Creative Writing Conference

Asian English Teachers’ Creative Writing Group 

Dr. V. S. Rai

Associate Professor

Departement of English Education

Tribhuvan University

Asian English Teachers’ Creative Writing Group organized a 2 day conference at Little Angel’s School, Hattiban, Kathmandu. About 200 teachers attended the conference. The presenters were 2 from the UK, 4 from Malaysia, 2 from Vietnam, 1 from Indonesia, 2 from India, 1 from Thailand and 4 from Nepal. The main attractions of the conference were the plenary sessions by Prof. Alan Maley from the UK, Prof. Jayakaran Mukundan from Malaysia and Prof. Jai Raj Awasthi and Vishnu S Rai from Nepal. Every aspect of creative writing -from how can teachers themselves write to how they can help their students write – was covered. Despite the fact that creative writing was something new for the participants, their presence in overwhelming number suggested how keen Nepalese English teachers are to learn new tricks of their trade.

What participants liked most was that all the sessions provided them with the practical activities which provided them with the opportunity to experience the thrill and sensation of creative writing and learn how they can write creatively and teach their students to write creatively by doing.  The conference was successful to make the participant realize that creative writing can be done by non-native speaker of English, that it is really very interesting and that students can learn English better through creative writing activities.

A lot of institutions joined their hands together to make the conference and workshop successful. Asian English Teachers’ Creative Writing Group was assisted to conduct the conference and workshop by the British Council Nepal, Grammar School Group, Little Angel’s School and Bhundipuran Prakashan. NELTA central office also gave moral support by being present in the conference.

The importance and use of creative writing were carried by the wind quite far to Pokhara from where NELTA Branch Pokhara requested the Asian English Teachers’ Creative Writing Group to conduct a workshop. So after the conference, a two day creative writing workshop was held in Lake City which was facilitated by Alan Maley and Vishnu S Rai. About 40 participants from Pokhara, Syangja, Navalparasi, Tanhu and Rupandehi districts were present in the workshop.

— Anil Bhattarai

Present schooling system has been the most effective mechanism of creating millions of de-skilled, confused and perennially dissatisfied citizens. This is sad because at present we need citizens who can be creative in many ways to deal with not just the social complexities we are enmeshed in but also the ongoing and intensifying ecological challenges. Schools could do a lot more than what they are doing to cultivate skills, attitudes and wisdom in students, teachers and larger community for effectively dealing with social and ecological complexities. For that they have to be organising the whole teaching-learning system a lot more creatively than they are currently doing.

This means doing four things: a) reorganising their physical places in schools into diverse and creative landscape that foster curiosity and learning; (b) transforming skills of teachers so that they are adept at fostering creativity and inculcating the values of openness and exploration in their students; (c) creating innovative curriculum that are relevant to the immediate experiences of students but at the same time that could show the way local and global are connected; and (d) integrating lives outside the school boundary into the process of teaching and learning itself. Beyond schools, parents in particular could play very crucial roles in generating innovating learning process.

“I did not see you all these days,” I said to my neighbour’s daughter. Every time I came to Chitwan with my son to visit my parents, she used to come and play with him. I thought since my son was not with me, it must have been quite uninteresting to come and say hello to a grown up like me. Something else was at work, too, I later realised.

“Have you been busy?” I asked her. I have not yet asked which grade she is in at the nearby ‘boarding’ school she goes to. She nodded. Cool air blew on my face, the leaves of the nearby mango tree a-ruffle at the edge of our small front yard.

“Busy studying?” I asked again. She nodded back to me.

“What have you been studying?”

“Science.”

“Oh, you could have studied science by getting out to the garden,” I said casually. She looked a bit shy. “You could have learned about leaves. You could have discovered insects. There are plenty of birds around. You could have learned about soil, about seasons, about water, and about rain.” She stood still, incredulity writ large on her face.

