry presented the concept of interaction from a sociocultural perspective sharing the first author’s teaching experiences in a Hong Kong school. The sharing included the challenges as well as possible strategies a teacher might adopt to devise, implement and evaluate interactions in an EFL classroom. The sharing could present a model for EFL teachers to choose from many other pedagogical options in order to enhance the students’ English language learning. The activity presented in this entry is only one example of hundreds of such possible activities. The original activity might not be suitable to adopt exactly in Nepalese EFL classes, as there are diversities in terms of language, culture, students’ abilities as well as available resources based on geography, developmental level and proximity to urban life. Teachers need to bear in mind that they understand their students the best and they need to know how students can best interact and learn the language in the classroom.

*About the Authors:

1- Mr. Chura Bahadur Thapa is a PhD Student in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. He was an English language teacher in a local college in Hong Kong for almost 7 years before joining HKU as a postgraduate student. He is currently researching the language learning and motivation of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. His other research interests include- education of ethnic minorities, linguistic and cultural identity, intercultural communication and citizenship education. He can be reached at chura@hku.hk

2- Dr. Angel Lin received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, Canada. She is an Associate Professor of English Language Education at the University of Hong Kong. Well-respected for her versatile interdisciplinary scholarship in language and identity studies, bilingual education and youth cultural studies. she has published six research books and over eighty research articles. She can be reached at angellin@hku.hk.

REFERENCES

Barnes, D. (2008). Exploratory talk for learning. Exploring talk in schools. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE, 1-15.

Hall, J.K. & Walsh, M. (2002). Teacher-student interaction and language learning. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 186-203.

Jong, C.D. & Hawley, J. (1995). Making cooperative learning groups work. Middle School Journal, 26 (4), 45-48.

Luk, J.C.M. & Lin, A.M.Y. (2007). Classroom interactions as cross-cultural encounters. Native speakers in EFL classrooms. Mahwah, New Jersey, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Mercer, N. & Dawes, L. (2008). The value of exploratory talk. In Mercer, N. & Hodgkinson, S. (Eds.). Exploring talk in schools. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE, 55-72.

An Unforgettable Teaching Technique

August 1, 2013Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsadmin

Dipendra Kanu

There are so many memorable moments of teaching English language, be it at English language institute or higher secondary school or college. I’d like to share with you what I find to be one of my most effective moments of teaching, which is teaching a story in grade twelve.

As I was planning to teach students the story ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe for grade XII, I was thinking of presenting a quite new idea in a different way from previous times. But I was quite confused and worried about how to teach the story effectively since I was unable to teach the same last time as effectively as I had expected. I had not spent a great deal of time and I had prepared the lesson in a complete rush. As a result, I could not teach satisfactorily at the first attempt. However, there was a feeling of dissatisfaction in me as the students were not able to comprehend the texts properly as per my expectation.

In the evening while I was sitting on computer with internet thinking of the next day’s lesson, an idea of searching some teaching materials struck my mind. When I tried it on Google, I found thousands of useful links there but they were of no help for me. Then I did it on YouTube where I came across a very satisfactory video clip uploaded by The Film and TV Channel on Sept. 21, 2009 and its duration was only 10 minutes. No sooner had I downloaded the clip than I watched it for three to four times to satisfy myself and then made a plan to show it to students on my laptop.

Then I took to Googling again till I found another useful file containing the story in pdf version. I printed the story on some pages albeit the course book already contained the story. The only difference was—the pictures in the story which the book does not have. Similarly, I also found some useful links for its audio clips this and also this in mp3 format. First I downloaded them on my computer and then on my mobile phone set.

The next day, I went to the class fully prepared with the audio clips on my mobile phone and video clip on my laptop and the printed papers of the story with attractive pictures. I had given the class a short notice about some video clips on my laptop the day before. The desire to watch the video motivated all the students present in the class that day with much enthusiasm and curiosity.

First I asked them to be attentive in the class and listen to what I was going to play on my mobile set. I played it for 13 minutes and 28 seconds but some of them hardly understood the sound properly since it was the native tongue. Next, it was the time to show the video on the laptop. The students were quiet to watch the short clip. They tried their level best to understand what was going on. After they listened to and watched the clips, I explained the story to them. It was much easier for them to understand it in a quite interesting way. Finally, I presented its summary with the help of printed sheets of papers containing the pictures accompanying to the story. And I asked them to get them photocopied if they wanted.

