Category Archives: Critical Pedagogy

Engaging Students in Large Class: An Experience of an English Teacher

December 26, 2023Critical Pedagogy, post-method pedagogy, reflection, Reflections, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, under-resourced classcritical pedagogy, post-method pedagogy, resources, resources in classroom, under-resourced classroomadmin

Setting the Context

I attended a public secondary school in Dhading, which was five kilometres walking distance away from my home. I had to do all the morning chores, prepare meals, eat and run to school as my parents had to go to work on the farm every day. As the classroom was overcrowded with up to seventy students, it was difficult to get a spot in the front row. I had to adjust with six students on a bench at the back of the class, which would make it hard to listen to my teachers. It was challenging to find a cosy place to read, write and listen to the teacher’s lectures. When I recall now, it was tough to get through all this and complete my school education.

Despite the teachers trying to engage us in learning, most of my classmates were inattentive to the teachers’ instructions. The teachers used to crack jokes or share some new things but the students hardly paid attention to their studies. As a result, the teachers were less motivated to teach us and ignored what my classmates were doing in the classroom.

My classmates were from different ethnic communities: Brahmin, Kshetri, Newar, Gurung, Tamang, Gharti, Dalits etc. As they were from diverse groups, they had different beliefs and ways of doing activities. They were basically from working-class families. Yet, some of them belonged to semi-educated families and they were less interested in their study. Nevertheless, I was very excited about my studies.

On a chilly day

It was a cold winter morning. I was teaching ‘The Ant and Grasshopper’ in class ten. I asked my students to write some new words in their exercise book individually. There was some noise, so I tried to control their side talking by cracking a joke. Some of the students who were sitting on the first and second benches were listening to me passionately, whereas the students who were sitting at the back were busy with their personal talk. Again, I told them not to make noise, but their side-talking was ongoing. I further inquired and knew that they were not listening to me clearly. Again, I advised the other side students to have patience and it took around 15 minutes to make them silent.

Moreover, I just had 30 minutes to go. Hence, I revised the previous lesson and made them ready to participate in my large class. Then, I taught my lesson before the lunch bell rang. When I came out of the classroom and I went to the canteen for lunch, I shared my problem with my close friend, who had also been teaching English at a lower secondary level. He listened to me very carefully and agreed with my problem. When I finished the trouble of the classroom. Interestingly, he narrated a story of his classroom that he was also suffering from a similar kind of trouble in large classes. After school, I went back home in the evening and started thinking about my trouble alone.

I realized large class teaching is a complex task and large classes are pretty challenging for the teachers to conduct effective instruction. In such classes, the student number is very high, more than 50, which causes difficult teaching circumstances (Hess, 2006). It is tough for teachers to focus on every student equally. It is considered that students’ engagement and active participation are diminished in large classes, and the frequency and quality of student-faculty interactions are reduced (Cash (2017). Furthermore, Marshall (2004) considers small classes to be very friendly and easy to handle but large classes are highly risky and challenging. Marshall (2004) further highlighted that the analysis of contexts, institutional change in resource allocation and teaching in multidimensional contexts is very thought-provoking.

I conceptualized that teaching in large and under-resourced classes is very tough and tedious throughout my teaching career. In the past, I was a student of a large class where physical infrastructure was not adequate, though we had a blackboard inside the classroom covered with dry grass roof of the building. We didn’t have sufficient classrooms. I still remember when I was a class three grader, and our class was divided into two different classes within a single classroom. It was pretty noisy and hard for the teachers as well. I experienced teaching in an under-resourced context is not an easy job.

Furthermore, I equally reconceptualized that large classes need much personal attention and encouragement to make progress. The students in their learning potential vary considerably due to their language and literacy skills. Thus, we say teaching in large classes is very much like teaching in all other situations; however, handling large classes is more complicated, exhausting, and infinitely more demanding, and challenging.

I explored the reality of large classes through the experience of my research participants who have been teaching a class comprising more than 60 students. I investigated challenges for instance, disruptive students, crises of discipline, and unwanted noise and explored strategies like group work, pair work, and collaborative project works to cope with the large classes with an in-depth study.

I realised that no students get a chance to learn new things in crowded classrooms. They lack the opportunity to grow holistically. Consequently, the prior investment of parents, teachers, schools, and students goes in vain. Based on my experiences as an EFL practitioner in a large classroom, I noted that offering group work and pair work was an effective tool in large-class teaching. The ability to handle large classes provided me an insight through which I germinated useful tips for large class teaching. I reconceptualized the concept of post-method pedagogy by Kumaravedivelu (2006) who persistently claimed that a meaningful pedagogy cannot be constructed without a holistic interpretation of particular situations and that cannot be enhanced without an essential improvement of those particular situations as a theoretical foundation to scaffold his ‘parameter of particularity’. Thus, it is noted that post-method pedagogy prioritises much on creativity, patience, teamwork and leadership.

Major Strategies I Employed in My Large Classroom:

A comprehensible teaching-learning process that ensures efficiency and effectiveness involves the design and implementation of creative and innovative teaching strategies, capable of responding to the individual needs of students and ensuring their academic success, (Jucan,2020). Without level-appropriate activities and contextual strategies, the teaching-learning activities are not making success, (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Learning style, the learner’s preferred mode of dealing with new information, includes a construct known as cognitive style, (Oxford,1990). In my experience, large-class students have various ways of learning strategies, so I have applied various ways to make them learn. Some of them are as follows.

Engaging students in different project work:

Group work is believed to be allowing students to share ideas, perspectives, and skills among their pair and group. Students learn skills of collaboration and team building in which they develop communication, cooperation and the ability to work effectively with others. It also promotes higher-order thinking, creativity, and problem-solving, as students have to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information collaboratively, (McCormick et al, 2015) So, I designed some activities to attract the student’s attention in his large class every day. I often engage students in different activities. I ask to design a Calander for a group, a Code of Conduct for the classroom for another group and a Wall Magazine for the other groups. Likewise, I instructed them to share their ideas with their friends through their diverse perspectives. Moreover, they started taking feedback from each other. I involved students in some small groups. In doing so, I selected discussion topics that could be of interest to my students. Sometimes I provided them with topics in groups or individually, they searched on the internet and through some reading materials. I knew that all the time group did not work, so to keep every student involved in the group work, sometimes students were provided answers for each of the questions individually first.