“Do they take you out to teach science in your school?” I asked. She did not respond. I already knew the answer, though.

Immediately after I arrived at Tandi, I began to get in touch with friends only to discover that so many of them have been into schooling business. Many have started their own private ‘boarding’ schools. Some have added ten-plus-two in them. A few even have started undergraduate programmes (bachelor’s as is commonly referred to)—mostly in science and management.

The day following my arrival, I visited a friend at nearby private school. Many told me later that that school was the most successful one in eastern Chitwan. When I reached the school, that friend was not in the office. I waited for him at his office.

The adjoining classroom was full of 5-6 year olds, uniformed kids. I could hear the teacher telling them about plants and leaves. I was curious and got out of the office room and slyly went to the door of that classroom. There were a few drawings—of plants and leaves. He had also indicated different parts of them. He would shout out what a particular part was called. The students, the 5-6 year olds, shouted out loud back to him. I saw a few kids a bit restless in the bench. The cement-concrete floor looked dank. The fan was blowing some cool air but was making it difficult for kids to hear their teacher. Their necktie must have added to this discomfort.

As I watched this for a few minutes, I was thinking how I would have done the same thing differently. Outside the classroom there were trees—different kinds. There were different plants of grasses and flowers. Monsoon crops were growing all around. Some of the leaves and plants were in the process of drying up. Some new ones were growing. I would have taken the kids out to the gardens and fields and asked them to collect leaves and plants. Much of Chitwan is still agricultural economy and they all must have come from farming or semi-farming families. Kids see many plants everyday, touch them, and they also eat some of them. Essentially I would make the whole landscape as sites of learning, not just the dank, cement-concrete classroom. I would not shout out the names but ask them to write them down with a variety of leaves at their hand. I would ask them to draw the picture of leaves at their hand. I would then ask them what they do with these leaves. Are they edible? Do their parents use them for other things? If they did not know, I would ask them to find that out as their homework.

In this simple act, we could transform the learning-teaching system thoroughly. This will cultivate a sense of curiosity in kids as they venture out into the larger world for learning. Learning is about discovery. This will also cultivate a feeling that learning is an active process. This could make the living landscapes meaningful to learning process. Most important of all, this will cultivate self-respect among students—they will be valued for their curiosity, and not for their rote memory.

As I was thinking, my friend arrived. While I went outside the village in search of knowledge, wisdom and other things, he took his school on sharp growth chart. There are over a 1,000 students in 40-plus classes. They have added new school building. They now employ many teachers. I am sure they also earn money.

As we parted, I told him how the way he organises his school could impact so many students and their families’ lives. I shared with him some of my ideas. I am not sure if he shares the same views about learning-teaching process. For next week, I will write about how parents could convert very simple act of taking/walking their kids to school into productive learning moments. Until then, please look around your own learning landscapes.

[Originally published in The Kathmandu Post, August 2010.]

– Nirmala Mani Adhikary

Background

We, at the Department of Languages and Mass Communication in Kathmandu University, had been planning to organize some kind of program that could promote intellectual, academic and professional sharing among the faculties. Finally, we started the Friday Lecture Series from 2010 September 10. Our colleague Kashiraj Pandey, Assistant Professor of English at the Department, initiated the Series and presented a paper dealing on different dimensions of teaching and teachering. His presentation was followed by a short discussion session, where the faculties from the Department shared the best and worst moments of professional lives.

I also shared one of best moments I had experienced as a teacher followed by recollection of an incident I had been considering the worst in my teaching life. It was during this course I remembered Preeti, a former student whom I taught in Madan Bhandari Memorial College and whom I had not met since that incident. While telling about the incident and thereafter, my eyes were full of tears and finally I could not speak a single word. My colleagues said that they had never seen me in such an emotional state.