As luck would have it, it was the last period and I took advantage of this and engaged them for more time than usual. This time my students were able to comprehend the story as expected. It took me around an hour to finish it. This was the most successful, effective and satisfying lesson that I have ever taught in my teaching career.

Let me conclude this short blog entry with the message—if we really try to explore the resources around us, they can be useful and powerful tool for our classroom activities and teaching something with audio-visual aids will have large effect on the learners. If you are going to teach the story ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ in grade XII in your class, you can use the hyperlinked resources I have mentioned above to make your teaching effective and feel the success.

About the Author:

Mr. Kanu has been teaching English for more than a decade. Currently he is involved in Popular English Language Institute, Thakur Ram Multiple Campus, Birguj Commerce Campus and Kadambari Academy in Birgunj. Besides, he is a journalist associated with Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) Parsa Chapter and the publisher/editor of The Young Guys, English Weekly Publishing from Birgunj.

An effective teaching through a student’s eyes

August 1, 2013Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsadmin

*Jyoti Tiwari

Teaching and learning processes involve a lot of ingredients to make imparting knowledge and skills from one person to another effective. Teacher, teaching aids, methodology, planning and strategies are some of those ingredients. In their absence, teaching and learning processes are negatively affected. Basically, teachers’ knowledge and skills are the main things for a successful teaching learning. No doubt, availability of resources and sufficient teaching aids and materials play a significant role for effective and successful learning. Lack of such resources inevitably creates a lot of problems derailing the learning process.

In Nepal, there are many schools which lack physical infrastructure, trained teachers, and other resources required, But this does not mean that teaching learning activities do not take place effectively. Many schools have teachers who have taken teaching profession for their passion. They have been carrying out teaching learning activities more effectively and successfully even in the absence of such resources. They have proved the fact that it is the teachers who can be the world in the classroom to their learners.

I am writing to share a story about one of my teachers who taught very effectively in spite of lack of resources. After being in the teaching profession for more than four decades, essentially his entire professional life, he is now retired. But he remains a major source of inspiration for me.

I was unaware of how important the teacher’s knowledge and skills can be while I was in school. BUT now when I myself am teaching after completing under-graduate studies, I realize and I could not help myself thinking of Ridhhi Kant Singh Thapa, my English teacher from Trijudhha secondary school in Birgunj. I can still remember his teaching style as quiet different from others.

Mr. Thapa was really passionate about teaching and that was perhaps the most important reason for why he was such a successful teacher. Inspired by his teaching style and classroom procedures, I would like to share with the audience some of his key teaching tips and techniques that had overwhelming impact on the learners through this short blog post.

I can still recall when he entered into the classroom, the environment changed automatically and there was active participation of students. Every student was enthusiastic about reading the text again and again. At the end of each lesson, we all were busy in making the questions ourselves and writing their answers accordingly on our own. My teacher usually wrote some examples of making questions to help the students who were weak and his individual attention to such students increased confidence and habitué of reading and writing.

While teaching passages and stories, the way the teacher adopted was very impressive and interesting to improve reading and writing skills. Here is a series of activities he used in the classroom and they have been presented in a process flow.

First, the teacher [T] selected some reading text ‘passage’ or ‘story’ or ‘dialogue’ from the textbook. He further informed the students [Ss] which text they were going through.

Secondly, T made Ss read the text themselves and asked to make questions as many as possible while reading the same text.

After that, T asked Ss to note down the answer of the questions they had made while reading the text.

In the meantime, T wrote some structure and examples on the board so that Ss would feel easy to do their task. He helped Ss with difficult word meanings in order to comprehend the text clearly and write the correct answer of the questions.

Then, T asked Ss to exchange their notebooks with their partner in a pair. After they had reviewed the answers written by their friends, they had a discussion and checked the answers of their friend’s notebook in pairs correcting their mistakes.

T asked Ss the number of the questions they had made and asked them to find the student who made more questions.

T was more interested in finding out which question Ss found hard to formulate and answer. Through this activity, he came to know where they were facing problems and where they required his support. It helped him come up with proper solutions helping Ss understand the text better.