Motivating students in pair work:

Working in pairs allows students to give and receive constructive feedback. Pairwork helps in the development of various skills such as teamwork, leadership and interpersonal skills. It is well known that motivation is a force that drives people to work towards a particular outcome (Maslow, 1943). I equally motivated students in pair works where they actively participated and developed a sense of competitiveness in and between other pairs in the classroom. I often motivated them to work on different tasks such as conversation practice, role-playing, problem-solving, debate, collaborative art, etc. Thus, I particularly engaged students in story-writing activities, case study analysis and general problem-solving. Moreover, students would appreciate their tasks in pairs and they learn their commonalities and differences.

Encouraging students to ask questions:

Teaching with questions to my students provided me direct connection with them (Filiz,2009). There is a great role for asking good questions in effective teaching and learning. Hence, I encouraged students to ask questions in my class because this task helps them build critical thinking skills. In this, they asked content-wise questions as it helped them to work together and make sense of the particular subject as mentioned by Kumaravadivelu (2003). Moreover, I motivated my students to raise questions based on their curiosity about the content. Developing questioning abilities indicates students enhance creativity and critical thinking skills. Moreover, questioning habits helped students feel relaxed and learn easily the complex subject matter. It encouraged my students to be active, independent and creative in the large classroom. Besides this, I encouraged my students to speculate on certain incidents, for example, I showed a picture and told them to imagine and connect with the picture. I wrote a sentence, “ If I were in this situation…..”. I let students think, develop their hypotheses, and arrive at a conclusion. This pattern scaffolded students through their positive mindset that they learn interestingly in the large class classroom.

Involving students Think-pair-share procedure:

Think-pair-share (TPS) is a cooperative learning strategy that encourages active participation and engagement among learners. In this think-pair-share technique, students are given a question, and students first think about themselves prior to being instructed to discuss their response with a person sitting near them. Finally, the group shared what they discussed with their colleagues to the whole class and their discourse kept on going (Rowe,1972). Hence, I used the TPS strategy to cope with a large class context. I began my class by asking a specific question about the text. For example; What are the various uses of Artificial Intelligence in education and list them based on your experience. (from one of the chapters of grade 10). Then, my students started thinking about what they knew or had learned about my query. Then, I engaged them to work in pairs with their partner in a small group discussion. Finally, they share what they have collected so far. Thus, the post-method pedagogy entails that students develop coordinating skills, increasing active participation and enhancing their innovative sharing skills.

Major Takeaways:

We teachers struggle in our large classes due to a lack of level-appropriate instructional tools. We often think of managing a large classroom since it needs tactfulness and a lot of experience. Teachers’ ability to explore and develop approaches to observe, analyze and evaluate their teaching for the purpose of accomplishing desired changes. It is an eye-opener and a gateway to make teachers, who are reluctant to bring innovations to their teaching, change their minds and redirect their teaching toward a more contextualized implementation of the strategies suggested to assist them in enhancing their teaching and their students’ learning. Engaging students in various project work, motivating students in group and pair work, encouraging students to ask questions, making level-appropriate fun as well as engagement, and evolving them into TPS strategies are major roadways to creating a learning environment in large classes.

References:

Cash, C. B., Letarago, J, Graether, S. P., & Jacobs, S. R. (2017). An analysis of the perceptions and resources of large classes university. Life Sciences Education, 16(2).

Cash & Marshall, (2007). Between deep and surface: Procedural approaches to learning in

engineering education contexts. Studies in Higher Education,29:5, 605-615, DOI: 10.

1080/0307507042000261571

Gibbs G. (1996). Using assessment to support student learning. The University of East Anglia.

Filiz, S. (2009). Questions and answer method to ask questions and technical information on the effects of teacher education. Social Sciences Journal of Caucasus University.2.

Jucan, D.A., (2020). Efficient didactic strategies used in students’ teaching practice. Social and Behavioural Sciences.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond methods: Macro strategies for language teaching. Sage.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2005). TESOL methods: Changing tracks, challenging trends. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 59-81.

Hess, N. (2006). Teaching large multilevel classes. Cambridge University Press.

Hess, N. (2007). Teaching large multilevel classes. Cambridge University Press.

McCormick, N. J. and et al, (2015). Engaging Students in Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: A Brief Review of the Literature. Journal of Studies in Education. 5(4).

Oxford, R.L. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Newbury House/Harper &Row.

Rowe, M. (1972). Wait time and rewards as instructional variables: their influence on language, logic and fate control. ERIC No Edo61103.

About Author: Binod Duwadi has earned an MPhil in English language education from Kathmandu University, School of Education. Mr. Buwadi has been a faculty of English at KUSOM and KUSOED. His research interests include ELT in under-resourced contexts, ELT with ICT integration and Multiliteracy pedagogy.

Mastering the Art of Responding to CFP

August 25, 2023Creative Writing, Creativity, Critical Pedagogy, Critical Thinking, Education in General, Global thought, Professional Development, Reading, reflection, Teacher Education, Teacher identity, Teachers' narrativesa teacher's narrative, a teacher's reflection, professional development, Research, Teacher prof developmentadmin

Aristotle urges us to be a master of metaphors to grasp a living reality of a thing. Following the footsteps of Aristotle, George Lakoff and M. Johnson introduce a perspective on metaphor—a perspective that takes metaphor as imaginative rationality. Admittedly, I am inspired by these two theorists. My inspiration is that I could not help using a simile to share my modest success in getting some of my responses to Call for Conference Proposals (CFP) accepted: Writing changes: remaking rhetoric in times of uncertainty organized by Corridors 2022 at Virginia Tech University, and Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian organized by Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) 2022 at University of Los Angeles California. For Corridors, I developed a paper entitled “Pedagogical Emasculation in the Wake of AI’s Growing Applications”, and for PAMLA, I submitted an abstract with the title “Backsliding New Materialism and a Resurgence of Interest in Virtue Ethics and Anthropomorphism”.