As a teacher, I have been enjoying both respect and affection from my students. I always keep ‘asymmetrical but full of sahridayata‘ relationship with the students. My view on the teacher-student communication in the classroom is geared by the belief that it is the site and situation, at least, in the cultural contexts of Nepal and India, where prevails asymmetrical relationship between the communicating parties (the teacher and the student), but with the experience of sahridayata. Only two incidents have gone contrary to my belief: the case with Preeti was the first one. However, her case has been subjected to reinterpretation very recently. And, at this juncture, it has contributed for strengthening my belief.

Recollection

Preeti was my student in Madan Bhandari Memorial College, Kathmandu. She was studying B.A. majoring in mass communication and journalism. Like her classmates, Preeti also used to interact with me even outside the classrooms. During classroom presentations and other conversations I found her candid and insightful. However, it was due to my daughter I took special attention to her.

I used to take my elder daughter, Supriya Yashaswinee, to the college sometimes, especially during programs on Saturdays. During such visits, Preeti and Supriya developed  affectionate relationship; of course, the chocolates and biscuits presented by Preeti being the decisive factor. It is not that other students had not gifted anything to my daughter; but she liked Preeti most. Supriya used to remember Preeti time and again, and hence I was aware of their relationship.

One day, in the year 2005, the students were supposed to present on their respective topics as assigned by me. Preeti also had got some topic that I don’t remember now. But, she failed to do so. It was unusual to her previous performances. I was very unhappy to see her not being able to speak a word on the topic assigned. Worst, I did not see her attentive to what others were presenting. At one point, I asked her to just stand up and interrogated why was she behaving in that way.

May be due to her earlier performances in the class, or due to a kind of affection I had got because of her ‘friendship’ with my daughter, I had some sort of expectations from Preeti. I still remember, I was really unhappy with her. In her part, she was familiar to my warm regards only. Hence she did not take my interrogation seriously. In response, she very easily said, “Naae pachhi ke garne ta?” [“What can I do if I could not get it?”]

Other students started laughing to her careless expression. Her response alone was sufficient to make me embarrassed. Other students’ laughter made me furious. I not only ordered them to keep quiet, but also ordered Preeti to get out from the class. At that very point, the situation became quite awkward. All students were stunned, and Preeti was shocked. After a while, she spoke in very soft voice, “Sorry sir,” and she left the class. I asked another student to continue the presentation.

After that incident, Preeti never came to the class. Later, I asked her classmates but they could just say that she left the college. Till very recently, I was unaware of her whereabouts. It was a kind of mental burden for me that one student had left the college after such a bitter incident. Moreover, my daughter used to ask about Preeti time and again, and that would certainly increase my despair.

In the course of time, my daughter forgot about Preeti. In my case, she went from conscious mind to the subconscious. But, while my colleague Kashiraj Pandey asked to remember the worst moment in my professional life, my subconscious mind got activated, and I just remembered Preeti. The disappearance of Preeti from the college, and incommunicado between her and me, was in every respect contrary to my belief of ‘asymmetrical, but with full of sahridayata‘ relationship between teachers and students. Yes, my eyes were full of tears and finally I could not speak a single word. Thus, the first episode of the Friday Lecture Series ignited my restlessness.

Reunion

Later, in the evening, I shared my feeling with my wife too. She gave me consolation by saying that the incident was just an exception and I should not blame myself. She even cited number of students who have visiting  me or communicating with me, even from abroad.”

After a couple of days, while I was signed in to the facebook, I was greeted in facebook chat by ‘Manushi’: “Sir, namaskar! Do you recognize me?”

I did not remember recognizing anyone called ‘Manushi’, and hence replied, “Sorry, I could not.”

“Sir, its me – Preeti, once your student at MBM College.”

“God! here is Preeti,” I just became happy.

The chatting continued for about an hour. Finally, I could get what had happened.