Then, T wrote all the questions on the board asking Ss one by one from the same list which they had prepared while reading. Similarly, he approved the answers they had prepared asking them in turns.

At the end, T knew how well Ss have understood and comprehended the text and if they are found missing something or clarity required, he was always forward looking to take possible steps to fulfill the gaps. This is how he was successful in making the lesson interesting and effective.

Benefits of using the above strategy

Following are the benefits I have experienced of using the above strategy;

It is a learner centered method.
It is easy to carry out without much planning and it requires no teaching aids and materials
It can be very useful where schools lack resources or cannot afford teaching materials
It increases confidence level of learners and enhances both of reading and writing skills.
It is suitable for large classroom especially to make all the students engaged and check their assignments
It helps enabling learners to comprehend the text themselves
The role of teacher in the activity is facilitators
Increased vocabulary power of the learners
No use of teaching materials and other resources but teacher can use flash cards, pocket chart and pictures in order to make classroom more live and motivated
Even untrained teachers can easily carry out this procedure and can get control over the large class-room.

As inspired by my English language teacher whom I have lots of respect for because of his uniqueness and successful teaching career, I have shared the above mentioned teaching procedure hoping it could be beneficial and useful to those teachers who are compelled to teach due to lack of teaching materials and resources required.

About the Author:

Miss Tiwari is an undergraduate in ELT from Tribhuvan University and preparing for her masters’ degree. Currently, she is working as Radio Jockey for Radio Bindas in Birgunj.

What should one do in a language classroom?

July 1, 2013Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, Miscellaneous, Teacher Training, Teaching Tipsadmin

Rama Kant Agnihotri*

What students and teachers should do in a language classroom is best left to them. Language teaching is so complex and so contextually rooted that except for very general guidelines, nothing may really help in the actual task. What language professionals can at best do is to make available in as accessible a manner as possible content, form and format (oral, printed, digital etc.) material about the potential of the learner, aspects of nature, structure, acquisition and change of language, features of language variation, nature of learning processes, materials, methods and evaluation procedures. In this short article, I focus only on one issue that may be of some use to language teachers: How languages of learners in a given classroom is not an obstacle in the trajectory of language learning; it is in fact a resource not only in language teaching but also in enhancing cognitive growth and social tolerance.

Most teachers and several language professionals believe that languages of students are an obstacle in the process of learning another language. Many actually believe that they cause major interference and therefore students should not even be allowed to use their languages in the class and the school. The typical paradigm in which they work could be defined as ‘a class, a teacher, a text and a language’. Nothing if you reflect for a moment could be further from the truth. All classes are by default multilingual. Examine your own and examine your own language profile and that of your friends. Secondly, languages student bring with them are and can be used as a resource rather than dismissed as an obstacle. Languages always flourish in each other’s company; they suffocate in prisons of isolation and purity. English today is rich because it keeps its doors open; so were Sanskrit and Hindi till they started closing their doors. Thirdly, it is not at all difficult for all teachers and students to appreciate that all languages are equally rule governed and rich. This is something which is so effortlessly achieved if the strengths of a multilingual class are recognized. For example, all languages will have some technique to indicate the relationship between the subject and the verbal elements. That some languages may look more powerful than others is NOT a linguistic matter but one of history, sociology and politics and these aspects can also be easily demonstrated if the teachers are open to such a discourse. Languages like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Persian etc. were once very powerful; the power of English is only a few decades old and there is no reason to believe that it would stay like that. If you leave out china, Russia, Africa, India etc., the English speaking world is actually very small.

In any case, we do need to think why theories of interference hold such power and what’s wrong with them. These theories hold power because they are the most convenient answers to what is going on and they stop any deeper inquiry into the issues involved. It is a cosy corner that looks very attractive to a teacher who breathes some relief in saying: They will never learn; their languages always come in the way. What teachers don’t realize is that errors are necessary stages in the process of learning and what is being dismissed as interference may actually be a part of the UG driven way of acquiring a language or a milestone in the process of learning. Let’s consider some typical examples.