While responding to these two CFPs successfully, I came to know that responding to a CFP is almost similar to being a gentleman caller. Forgive my wild rush to John Dryden called ‘yoking heterogeneous ideas by violence’. More technically, responding to CFP and being a gentleman caller are distinctly disparate realms of activities. Just as forwarding a love/marriage proposal without paying sufficient courtship to a lady for a quite bit of time may backfire and probably end in rejection, so is answering to CFP without doing an extensive inquiry and without having background information on the topic. Any rush to reply to the CFP may backfire on the responder, often ending in outright rejection, which might weaken confidence and concentration. It is this point of commonality that pushed me to choose this figural trope. The fate of being a jilted lover is a bitter pill to swallow for any obsessed lover, in much the same way as it is for a responder to cope with the rejection of the abstract submission to CFP. With this figural gesture, I would like to reflect on my experience of responding to a host of CFPs.

We have seen many calls for proposals (CFP): CFP for conferences; CFP for book chapters and journal articles; CFP for intermezzo and review essays; CFP for web texts and digital projects; CFP for a success story and cross-border narrative; CFP for blogs and reflective writings, CFP for cases of advocacy, activism, and intervention; and to name just a few. Scholars, researchers, and instructors alike tend to respond to different CFPs they come across. Every responder to CFP deploys a nuanced approach. In spite of each scholar’s unique response style to CFP, there should be a few widely practised formularies to deal with CFP. Based on a few instances of my success in responding to CFP, I would like to craft a short account of responding to CFP.

In trying to emerge as a conference hopper, I kept exploring many other venues that organize national and international conferences such as the New Berry Library Conference (NBLC), Popular Culture Association (PCA), Modern Language Association (MLA) Pedagogical Training and Workshop, Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA), Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), Rhetoric Society of Europe (RSE), Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) and the list goes on. Actually, these venues release CFPs that tend to address any aspect of burgeoning issues, ranging from colonial reckoning, the rhetoric of precarity and the rise of authoritarianism to social justice, the linguistic justice, power and precarity attendant to AI’s growing application in learning and teaching space. Being well informed of all these burgeoning issues and of relevant proposals to address the issue constitute a core competency on each CFP responder’s part. Based on these two and various other successive experiences of responding to CFP, I would like to talk about some tips and strategies with which I succeeded in getting my conference proposals approved. I presented at a conference scheduled to take place at the University of Virginia Tech. Similarly, another conference proposal of mine was also accepted. In the second week of November 2022, I presented at a conference at the University of California, Los Angeles.

First, getting to the heart of an issue that takes centre stage in the CFP description is essential if we are to touch all the bases of CFP. While describing an issue/topic for CFP, the CFP issuer tends to be specific in producing an outline of the issue; at the same time, they often write, ‘the CFP moves around this topic, but not limited to…’, to allow for a somewhat flexible space to explore and probe the proposed issue.

Previously, while formulating an excellent abstract draft for a conference call, I used to take a general approach without homing in on a specific aspect of the CFP. After multiple rounds of rejection, I learned that people want to listen to specific things. Though the conference offers a smorgasbord of various potential topics, it would be in our best interest to dwell on the specificity of the issue. As soon as I shirked off this tendency to drift away from the axis of specificity, I realized that it wouldn’t be challenging to hit the target with the single most focused thrust to the specificity. To this end, it appears that any temptation toward delving deep into the topic in a manner most lithe and supple because exploring any issue by being specific is crucial to the acceptance success of a response to CFP. As to some heuristics and nuances with which the exploration of an issue would lead to a reliable unfolding of the issue, I have come to propose here: Test the efficacy of the issue in different cultural contexts, check on its limit, be aware of its fallibility, assess if its relevance is rooted in time and occasion, reflect on its impact on our normative practice and pragmatic life, and finally stretch your imaginative faculty to probe the issue under consideration with a detached mindset. The simultaneous shifts in my mindset led me to come across an acceptable topic for the CFP I was managing to respond to.

Second, though the power of forming a fresh, attention-grabbing, and shift-stimulating perspective of any responder to CFP is highly valued, the ability to introduce this perspective tactfully and without a lag matters the most. To translate this realization into action, I reflected on my expectations about how CFP evaluators take my abstract submission and what metric they would apply to assess the submitted abstract. I also pondered if their metrics and criteria remain consistent or if they apply abstract-specific metrics. I did my best to align the core thrust of my conference abstract with the CFP evaluators’ submission-specific yardstick of judgment. At the top of my talent, I aimed at ‘striking the right chord’; with the right chord being struck precisely, the net outcome is an acceptance call.

Third, the responder to CFP should not come to terms with the issue on the first go. Instead, the responder should let the proposed issue come to terms with a cumulative effort to develop a fresh perspective. For this, curious and consistent immersion in the latent and the manifest dimensions of the issue is required of those who play what Peter Elbow calls the Believing and Doubting Game. The fourth point is the assertion that with the idea of responding to CFP comes the responsibility to CFP. CFP wishes to garner a wide range of ideas, thoughts, propositions, perspectives, comments, questions, critiques, and curiosities. Most CFPs expect a concrete contribution of ideas to the platform the CFP is creating. Thus, every responder to CFP needs to internalize that to respond to CFP is to contribute something new, a fresh perspective, a nuanced approach to dealing with the proposed issue anew, a distinct approach indeed!

The fifth point that guided my approach to responding to CFPs is being aware that often CFPs asks for a fresh take on burgeoning issue/problem. Any response to CFP should look like a solution. Adopting a down-to-earth overture is a curtain-raiser to grappling with CFP head-on. The sixth tip comes in the guise of tonality. Maintaining an insistent tone serves two-pronged purposes: one is to bracket off any interference from digressive and deluding thoughts, and the other is to help the proposed perspective gain purchase. The use of an insistent tone wards off any trace of opaqueness that might arise while homing in on the target expectation of CFP. A response to CFP needs to be formed in keeping with the persistent presumption that whether others accept a proposal or not hinges on the same tone underpinning the proposal’s substratum.