The aftermath

According to Manushi, it was extremely painful for her to be ousted from the class. It would not be unbearable if she had received such treatment “from other teachers,” and she “would just join the classes the very next day.” As she explains, it was not her anger toward “Nirmal sir,” but rather it was her disgrace for not being able to show appropriate respect to her “beloved” teacher, who was “highly regarded” and “very popular,” that made her impatient. And, she supposed that the classmates also would tease her for being ousted by even such a “kind hearted” and “friendly” teacher. She blamed herself for that incident. Consequently, she gave up her study here and went to India for further study. As I have been communicated, she not only did well in her study, but also has got job in a UN agency.

I asked her why she had not been communicating during all these years. She said that she did not “dare” to contact me due to some sort of fear, but she always wanted to beg pardon as she had something “unbearable” within her mind. When she saw me in facebook, she could not resist sendin the friend request. To be accepted as a friend in facebook was a positive node for her, and finally, she decided to greet her teacher. As conversation continued, we both not only expressed the sadness due to that incident, but also could overcome the mental burden we were keeping in our minds.

Endorsement

Though I was angry toward her on that very day latter I never regarded her guilty. Rather, I started blaming myself: “It was just a matter of student being informal,” “I should not have sent her out of the class,” “How could I be so harsh to her who was so nice even to my daughter !”

In her part, she says that she never thought me negatively. Rather, she also blamed herself. Moreover, she always remembered my “persuasive” statements, and always tried to get lessons from those statements. She had always thought of meeting “Nirmal sir” one day.

Thus, we both were sharing the same feelings even though we were not in direct communication for years. We had not fallen outside the domain of sahridayata.

Reiteration

Teaching is not just a means of earning for me. I have not come to this job as the last resort. I have given up such jobs that were more lucrative in terms of money and other tangible standards to choose this desired work of teaching and learning. Hence, students are not just receivers for me; rather, they are sahridayas with whom I am engaged in the process of sadharanikaran.

Coincidence:

While I am writing this article, Preeti is online on facebook. She is seeking to fix the date and time for meeting face to face. She has come to Kathmandu just for a couple of days.

Note:

This article consists of some words (viz., sahridayata, sahridaya, and sadharanikaran) as key concepts. These terms are drawn on from my research works (for e.g., Adhikary, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010).

References

Adhikary, N. M. (2003). Hindu awadharanama sanchar prakriya (M.A. Thesis). Purvanchal University, Nepal.

Adhikary, N. M. (2004). Hindu-sanchar siddhanta: Ek adhyayan. Baha Journal, 1, 25-43.

Adhikary, N. M. (2007). Sancharko Hindu awadharanatmak adhyayan. In N. M. Adhikary, Sanchar shodha ra media paryavekshan (pp. 93-138). Kathmandu: Prashanti Pustak Bhandar.

Adhikary, N. M. (2008). The sadharanikaran model and Aristotle’s model of communication: A comparative study. Bodhi: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2 (1), 268-289. [Available online: http://sadharanikaran.com/pdf/Aristotle%27smodelandSMCcomparative.pdf]

Adhikary, N. M. (2009). An introduction to sadharanikaran model of communication. Bodhi: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 3(1), 69-91. [Available online: http://sadharanikaran.com/pdf/AnintroductiontoSMC.pdf]

Adhikary, N. M. (2010c). Sancharyoga: Approaching communication as a vidya in Hindu orthodoxy. China Media Research, 6(3), 76-84. [Available online: http://sadharanikaran.com/pdf/CMR10031.pdf]

[Contact: nma@ku.edu.np]

Ashok Raj Khati

NELTA Ramechap Branch

He gets up at 5 am, rushes to the college at 6 am and starts his lesson at 6.30. He gives lectures till 10.30, and then comes to have a meal in hurry. He has to take several classes in a school from 11 am to 4 pm where he is a permanent teacher. He has been working as an English teacher for 15 years. Every year he enters into the same classrooms with the same walls, writes on the same blackboard, opens the same textbooks, gives the same notes that he had prepared many years ago.  He finds that his students are always passive listeners every year except in the first month of an academic year. He usually uses chalk, duster, blackboard, and sometime cassette recorder for listening activities.