Let’s start with syntax. The fact of the matter is that there is actually no major difference between the basic syntactic structure of say Indian English and British or American English. All children, including those from the so-called native English communities, will make such errors as ‘he go to school’; the structural pressure of English syntax dictates that it should be so. Imagine everybody including ‘I, we, you, you plural, they’ ‘go’, why should poor ‘he, she, it’ ‘goes’!!! But if we stop comparing the behaviour of school or undergraduate learners with fluent speakers of ‘standard’ English, we will realize that all speakers of English, whether they acquire it as L 1 or L 2, learn to say ‘goes’ in due course. Take another oft quoted example of the invariant tag-question. When many speakers of the Asian subcontinent use ‘isn’t it’ with all kinds of statements, it is often pointed out as a major interference from say Hindi ‘hai na’ etc. Nobody takes the trouble of finding out how many ‘native’ varieties of English do the same. Some varieties of Canadian English certainly do it with a different invariant tag. Two points may be noted here. It may be a part of the standard commonly used Indian English and there is nothing wrong with this fairly understandable overgeneralization. In fact, in the speech of the teachers and the community, there may be no exposure to the variable tag question. Secondly, in the case of fluent users of Indian English, there may be many who actually use the variable tag question. What you eventually accept as a standard ‘correct’ usage is a matter that is located in a spatial, temporal, historical and sociological space.

Consider morphology. It is well attested that all children irrespective of whether they learn English as L 1 or L 2, go through a stage of using first ‘go, went, gone’ (as unrelated items) and then ‘go, goed, goed’ (as morphologically demanded items) and finally acquiring the exception ‘go, went, gone’. Imagine that all learners go through this stage and the set of irregular English verbs is rather large including such commonly used verbs as ‘come, cut, dig, do, eat, get, give, make…’ etc. Word formation strategies have nothing to do with interference. Yes, languages frequently borrow from each other, particularly cultural items. There is nothing you can do about it. English simply adds an additional appendix to its dictionary every year; speakers of course always move ahead of the dictionary.

Take phonology. Do all the so-called native speakers of English speak the same way? Will any one of you, unless she belongs to north of England, claim to understand a word of Yorkshire English? Or do you all understand rural Texan English? I don’t. I don’t even understand my grand-daughter studying in Malone in New York State. She finds it equally difficult to understand my Indian accent. Phonology is a marker of group identity and if you are really interested it will not come into your way after a while. But if you are already beyond 15-16 years of age, you will notice that your jaw is set and you may not get the ‘English English’ inter-dental fricatives, or the aspirated alveolar stops or the distinction between /v/ and /w/, which is really nothing to write home about unless you want a job at the BBC etc. Every variety has a right to its distinct identity.

So if languages of learners are not in our way, why do we make such a miserable mess of language teaching? At most places I know of, most learners don’t even manage to master the basic skills of reading comprehension and writing coherently. We do need to examine the language profile of our class. Every child brings a different linguistic and cultural resource to the class and these can indeed be sensitively assimilated into the teaching-learning process. The first requirement is of course that the teacher needs to walk out of the position of being the fountainhead of all knowledge and have faith in the ability of children to use their resources creatively. In actual classroom transactions it implies that the time taken by individual learners and their interactions in peer group would be much more than normally consumed by the teacher.

We today know that multilinguality is a default human situation and is constitutive of being human. Every classroom by default is inherently multilingual. Further, in a variety of ways, recent research has established how this multilinguality can be used not only as a resource but also as a teaching strategy and a goal. It correlates positively with language proficiency, cognitive growth, scholastic achievement, divergent thinking and social tolerance. It is also now well-established that levels of language proficiency enhance significantly with metalinguistic awareness which would tend to grow if we allow children to reflect on their languages.