The seventh clue to conveying a response to CFP is tricky. Throughout career-building in the academic field, students, scholars, and instructors respond to different types of CFP. Their responses often vary from acceptance and partial acceptance to outright rejection. In the case of outright rejection, it might be tough to bear the brunt of rejection, which might sap the spirit and entelechy one has been cultivating since the beginning of one’s academic footprint. In this condition of being in a low spirit due to sporadic rejection, one must groom oneself with a philosophical maxim, dictum, or conviction. In the wake of angst and anxiety consequent upon the rejection of any response to CFP, it would be tactful if one with the experience of rejection switches instantly from the erstwhile mental frame of lapsing into frustration and lamentation to a new mindset informed by the conviction that having been rejected means being hurled on the rose bed of renewal.

The last trick that may prove pivotal is catching a glimpse of and acting following the zeitgeist of contemporaneity that by and now diffuses across the world of CFPs. The spirit and entelechy of inclusion have penetrated every stroke of knowledge-making. Any linguistic shred and fragment are redolent of an alienating, exclusionary, and unjust practice, triggering a domino effect that ultimately spoils the inherent acceptability of the proposed perspective, no matter how full the proposal would be. All these strategic clues ultimately come down to a praxis that justice-fostering, dignity-ennobling, and identity-acknowledging rather than a collocational, standardized, and stereotypes-filled language pave the way for enriching the acceptability of proposed response to CFP.

Graduate students preparing to enter the job market are always hard-pressed to devote their whole time to completing their dissertation research. Nevertheless, they must invest more time in responding to CFPs for conferences, book reviews, review essays, success narratives, cross-border narratives, writing about their observation, and reflective writing. Since responding to the CFPs for a book chapter, journal articles, and intermezzo requires both intensive and extensive efforts, involvement, and time, it is relevant to conclude that trying to catch low-hanging fruit is an appropriate option for them. However, in no way should it not be understood as an underestimation of the potency and potentiality of graduate students inching closer to a threshold of the job market because there is quite an incredible number of graduate students who have already adorned their CVs with gems of their productive scholarship. However, speaking from a practical perspective and arguing in consideration of the pressure of time, including plenty of both teaching and administrative responsibility on the part of graduate students, there is every reason to advise that trying to catch low-hanging fruit still sounds like a lucrative and economical alternative for graduate students. In connection with this, responding to the CFPs for a conference, book review, review essay, essay on graduate student’s observation, and reflective writing such as cross-border narrative would be inviting and enticing for Ph.D. candidates on the verge of graduation who have built up a professional mindset of plunging into the job market soon.

At last, I would like to opine my thoughts on a type of stereotype that recurs in most of the announcements of CFP. On seeing sentences—such as ‘for book reviews and review essays, graduate students are encouraged and welcomed to contribute’—I felt irreparably stung by a scorpion of inferiority and of being pigeonholed. A query flashed across my mind instantly. There anyone, including me, could not but ask a question—why cannot graduate students, especially PhD candidates, respond to higher CFPs? The answer is obvious. In a general sense, responding to the higher CFPs demands time, resources and involvement. Graduate students are busy people who have a lot of work to do. I too was not an exception to this condition. Therefore, I was occasionally pained to see this sentence, but now I have mastered such a normal thought. With this unpleasant stream of thought, I would like to cut a long story short by saying that trying to catch low-hanging fruit—CFPs for conferences, book reviews, review essays, and reflective and observational writings—is a wise approach to redressing the harsh rhetoric of publish or perish. For clarity’s sake, I have presented below some pointers that could be helpful for any responder responding to a CFP:

Read and understand the CFP: It is in our best interest to go through the CFP document to understand the theme, topic, and requirements. Supportive here is the idea of paying attention to guidelines, word limits, formatting instructions, and submission deadlines.
Choose the right topic: Selecting a topic that aligns well with the theme of the conference or event is of enormous importance. Responders ought to make sure their research is relevant and innovative. Being mindful of the contributions the responder’s abstract makes is worth pondering.
Prepare an abstract: Of all the pointers pivotal to making a success of responding to CFP, crafting a compelling abstract that summarizes our paper or presentation is instrumental. So, the responder needs to clearly state the problem they are addressing, their methodological choice, and critical ideas and insights. It is good to ensure that the abstract is concise and engaging. The most crucial thing is the need to capture the attention of the reviewers.
Follow the submission guidelines: Successful responders to CFP ought to adhere to the submission guidelines provided by the organizers. They should pay close attention to formatting requirements, citation styles, and any specific file formats they may request.
Highlight your contribution: Each scholarly and institutional venue tends to judge an individual contributor to CFP in terms of their contribution. To that end, it is essential for them to clearly articulate the unique contribution of their work. The key to mastering this hurdle is to explain how it fills a gap in the existing literature, provides novel insights, or offers a fresh perspective. The responder need not dither about emphasizing their research’s significance and potential impact.
Present your qualifications: In an age in which an assertion is evaluated vis-à-vis self, highlighting our expertise, qualifications, and relevant experience in the field we are part of is of paramount importance. To buttress our credibility as responders to CFPs, providing a brief overview of our academic or professional background is imperative to establish credibility.
Proofread and edit: Before turning in our response to CFPs, it would be a cautionary measure to carefully proofread and edit our paper or abstract. If we ensure that our abstract is well-structured, free of grammatical errors, and coherent, it will be accepted. This is the principle we all need to live by. For that purpose, we can opt for feedback on our abstract from colleagues or mentors to improve the quality of our writing.
Meet the deadline: Submitting our response without crossing the specified deadline is advantageous because late submissions are typically not accepted. Hence, being proactive and active while planning our time and allowing for ample review and revision is of utmost importance.
Tailor your response: What matters most is the customization of our response to the specific requirements of the CFP. Reviewers are interested in hearing specific things; no one likes hearing general things. Thus, it is good to keep any idea of submitting generic or recycled content at bay. Tuning our response with the particular and genuine requirement is pivotal to actualizing the chance of acceptance.
Be professional and courteous: Since being soft and gracious matters a lot, it would be beneficial if they interact with the organizers and reviewers professionally and respectfully if they respond promptly to any inquiries or requests for additional information. The secret formulary to heighten our chance of having our abstract approved is one associated with living with a growth mindset and collaborative disposition throughout the process.