He reads the  texts, than explains them in his own words. Very often he over explains as well as translates difficult sentences into students’ mother tongue. He also writes the answers of questions given in the texts. He himself writes essays on the board, and tells his student to copy that. He gives rules, and explains them followed by some selected exercises while teaching grammar. Moreover, he writes the summary or central ideas of literary texts for students. He does not forget to remind students some important questions for exam in every lesson.

I think he is making his job easy. At the same time, he finds his job boring and to some extent he is not satisfied with his own teaching. He sits in the same office on the same chairs in front of the same pictures of national heroes hanging on the same wall for 15 years. Most of his colleagues are those who have been teaching in the same school for more than 7 to10 years. At the end of the month, he collects his salary and pays out for his all expenses of the whole month. From the next day, he is again penniless.

He is doing the same job for 14 years. No more innovations, no more materials, no more fun, and no more variety in the classroom. In nutshell, he is having a Lifeless Life.

It is the story of an English teacher, my colleague for last two years. I have observed similar kind of story of high school teachers in this particular part (Ramechap district- a remote part of Nepal) of the country. May be this situation is different from that of urban areas where teachers grow professionally. They may have completed required degree from university in their respective subjects. They may be trained. But in this part of the country trainings are taken only as a tool for promotion and financial attainment. Teachers never pay for trainings. But they grumble: Our job is monotonous.                    

How can an English teacher enjoy his profession particularly in under resourced context of Nepal? In response to my query, Aneta Naumoska, an English teacher for Macedonia commented as follows via e-mail:

 Hi Ashok, by writing this text that sincerely touched my heart and raised an issue in the context of teaching English that appears not only in Nepal, but in many other places worldwide! Honestly, I have several examples to add to yours that I don’t even know how and where to start! You made an excellent point by exemplifying what I am avoiding at all costs to become in the future as an EFL teacher!

One of the factors that according to me hinders teachers thoroughly enjoying their profession and finding satisfaction in it is their lack of eagerness to become an active part of the worldwide ELT community, to share experiences with their colleagues from all around the world by attending (or presenting at) seminars, conferences, workshops and the like. From such passive colleagues I have noticed that their absence and non-involvement in such places makes them lose interest in the fact that the English language is constantly changing and speeding in the fast track! Such involvement with other colleagues surely opens your horizons on a number of ELT issues!

My experience in teaching (as well as attending many ELT classes as a passive observer) has shown me that being innovative, resourceful, and many other things, comes from the teacher himself/herself … not from the textbooks they use in class or other external materials (like handouts). Use every single source of knowledge and materials that is available to you and adapt it to the teaching situation, and to the different students and their various learning styles.

 This way, we teachers not only bring novelty to the classroom, but we also stay young at heart!

All the best,

Aneta Naumoska,

An English teacher, Macedonia

Lekhnath Sharma Pathak

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Deepak Subedi

When I was asked to contribute an article on the importance of English language for scientific research, I felt I got an opportunity to express my gratitude to the language which gave me an enormous access to good books written by scholars around the world. Without the knowledge of English, I would have to rely on books written only in our native language, which would have certainly narrowed my thinking. My simple understanding is that our ability to think is proportional to the number of good books we read. Also, it is generally accepted that knowledge is for the brain as is food for the body, and that a person with knowledge of different languages has greater vision and wider horizon.

I was motivated to learn English by my revered father since my childhood. Although my father himself never had formal education, he had gained some practice of spoken English during his service in Indian army. He had a strong desire to educate his children in English medium. I think this might have been due to the influence of British officers in India. He used to tell me fascinating stories about the additional benefits he used to receive in the army unlike his colleagues by virtue of his knowledge of English, although limited. Even with this limitation, he was supposed to be superior to others, and was assigned some official tasks during the war time which avoided the risk of being deployed to the front.