What kind of strategies would be most useful in such situations? In fact, there is no limit and also no defining ‘models’. Freedom from the bondage of script is the first step. With very small effort on the part of learners and teachers, it becomes evident that all languages can be written in the same script, with some modifications. What we do need to understand is that all children and all their languages need to be involved and the teachers need to create situations in which children can work in groups collecting data from their languages, classifying it into different categories, examine the relationships among different parts and arrive at conclusions and hypotheses that would account for their data. Consider for example, the making of nouns from adjectives in English. Adjectives like ‘dark, lazy, rough, kind, small, rich, soft etc’ can be turned into nouns by adding ‘-ness’. However, this is not where teachers would start; they would instead start by talking informally about adjectives and nouns for a few minutes. Then leave it to groups of children who share some languages to make list of adjectives and related nouns in different languages available in the class. Hindi may not have any such strategy; but it may have some others. Or take the case of making plurals. With very limited guidance children will themselves work out the problems of saying that the plural in English is made not by adding ‘-s, -es or –ies’; once it is explained to them that they should focus on the sounds with which a plural ends, they work out that significance of ‘-s, -z and –iz’ in making plural, themselves pointing that the plural of say ‘dog and baby’ is made by adding the same sound. Another group will come up with a strategy for making plurals in Hindi which has not one but 3 plurals for each noun e.g. in the case of laRkaa ‘boy’, we have ‘laRke, laRkoN and laRko’, being the nominative, oblique and vocative plurals respectively. Consider the case of making ‘negatives’ in different languages. It is possible that children would themselves (and so would the teacher) discover that negatives in all languages are made by putting the negative element close to the verb of the main clause and if a rule is discovered in this way, it is rather unlikely that children would make mistakes in speaking or writing negative sentences. Take the case of translation. Nothing enhances language proficiency more than peer-group attempts at translation, not the traditional type of ‘literally and accurately translating from language X to language Y’. A small poem for example could be taken from any language. Notice that the power structures in the classroom at once start getting democratised; teacher is at the back of the classroom listening like others to a poem in an unknown language which is then written and explained by children in the script they are already using. The poem is then translated into several languages in small groups. Stories, plays, cultural events, social issues etc. could also be treated in a similar way. The kind of phonological, syntactic, semantic and semiotic issues such an exercise raises is overwhelming. The idea is to go through the process, not to arrive at a final, perfect translation.

*Rama Kant Agnihotri, D.Phil. (York), retired as Professor and Head, Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi. He is interested in and has taught and written extensively about Applied Linguistics, Morphology, Sociolinguistics and Research Methods for several years. He has lectured in Germany, UK, USA, Canada, Yemen, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, among other countries. He has also been working with several NGOs across India in the area of elementary school education. He co-edits, with A. L. Khanna, the Sage series on Applied Linguistics. He was Chair of the NCERT Focus Group on The Teaching of Indian Languages during NCF 2005.

The English Teacher: Where Is The Shoe Pinching?

June 1, 2013Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tipsadmin

Dinesh Thapa, Lecturer of English

Kitini College, Godawary

(Taukhel) Lalitpur Nepal

Email: dtdthapa@gmail.com

NELTA Life Member

Asst. Secretary, NELTA Lalitpur

The English Class

(Good Morning Sir). Morning. Sit down. Hello, why are you talking? Listen to the attendance. Roll number One. (Yes sir). Two. (Yes sir)……..Sixteen. (Absent sir). Don’t talk. I said…..Don’t talk. Seventeen. (Yes sir)…fifty six. (Yes sir). Give me your book, please. (one student gives the English textbook to the teacher). Ok. Students, take your book on. Today we are going to read on page no. 47. (Students turn the page there.) Turned- Found? (Pointing to another student) Hello, don’t you have the book? (No Sir, I’ve forgotten). That’s it! You always have to say the same. Share it from your friend, then. Now look there. Listen. Then the teacher reads aloud some lines from the textbook and translates the meaning into Nepali. S/he writes some unfamiliar words on the board and gives the meaning, possibly in Nepali. Students copy them onto the exercise book. There is a short comprehension- check- in through oral questioning. Often, it is the teacher who supplies the responses as it takes longer to get one from the students. By then the time gets over. The teacher leaves the class asking the students to write answers to the questions from page no. 48. The following day the teacher writes an essay on the board and the students copy it and recite for examination.

Where Is the Shoe Pinching?

The Nepalese classroom, especially in the secondary level, displays some unique features which are quite challenging from the viewpoint of teaching English. There are a considerable number of students in one class, possibly over fifty seated in the immovable iron-made furniture. The classroom is highly heterogeneous- in terms of age, ability and culture of the students. Mostly, the class is a teacher dominated one. S/he exhausts almost ninety percent of the hour, but there is talk in English hardly the half of the period. Presentation of the lesson is generally unaided with visuals and student practise by making written exercises. Although, the students respond to the teacher sparingly, they do not talk in English among themselves. Again, they do not reply in English; they simply understand the prompts…… like facts of biology…..understand them, but they cannot produce English. The response happens in Nepali itself. Also the motivational topics, like jokes, anecdotes, news sharing, and so on are told in Nepali, for the students cannot grasp of what is said to them. There is hardly a speaking class, except the teacher’s questions answered by the students. Teaching for speaking and listening skills does not have a scheduled class; most of the students experience listening to the cassette at exams only.