Works Cited

Garver, E. (1994). Aristotle’s rhetoric: An art of character. University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.

About the Author: Shiva Mainaly is a PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Louisville. Currently, at North Dakota State University (NDSU), he will become a postdoctoral research fellow from August 2023. A prolific author, he has published numerous articles in prestigious journals like the Journal of International Students, Constellation, and Composition Studies.

Postmethod Pedagogy, Deconstruction and ELT Practices: Some Reflections from the Pedagogy of the Gita

January 24, 2022Critical Pedagogy, Scholarly Articleadmin

Introduction

Pedagogy concerns the process of teaching and learning which differs from the way it was practiced under a method which primarily focused on the delivery of information from the teacher to the students (Richards & Renandya, 2002, p. 5). So pedagogy is the conception of the post-methods practices which focus on “the dynamic interplay between teachers, learners, and institutional materials during the process of teaching and learning” (Brown quoted in Richards & Renandya, 2002, p. 6). That means, teaching, in pedagogy, is “a courageous occupation’’ and “a journey of hope based upon a set of ideals” (Day, 2004, pp. 8-20). It is an integral part of learning as Lieberman and Miller(as cited in Day, 2004, p. 105) state, “Teaching and learning are interdependent, not separate functions.” So in the process of teaching and learning as an integrated process, teachers are “problem posers and problem solver; they are researchers; and they are intellectuals engaged in unraveling the learning process both for themselves and for the young people in their charge.” That is to say, teachers are learning themselves through the process of teaching because in pedagogy learning is “not consumption’’; it is “knowledge production,” and similarly, teaching is “not performance”; it is “facilitative leadership” (Lieberman & Miller as cited in Day, 2004, p. 105). Similarly, Kumaravadivelu (2001) has conceptualized pedagogy in a much broader sense which includes not only the educational aspects of teaching and learning but also the sociocultural aspect. In this regard, he posits: “I use the term pedagogy in a broad sense to include not only issues pertaining to classroom strategies, instructional materials, curricular objectives, and evaluation measures, but also a wide range of historical, political, and sociocultural experiences that directly or indirectly influence L2 education” (p. 538). This conception of pedagogy is so comprehensive that it gives ELT practice a broad outlook which needs consideration from both educational and socio-cultural perspectives. That is, pedagogy should not be restricted to classroom boundary; it should go beyond the classroom and consider every factor pertinent to teaching and learning process. In this regard, the dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna in the Gita captures the essence of pedagogy as the process of teaching and learning is situated in the wider socio-cultural, historical and political context.

Pedagogical Context in the Gita

When it comes to the pedagogy in the Gita, it is not that easier to understand as it has unique and multifaceted context. Being guided by the above theoretical discussion on pedagogy, the dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna in the Gita, can be claimed to be a pedagogical discourse. So Lord Krishna, as a teacher, has both roles as a problem poser and a problem solver (verses 18:63; 18:72, Prabhupada’s Version) and Arjuna, as a learner, has been involved in knowledge production (verse18.73) rather than in consumption of knowledge. Similarly, Lord Krishna is not simply performing his role as a teacher; he is rather taking the role of a facilitative leadership (verse 18:72). As the dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna took place in the battlefield before the commencement of the war, he took the leadership in guiding Arjuna in the war. All these constitute the institutional materials for pedagogy in the Gita. Thus, as pedagogy constitutes the dynamic interplay between teachers, learners, and institutional materials, we can observe the dynamic interplay between these dimensions of pedagogy in the pedagogy of the Gita.

More important, there are some studies and commentaries which identify Lord Krishna as a teacher and Arjuna as a learner. Regarding Lord Krishna’s role in the war, Radhakrishnan (2014, p. 33) identifies him as a teacher or guru as he guided Arjuna to the right path against “the forces of darkness, falsehood, limitation, and immortality which bar the way to the higher world.” As Arjuna was unwilling to take his responsibility in the battle (verse1:46), he takes refuge to higher self, Lord Krishna who is able to make him realize his duty (18:72). In this context, as teaching by Lord Krishna contains universal knowledge, Radhakrishnan (2014, p. 33) calls him ”the world teacher” or jagadguru. Similarly, Sargeant (2016, p. 2), in reviewing the role of Lord Krishna in the Gita, came to a conclusion that he is the Universal Guru who is teaching the lessons of universal significance. In the similar fashion, Dayananda (2014, p. 21) in his book, The Teaching of the Bhagavadgita, identifies Lord Krishna as a guru because, accepting Arjuna as his disciple, he has been able to teach him the practical lessons which have become most effective in solving his problems. With this background Prabhupada (1986, p. 21) also defines guru as ”the one who dispels the darkness of ignorance by the light of knowledge.” Thus, the broad conceptualization of pedagogy can be observed in the dynamic role of Lord Krishna as a teacher and Arjuna as a learner in the pedagogy of the Gita. Besides, the contents of the Gita further justifies how pedagogy should be able to incorporate historical, socio-cultural, political and academic aspects of educational project as deconstructive pedagogy (Kamali, 2021b).