In spite of a moderate income,  my father always stressed on educating children in good schools. Although our family was based on a village, my father settled in the town only to provide us good education with additional tuition in English.  So far as I remember, he was the first person in our town to arrange tuition in English from the primary level. It was during this time that I met my most favorite teacher of English, Balkrishna Shrama, who inspired me to learn. He was a noble teacher with amazing skills of delivering spellbinding lectures. With his guidance, I experienced the joy of learning new words in English and writing them nicely in four-lined papers.  Since then, I started learning English spontaneously.

I realized the real importance of knowing English when I joined I. Sc. in Amrit Science Campus in 1989. All our subjects were taught in English. Had I been poor in English, I would have certainly been discouraged from studying science.  The knowledge of English helped me in learning the major subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. I had a huge advantage over my classmates with a weaker background of English. Meanwhile, some of our teachers had just returned from US with terribly twisted tongue, and many of our friends who were from remote areas of Nepal got frustrated with the US-style pronunciation. Students who had their schooling in English medium had no difficulty in grasping the lectures in the major subjects.

Well, these were some of my recollections about my background in the English language. Let me discuss a little about the importance of the use of English in the field of science.

In 1931 Vladimir N. Ipatieff, a Russian-American chemist, had begun to take lessons in English at the age of sixty-four. He was already a well-known scientist but had to learn English in that age in order to continue his research in the USA. He probably was under the influence of the “publish or perish” dictum so common in the field of research. But his story simply highlights the necessity of knowing a language of wide international readership in order to popularize researches in science.

Michael Faraday said that any researcher has to follow three major steps: “work, analyze and publish.” All the three parts are equally important. However, the importance of the language appears in the third part — publishing. The real output of any scientific research is measured by its impact, hence the level of international journals is determined by their impact factor. How many people cited our papers is more important than how many papers we wrote. To make our papers accessible to a large number of readers, we have to publish our results in a language understood by a large population.  Thus one has to publish his/her findings in English.

Most of the world’s leading scientific journals are published in English. It has been reported that researchers from non-English speaking countries have to spend a significant portion of their time in getting their reports and research papers translated/written in English. This obviously steals their precious time from laboratory work. For example, in Japan English is becoming the language of basic science resulting in the gradual disappearance of  publications in Japanese. RIKEN, one of Japan’s most comprehensive groups of research facilities, has claimed that its scientists published about 2000 original reports in English in 2005, but only 174 in Japanese. One report shows that editing companies in Japan charge researchers $ 500 to $ 800 per manuscript. Language training can cost $2000 for a ten-week course. These costs are additional burdens and slow down scientific activities in laboratory.

In fact, this should not have been the period for spending so much time for writing the paper alone. Had their schooling been in English, as that of ours, the researchers could have devoted more time for their experiments than exercising for language. In this respect, we should feel fortunate; we learned basic sciences in English medium at school and the university. In several international conferences and seminars, I have observed the difficulty faced by scientists from the countries which are quite developed in science and technology but are non-native English users. In spite of their good research results, they are sometimes nervous during presentations due to the difficulty in expressing their ideas clearly in English.  On the other hand, researchers who studied their courses in English are more confident in presentations even if the merit of their research work is not of high standard.

Another case where proficiency in English plays a vital role is in the preparation of research grants proposals. Even a promising project proposal may be rejected because of the lack of logical reasoning. It may be argued why a researcher should worry about English when one can easily consult with professional editors to prepare a proposal. But the fact is that professional editors may not know the technical ideas of the project, and that sometimes this joint venture may lead to negative results. Considering the growing need of disseminating research results to a wider population, many Asian and European countries, which used to teach science courses in their own native languages, are gradually adopting English as the language of science.