The teacher- talk during deliberation is directed to make the things clear to the students; so students do understand the matter but rarely can produce it in speech or writing. Similarly, the teacher gives answers to almost all questions, and students copy and rewrite them. Some few students recite the answers, only a few try on their own, whereas many simply do nothing. Although the teacher asks students to complete an assignment (generally in writing) at home, s/he can hardly compel them to do so. Only a small number of students have the habit of self-study at home, but the majority of them do not have even a dictionary and other support materials with them. The texts put in the book are simply unintelligible for them as they have never attempted so yet. For many of them, the grades scored earlier than in grade ten are simply promoted ones. If looked through, English and Mathematics happen to be the- never- passed subjects in all the previous grades. That’s why home study for English is almost impossible for the students. Even if some students do their home tasks, the teacher rarely provides feedback after correction. Correction is generally done teacher-privately, sitting in the teacher- room, in the absence of the concerned students, and the students rarely go over it back. The notes and exercises completed earlier in the session start getting lost over time. Once the course becomes over and revision starts, again the texts and exercises become anew, and are started afresh. All the previous teaching seems to have become a great waste.

There is the structural factor as well in play for the lower proficiency of the students. There are eight subjects for the students to learn in a day; among them seven are delivered fully in Nepali medium, even to such an extent that the terms like ‘ecology’ in environment, ‘evolution’ in biology, ‘rectangle’ in mathematics, etc. are also translated into Nepali. Teaching of English thus becomes the absolute business of the English teacher only. Also the single teacher teaches in classes at over four grades vertically. As the same teacher is taking charge of English, students are devoid of variety in the exposure of English. On the other hand, as there are only a few teachers with the ability to speak English in the whole, the English teacher barely gets a chance to use his/ her English with people other than the students. His/ her English thus erodes gradually. The problem is compounded by the reality that there are not any English medium newspapers, journals, magazines, videos and other reference materials available in school. The library contains books never- used and unsuitable- to be- used by the students. For the students, library seems to be available to see occasionally from the outside only.

The other residue of the problem lies with our culture. Absenteeism on the part of the students is still high. Only when the term-exams approach, attendances become more regular. Both girl and boy students have strong cliques to share about private matters; group dynamism is simply directed towards non-academic matters. Similarly, the role of the parents seems very nominal for making learning environment of their wards. They appear in the school only to get their wards admitted and to get the results. Other times, there is hardly only communication with the parents.

Reflections

I raised some pinching issues that might be our practical realities going on in the English classrooms. I want to share with you our present reality and our possible corrective measures for the improvement of our overall teaching scenario, so that the practicing teachers also have a say in the discourse of teacher professionals; so that they could restore the dignity schools possessed in the past. Whether we realize it or not, we are heading towards a challenging future. Our valued bases of faith and dignity are eroding day by day, leaving none of us untouched. Only our sincere efforts and visionary deeds can help us rescue from this ongoing quicksand of the eroding quality of our education. In such a situation, improvement in English teaching practices can work as a rescue rod.

Now I’d like to share with you a simple strategy that works for the improvement of learning English in our school, i.e., student motivation and teacher’s continued reflection over what went well or not. Student motivation is the drive that clears itself from all the barriers impending in the learning environment. We have the history that our former generations, and probably ourselves, learnt sitting under the direct sun. The buildings, sofas, chairs, videos, computers and lifts are not the causative factors for learning to happen. Rather it is the strong willpower on the part of the learner that works to crumble all the barriers. The English teacher should create such an environment that boosts up a feeling of ‘English Thrust’ in our learners. We need to make our classes pleasant, using simple English- in- English method, supplementing the class with tasks that arrest the interest of the learners (like jokes, tales, poems, puzzles, magazines, debates and presentations). The important factor here is that the students themselves should build up the feeling that ENGLISH IS IMPORTANT, NOT FOR OTHERS, BUT FOR THEMSELVES. Unless such a feeling germinates in the learners, all our efforts go in vain. We may get thinner day- by- day, but at the end of grade ten examinations, our students still remain unable to compose even a small paragraph, unable to speak general ideas, unable to comprehend moderate reading texts and to decipher normal spoken English. In order to check this, we need to make sure:

– that we teaching English as a means of communication, or as a subject like Sciences or Social Education;

– that our students are genuinely motivated to learn being involved in the learning environment

– that our students feel (not only think) that ability in speaking and writing English is really important in this modern time;

– that we exposing our learners to English as a language, not to the tit-bits of English;

– that we do create situations in which our students feel a necessary requirement to communicate in English in the lively communicational settings;

– that we have arranged the class in a scheduled form for the exposure of all skills and aspects of language;

– that we have sufficient language generating materials other than textbooks to assist to our duties, and

– that we are dedicated, reflective and change oriented all the time.

Once we consider changing the way we teach bit- by- bit, the challenges will turn into opportunities. The students will be proficient and communicative. The teacher will find his/her own face smiling in the beaming lights of the students’ achievement. Then the responsibility of the boatman will be successfully discharged when the passengers go across the river undisturbed and safely.

Writers Teach, Teachers Write

April 1, 2013Creative Writing, Creativity, ELT Resource, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writingadmin

Kirk Branch

U.S.A.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whose language is this, English?

Can I call it mine,

this language of my childhood stories,

my mother’s soothing,

my father’s rebukes,

my brothers’ tauntings,

my teacher’s lessons,

my lover’s caresses?

Yes, it is my language!

Does that mean I own it?

Do you own the water you hold in your hands?

Do you own the air you breathe into your lungs?

Do you own the spirit that animates your soul?

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

April 1, 2013Creative Writing, Creativity, ELT Resource, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writingadmin

Jayakaran Mukundan

Malaysia

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

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

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

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

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

Birgunj Truly Represents Nepal

April 1, 2013Creative Writing, Creativity, ELT Resource, Miscellaneous, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teaching Tips, Writingadmin

-Vishnu S Rai

Place: Kailash Hotel, Birgunj

Date and time: March 8, 7 PM.

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

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

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

Man is not anything by birth

He is what he makes himself

By passion,

Diligence, and

hard work.

9^th March: Workshop Day 1

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

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

Empty city

With light and all

Preoccupied people

With lost soul.

Lots of food

But no apetite

Lost in thought

Tongue tied.

Eerie feeling

Gloomy atmosphere

Empty heart

Nothing to share.

Neither they want

to show nor to be seen

In this very world

We pay for our sin.

10^th March: Workshop Day 2

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

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

A chimney and a

Hospital stands side by side

Demand and supply

11^th March: Workshop Day 3

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

I’m a stone.

I’m the heart stone.

You might think how could there be a heart stone.

But I am.

I’m the heart stone.

No, seriously.

Look at me!

You see my shape? It’s like a heart.

Touch me!

Do you feel my softness?

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

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

I’m not a heart made of stone.

I’m the heart stone.

Would you pick me up?

I suggest you should.

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

They will be so happy.

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

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

Would you now pick me up?

Gently please!

For I’m the heart stone.

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

12 March: Conference Day 1

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

How time flies for non-Nepalis

When they are having fun

It travels slowly for Nepalis

Like a penguin walks in the sun

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

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

13^th March: Conference Day 2

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

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

My Child’s Eyes

I walked through the windows

Of my child’s eyes

Into a world of wonder

Where the grass is always green,

No sky is ever anything but blue,

The sun shines eternally from one corner,

Houses puff dainty smoke for ever –

And people never cry.

A land of bright-eyed foxes,

Breathtaking birds,

(Occasionally flying upside-down),

Daddies and mummies,

And people who never die.

And then I walked out again,

Crying for the innocence she’ll lose.

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

Trying not to break it.

Birgunj hospitality

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

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Learning vocabulary is a real problem

Learning vocabulary is a real problem. So what to do about it?

1 – Choose the right things to read

2 – Find the definitions

3 – What kind of information to include on the flashcards?

4 – Collocations are important, too

5 – Moving beyond the dictionary: finding useful phrases

6 – Going from the discrete to the holistic

And what next?

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