Pedagogy of the Gita, Postmethod Pedagogy and Deconstruction: A Grand Confluence of Pedagogy

The pedagogy of the Gita can be compared with the postmethod pedagogy as advocated by Kumaravadivelu (2001) in his article entitled “Toward a Postmethod Pedagogy” because the methodology employed by Lord Krishna in teaching Arjuna contains many of his concepts. Accordingly, Lord Krishna’s pedagogy in the Gita can be compared with Derrida’s deconstruction as Lord Krishna deconstructed Arjuna’s psychology—he was not ready to lead the war in the beginning (verses 1:47) but in the end, after the instruction by Lord Krishna, he became ready to do his duty (18:73).Thus, as Derrida (1986, as cited in Higgs, 2002, p. 170) deconstructed the metaphysics of presence grounded on structuralism and gave way to deconstruction and poststructuralism/postmodernism, Kumaravadivelu (2001, p. 537), in the same vein, deconstructed the centralized practice of ‘method’ and opened up multiple possibilities in pedagogy. In this regard, he commends: “As a consequence of repeatedly articulated dissatisfaction with the limitations of the concept of method and the transmission model of teacher education, the L2 profession is faced with an imperative need to construct a postmethod pedagogy” (p. 537). In this way, deconstruction of methods gave birth to postmethod pedagogy as deconstruction of structuralism to poststructuralism and postmodernism in philosophy. As a result, deconstruction and postmethod pedagogy have become inseparable. Thus, both recommend practices as “an open-ended inquiry,” and “a work in progress” (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 537). These features are equally pertinent in the pedagogy of the Gita as Lord Krishna has practiced the pedagogy as an open-ended inquiry and a work in progress because Arjuna is free to learn and make decision on his own and learning has been regarded as a process (verse 18:63).

Thus, method of teaching has been transformed into pedagogy as a post-method practice which is defined as a movement away from a preoccupation with generic teaching methods towards a more complex view of teaching which encompasses a multifaceted understanding of the teaching and learning process (Richards & Renandya, 2002). In this regard, Richard and Renandya (2002, p. 5) further argue that in the post-methods era attention has been shifted to teaching and learning process and the contribution of the individual teacher to pedagogy rather than the output of the process. In the same vein, Brown (as cited in Richard and Renandya, 2002, p. 6) defines pedagogy as a ”dynamic interplay between teachers, learners, and institutional materials during the process of teaching and learning. By this he has deconstructed the dominant role of teachers in pedagogy and considered the roles of multiple factors contributing to effective pedagogy; it is the same case with deconstruction as it never ends with fixity; the outcome of the deconstructive analysis is always the possibility of multiplicity— difference (Derrida as cited in Culler, 1982, p. 97)! Thus, deconstruction makes pedagogy is more process-oriented and inclusive of all factors conducive to post-method pedagogy which has been further developed into “deconstructive pedagogy” (Kamali, 2021b, p.73).

ELT Practices as Deconstructive Pedagogy: A Conclusive Remark

As a global phenomenon, ELT has divergent practices due to its variations and myriad contexts. No single approach, method and strategy seems to be overarching in present ELT practices. Thus, it is required that ELT practices be like deconstructive pedagogy and ELT practitioners play the roles of a deconstructionist teacher like Lord Krishna in the pedagogy of the Gita as follows (Kamali, 2021a, pp. 73-74): 1. A deconstructionist teacher practices pedagogy as deconstructive pedagogy founded on deconstruction; 2. A deconstructionist teacher can fully act as an autonomous practitioner; 3. A deconstructionist teacher can develop a reasonable degree of competence and confidence in performing pedagogy; 4.A deconstructionist teacher not only critically implements theories into practice but he/she also builds theories out of practices; 5. A deconstructionist teacher focuses on the interplay between theoretical and practical dimensions of pedagogy and lets it open to any possibilities to make the pedagogy more effective in context.

The author: Dr. Hari Chandra Kamali is an Associate Professor of English education at Far Western University, Nepal. He pursued his PhD from Nepal Sanskrit University. Dr. Kamali has published several articles and presented papers in different conferences at home and abroad.

References

Culler, Z. (1982). On deconstruction: Theory and criticism after structuralism. Cornell University Press.www.z.lib.org

Day, C. (2004).A passion for teaching. RoutledgeFalmer.

Dayananda, S. (2014).The teaching of the Bhagavadgita.Vision Books.

Higgs, P. (2002). Deconstruction and re-thinking education. South African Journal of Education,22 (3), 2002, 170 – 176. www.academia.edu.

Kamali, H. C.(2021a). ‘Deconstructionist’ as the role of a teacher in postmethod pedagogy.Technium Social Sciences Journal,19 (1), 67-75. https://doi.org/10.47577/tssj.v19i1.3324

Kamali, H. C. (2021b). Lord Krishna as a deconstructionist teacher in the Bhagavadgita [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Nepal Sanskrit University.

Kumaravadivelu, B. Toward a postmethod pedagogy.TESOL Quarterly, 35(4), 537-560. https//doi.org/10.2307/3588427

Prabhupada, A. C. B. S. (1986). Bhagavad-gita As It Is(2^nd ed.).The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.

Radhakrishnan, S. (2014).The Bhagavadgita.Harper Collings Publishers.

Richards, J. C., &Renandya. W. A. (2002). Approaches to teaching. In J. C. Richards & W. A. Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice(pp. 5-8). Cambridge University Press.

Sargeant, W. (2016).The Bhagavad Gita. Aleph Books Company.

Beauty and Power of Multilingualism

January 1, 2016Critical Pedagogy, English as a Global Language, Global thought, Scholarly ArticleEnglish Only, Multilingualism, Translingualismsharmashyam

During the past year, I came across a lot of news items (including some based on scientific studies) about the benefits of multilingualism. There was so much on this issue that I sometimes wondered if the scientific and sociological studies were essentially a part of rather political responses to the ongoing redistribution of economic and geopolitical power around the world (especially in relation to the global status of the US vis-a-vis other countries like China, India, and the rest of BRICK nations). Perhaps immigration, increased global connections (virtually and otherwise), and development in other areas are contributing to it. In any case, the range of research, arguments, and perspectives on the subject was quite rich and diverse, with some reports going as far as saying that multilingualism may delay severe mental disorders in old age to others indicating that it is simply business-smart for companies to make their websites more multilingual. Living in the US, a society where monolingual policies and assumptions are (understandably) prevalent in most walks of life, I was pleased to see the emerging appreciation of multilingualism because I think this will only have positive outcomes on local and global levels.