Summing up, today no discipline can function in isolation. Since a large number of interdisciplinary subjects like environmental science, biotechnology, biomedical engineering, engineering physics etc. are emerging, people of different areas of expertise have to work together. Professionals from different disciplines find English quite comfortable to communicate among themselves. Also, professionals in the discipline of English language must also constantly update themselves because the world is changing rapidly due to the advancement in science and technology.  For the survival in this competitive and rapidly advancing world, everyone has to be able to grasp the new challenges and opportunities. Due to the latest advancement in information technology, specially with the introduction of internet services and cellular phones, the world has become like a village. Whoever gets the latest information at the earliest will come ahead and those who miss will certainly lag behind. In which language this communication is being made in a broad scale? Of course, English.

Ganga Ram Gautam
President, NELTA

Rt. Honourable Chair of Constituent Assembly Mr. Subash Chandra Nembang,
Honourable Member of National Planning Commission and Founding President of NELTA Prof. Tirth Raj Khaniya,
Past President, Current Advisor and Chief Editor of NELTA Journal Prof. Jai Raj Awasthi,
Prof. Abhi Subedi sir,
Secretary, Ministry of Education,
Paula Middleton and Ewan Davies British Council,
Amanda Jacobson, the US Embassy,
Founder Principal, Little Angels’ School,
Distinguished Guests on the dais,
Key speakers, Presenters, participants from home and abroad, publishers,
NELTA colleagues, media persons, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning and a very warm welcome to you all. This morning I feel very honoured and privileged to be here as the President of an association which we co-founded with my seniors 16 years ago. On this occasion, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all my seniors and all NELTA members for entrusting the current team to lead this wonderful association.

NELTA now serves through its 26 branches across the country with over 1300 life members and thousands of general members. Our members include English teachers of all levels of education, materials writers, ELT practitioners and experts working both in government and non-government sectors.

Now NELTA has established itself a truly voluntary professional organisation. NELTA members contribute to the framing of ELT curriculum, training packages preparation, their delivery and trainers’ preparation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
NELTA operates through its strategic plan and in the last one year we have achieved a lot. The details of the accomplishments have been presented in the conference booklet and it will also come in the General Secretary’s report at the AGM tomorrow. To highlight the key achievements, we have made some progress in the ELT survey in which NELTA works with the National Planning Commission, Ministry of Education, British Council and the US Embassy. We have done the preliminary work and detailed discussion is being carried out on its size and modality. David Graddol, a world renowned expert in this kind of research, has kindly accepted our request to contribute to the design of this survey and we have him here at this conference as one of the key speakers. NELTA and other key stakeholders will have a detailed discussion with David on this ELT survey.

Secondly, B. Ed. and M.Ed. courses at Tribhuvan university have been recently revised. In order to make our teacher education system compatible with the global ELT framework, NELTA and TU requested the US Embassy to make an international expert available to review these courses. As a result, we have Dr. Numa Markee with us here who kindly accepted the request and contributed to the standardisation of the courses.
When we asked Numa to give us his impression about our courses he said, “Overall, I think that the quality of the curriculum you have devised is certainly comparable to that of British, American and Australian universities with which I am familiar”. Numa will also be giving a key speech, plenary session and workshop both in Kathmandu and Surkhet conference. We are very grateful to both David and Numa for their important contributions to NELTA.

Thirdly, we have two key partners working with us since NELTA was born. Currently, we partner with British Council to implement the English for Teaching and Teaching for English (ETTE) project at the branch level. Similarly, with the support of the US embassy, we plan to run a new program called Access in which we will teach English to the youths of the disadvantaged communities and this program will be implemented by the NELTA branch locally. Also, the US embassy has been very kind to supply the ELT Forum magazine to all the life members of all the NELTA branches. NELTA has collaborated with Radio Sagarmatha in the English by Radio program supported by the Embassy and it is very popular.