However, every time I read the news about this issue, I was sad. I was sad that, back home in Nepal, where learning and using multiple languages is a fundamental reality of life and society, formal education is increasingly adopting the mind-boggling “subtractive” approach in relation to multilingualism (excluding/destroying some languages to improve others), in the name of education, economic opportunity, and globalization. Instead of focusing on the real challenges of education, schools and parents and experts alike are buying into the idea that simply switching to English-Only medium of instruction for all subjects and at all levels will magically improve education — when, in our special context, the opposite is far more true. Let me return to this concern after sharing a quick summary of the new studies and reports mentioned above. I will conclude by sharing some fun activities for the classroom, just so I don’t spread too many sadness bugs to you as a reader.

If you have the time and can browse through the annotated bibliography linked to this page on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, this site provides the most exhaustive list of studies documenting the benefits of being multilingual. Since even the annotations are rather overwhelming in amount, here is a brief list if you don’t have too much time. The studies show that proficiency in multiple languages:

supports academic success by helping individuals use critical language awareness and sensitivity to nuances of meaning, read and understand texts better for any purpose, perform better in standardized tests/exams, reinforce the learning of new languages required in school especially through two-way immersion, fine-tune the ability to hear and pay attention, better hypothesize in learning science, bolsters success in higher education in general;
enhances cognitive ability by helping individuals use more divergent thinking, go higher on the level of critical thinking, draw on different perspectives and think outside the box, employ greater cognitive flexibility, think better non-verbally, acquire greater metalinguistic awareness and creativity, utilize an improved working memory, deploy “more advanced processing of verbal material, more discriminating perceptual distinctions, more propensity to search for structure in perceptual situations, and more capacity to reorganize their perceptions in response to feedback,” offset age-related loss of memory and even diseases, use an apparently increased IQ;
improves interpersonal, social, economic, and professional opportunities for individuals by helping them boost their social skills and confidence, connect them to more people and increasing their opportunities to learn and grow, strengthen emotional and personal relationships with others who may feel strongly about linguistic and cultural bonds, give them unique skills and abilities, allow them to travel and work more successfully.

For anyone interested to learn even more about the benefits of multilingualism, here is another compilation of news, issues, and debates on a university website. Some of the sources include an article titled “Bilinguals are Smarter” on New York Times, a Wired Magazine article about bilinguals making more rational and less biased decisions, and a Ted talk by Patricia Ryan, a long time English teacher in the Middle East, who points out a number of problems, including the problem of gatekeeping in the name of educational quality. A fun-to-read article in The Huffington Post includes these benefits: better understanding cultural references, better navigate the social and professional worlds, better notice things that are lost in translation, feel better connected to one’s heritage/family and history, have deeper conversations with people across borders, make self-expression multidimensional as if one can use multiple personalities as needed.

As I indicated above, the more I read news and reports about the benefits of multilingualism, the more I wondered if, back home, educators and policy makers, schools and parents will begin to change the increasingly dominating discourse and practice of English-Only instruction. Where are we on the issue of multilingualism and what, if anything, will make us change direction? Are well-informed educators doomed to passively watch the simplemindedness of those who create and implement wrong-headed language policy (or rather don’t do anything, because they seem to have no clue) forever? What can we do if we are teachers in English-only medium schools? Should those of us who have started discussing multilingualism be worried about offending our colleagues in private schools who have a stake in English medium education, fellow parents who may misunderstand what we mean, and the people whose business depends on the mythology of “English medium = quality education”? What about those of us who are studying or working abroad (especially in an English speaking country)? Frankly, I think it is intellectually and socially irresponsible to be silent on this subject. But I could be unrealistic. The facts in favor of promoting multilingualism through education are crystal clear, but power and politics much more complicated.

Of course, English is everything its proponents say it is, and it does most of what they say. The problem is with “only” English in a society where most teachers and learners do not use it outside school, where few teachers speak it fluently and few students can master nuance even after being forced to use it for ten or fifteen years, and where there is insufficient resource to implement what schools have doggedly tried and most of them have miserably failed for decades. Contradictory as it may sound, except in a handful of good private schools in a handful of cities, English education itself will dramatically improve if teachers and students are first allowed to teach fluently and learn effectively — not to mention education in all other subjects. Now, why are Nepali-medium schools not “automatically” better? The answer is: they would be much worse (as they are going to be) by replacing Nepali and local language as the medium of all instruction. When English is imposed on teachers who can’t speak well and students who don’t have the opportunity to develop the competence needed, anyone can predict the results. English proficiency as an educational objective is absolutely necessary and we must do whatever we can to improve it; we owe it to our children to teach this “global” language. English language as an “only” medium for all subjects in our particular context at this time is a “snake oil.” What we need is freedom to use what works best at different levels of education, types of schools, subjects and teachers and students and so on. What we need is a general recognition that proficiency in English and quality education are two completely different things and we should expose the myths and lies on which the monolingual moves are based.

I am reminded of a book titled Buying into English in which the author, Catherine Prendergast, illustrates the failed promise of English in Slovakia. What made a positive difference for those who could benefit from English was not the language itself but instead their privilege or achievement in economic, social, political, and other forms. Nepal’s case may be unique in some ways, but the same dynamics apply. If students coming out of our private schools are more successful in higher education and the professions, it is because they had the privilege of schools with better resources, better teachers, richer and/or more educated parents, homes and communities with more favorable environments, networks of educated and resourceful family members, etc, etc, etc. For these reasons, I find it absurd when our educators ignore the big picture, disregard shocking numbers of failure (including failures due to English medium), and continue to sell or support the logically broken idea that English medium in itself will improve education. One should be ashamed to promote an educational situation based on and perpetuating shocking inequalities in education. English medium is a “false cause” of success before it starts becoming a real one for the minority; for the rest of the nation, when this medium is made mandatory, it makes teaching less fluent and learning less effective, and it undermines success and opportunity instead of enhancing them. Thus, for educators themselves to use the “success stories” of a minority when the majority does not have all the other privileges that go along with English medium is disingenuous, if not dishonest.

Yes, if all the other conditions of education described above are better, English can add to the ultimate outcome. But even then—and let me go one step further than I have before—students will benefit if they are taught in more languages than one, if they are fluent in more languages than one, if they can access knowledge and connect to people and think by using and . . . . Just think about adding all of the benefits of multilingualism that I summarized above to the previous sentence! That is the power of multilingualism when compared to monolingual education. That is what would happen if our private schools (and public ones that are adopting the same mythology) were to let teachers use multiple languages in the classroom. Future generations of students would be able to communicate complex and diverse ideas in more than one language, improving their learning and increasing opportunities in different walks of life and for a lifetime!