One of the significant achievements of this year is the outreach program. We have two highly dedicated friends with us who have reached the unreached in the NELTA network. Gretchen Coppege, the English Language Fellow sponsored by the US embassy travelled with NELTA trainers to eight different branches and reached more than one thousand teachers. Similarly, another untiring friend Kate Miller from the UK who has been with us for the last four five years at different times voluntarily travels to the very remote branches and trains the teachers. This year she conducted teacher training in Baitadi, Dhangadh and Chitwan and she also conducted TOT in Lalitpur. After the conference in Kathmandu and Surkhet, she will conduct another TOT in Surkhet. Gretchen and Kate, thank you both of you for your great contributions.

Capacity building of the NELTA leaders has always been our priority. With the support from the British Council and the US embassy, NELTA members have participated in different international courses and events. We are very pleased with the Bell Centre in the UK for providing NELTA with the scholarships to attend trainer’s development course in the UK. Our warm welcome to Jim Scrivener from Bell who will be presenting here and in Surkhet.

Decentrilisation is yet another key strategy NELTA has included in the current plan. We would like to build regional hubs regionally so that sustainable growth can be observed at the branch level. NELTA Birgunj successfully organised a regional conference and NELTA Surkhet is undertaking a responsibility of organising international conference immediately after this conference. This shows that the branches have built up their capacity to function independently and NELTA Dhangadhi branch has acquired land and they are soon constructing building. I am happy to report that most of the branches have been very active and vibrant and with some support from the centre and the collaborating agencies. We have also had some discussion with the Fulbright Commission in Nepal and we have planned to have six ETAs to work with NELTA next year. We thank Fulbright for their willingness to partner with NELTA in this program.
The present NELTA journal is a historic one as it was peer reviewed and got registered with the ISSN number. The credit for this goes to the highly dedicated editorial team led by Prof. Awasthi. Along with him, Prem Phyak, Ghanshyam Sharma and Bal Krishna Sharma were behind this Herculean task and they have worked day and night to bring the journal in time.

Similarly, the online discussion forum moderated by the journal team along with Sajan Karna and Kamal Poudel and yahoogroups have been excellent forums for our members to connect themselves with the global ELT. Please log on to these sites and enrich yourself through mutual sharing.

In the next couple of years, NELTA should continue the projects that it has initiated and we need to create more space for collaboration with the key ELT stakeholders. Consolidation and capacity building of the branches should remain the top priority and the implementation of the ELT survey project should be our main target for next year. In order to accomplish these ambitious targets, we need your active participation and cooperation from all the sectors including the government. I am sure if we are together we can achieve what we aim.

Nepal at present in undergoing a big political shift. We are going to have a new constitution in a couple of months and the language issue is one of the hot topics. As an association of English teachers, we feel that the new constitution should also talk about the role of English in new Nepal. Since English is now a global language and language of education and business, a systematic positioning of English would certainly benefit our country to keep ourselves abreast with the rest of the world. In this context, I would like to request the Chief Guest of the ceremony Rt. Hon’ble Chair of the CA, to bring this discourse in the constitution framing process. NELTA shall be happy to contribute to this and we will be ever ready to collaborate with the CA for the appropriate positioning of English in the new constitution.

This conference marks the historic one with more than 100 speakers from different countries. I would like to welcome the two key speakers, all the presenters including the representative of our neighbouring ELT organisations like SPELT, BELTA, SLELTA, ELTAI and all the participants from home and abroad. On behalf of NELTA, I would like to express my gratitude to you all for accepting our invitation. I wish all the participants and experts to have fruitful deliberations. I also wish the foreign and out of valley participants a pleasant stay in Kathmandu. Please bear with us the very humble arrangements we, as a voluntary association, have been able to make.

Finally, in order to make this conference happen, Little Angels’ School System has given us a great support without which we would not have been able to carry it out so smoothly. Thank you LAS team. Similarly, for the last few months, NELTA colleagues have worked day and night. I sincerely acknowledge their voluntary contributions and I truly feel that they deserve the credit of the success of this conference.

Thank you very much indeed.