Now, as I promised at the outset, just to move away from the shock and disgust about our systematic destruction of multilingualism (because too many of us have somehow bought into, help advance, or tolerate this amazing, grand lie that using “English Only” improves education), let me share a few fun activities and conversations you can use in your classroom.

Ask students to translate the word “beauty” into Nepali (and/or other languages they speak). In the case of Nepali, hoping the English-only madness hasn’t completely destroyed this language among all students in class, someone will say “sundar.” Ask students if that word is associated with females or males in Nepali. The answer, in Nepali, is male, right? In English, it is typically used to describe females, with the adjective “beautiful.” What is “beautiful” in Nepali? “Sundari?” Probably not! Well, yeah, some students will say. Then ask the class to translate the word “sundari” back into English, or imagine what image“beautiful” conjures up in their minds. Again, if at least some of them have a good sense of the connotations in Nepali, they might say things like “nakkali” or someone “who tries hard to look pretty.” In any case, the connotations in Nepali are not positive—unlike in English, generally speaking. Guess what, if any of your students are good in Nepali, they will also tell you that “sundari” means a female monkey. And so the conversation will continue, just using one key word and two languages, showing you the beauty and power of multilingualism. Good luck with the rest of the conversation, whichever way you want to wrap it up.

Let us take another case of hard-to-translate words in different languages. Here is one of the many websites that provide lists of such words from languages spoken around the world. Take any number of these words to class (or pull them up and show the accompanying images on the screen if that is possible), and then ask students to write words from their home or other languages that they don’t think have accurate translation in English. This activity will also help your students refine their translingual skills, taking one more step in the direction of achieving many of the benefits of multilingualism described above. What does a word and especially its connotations say about the society (context, culture, lifestyle), about changes over time, about worldviews, etc? What are the personal, social, and professional benefits of continuously developing vocabulary, range of syntax and idiom, and sociolinguistic competency in more than one language?

To keep this post short, let me sign off with a link to a blog post that I wrote for a professional group named Transnational Writing here in the US. In this two-part essay, I have discussed some of the practical/classroom strategies and activities for engaging students in translingual communication (a hot button topic here in the US these days).

I look forward to reading your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

The author: Dr. Sharma is currently working in the capacity of an assistant professor of writing and rhetoric at Stony Brook University, New York in the USA

‘The photography project’: Pictures in EFL teaching

July 5, 2015Creativity, Critical Pedagogy, Critical Thinking, Teacher's Experience/anecdotesPrem Phyak

The Choutari team has initiated a new ‘photography project’. The aim of the project is to promote the use of photography/pictures in EFL teaching. In this project, the Choutari team members share with the larger ELT community a variety of photos they take in different times and places. We do not create our own stories out of these pictures, rather we leave it open for multiple uses (e.g., essay writing, story writing/telling, critical pedagogy, group work, participatory research)as per the need of EFL teachers . In acknowledging the importance of photos/pictures in EFL teaching, this project is influenced by the “Critical Photography Theory” (Wells, 2015) and the “Critical Art Pedagogy” (Cary, 2011). We encourage our fellow colleagues all over the world to use these pictures (of course, acknowledgement is appreciated) for the classroom purposes and participate in the discussion on various issues concerning the use of photography in EFL teaching.

To begin, we share the photos taken by Prem Phyak, our past editor, in different locations and times in Nepal.

Diversity in English Language Classroom

August 1, 2014Critical Pedagogy, Global thoughtbalramadhikari

1924893_829718523720484_26654504_n — BALRAM ADHIKARI

Diversity implies the state of being diverse in forms. It is the state in which multiformity exists because of co-existence of multiple, yet interconnected forms of the phenomenon. Diversity is a reality in the English language classroom, particularly in the contexts like ours, where the classroom houses teachers and learners both from diverse linguistic, cultural, geographical, economic, and social backgrounds. Second language learning and teaching theories regard diversity as the reality of the classroom. Without delving into theories and research works that abound the field of teaching English as a foreign or second language, I would like to present different dimensions of diversity, most of which I have noticed in my own classroom. I interpret diversity along the dimensions of language and culture, and cognition and creation of students.

I teach a large class. The classroom where I teach the master’s level course English Grammar for Teachers is cramped with the students. The number of students often exceeds ninety. These are the prospective English teachers specializing in English education. The size of the class has a lot to do with diversity. The larger the class it is more likely to be diverse in terms of learner differences, their educational backgrounds, geographical, cultural, linguistic experiences, and their expectations from teaching. Continue reading Diversity in English Language Classroom →

Need of Evolution: Continuing the Discourse-to-Practice for Local ELT Practices in Nepal

February 1, 2014Critical Pedagogy, Miscellaneous, Native Perspectiveadmin

Pramod Kumar Sah

In countries where English is used as a second or a foreign language, teachers have already started grounding their ELT practices on their locally available resources as well as locally viable methods and approaches of teaching English as a lingua franca language. In Nepal, where English is used as a foreign language, it is evidently urgent that we develop our own ELT practices. In a post written last month’s issue In their highly thought-provoking essay, “Shifting Focus: Building ELT Practices and Scholarship from the Ground Up” Prem Phyak, Bal Krishna Sharma and Shyam Sharma have presented a broad and powerful proposal for a reinvention of Nepalese ELT from the ground up. This blog entry takes Phyak, Sharma, and Sharma’s ideas one step further by situating them in the context of classroom, textbooks, and such other specifics of ELT practice in Nepal today.

Methodology: Prescription or Formation?

Allow me to first briefly describe my stance on ELT/EFL/ TESOL methodology in Nepalese context today. As Phyak, Sharma and Sharma have indicated in their recent article, I strongly believe that there is an urgent need of realizing own potential in language teaching, rather than seeking for solutions to the different classroom problems from in the ideas and experiences from contexts unlike our own. In this post, I intend to add that the “formation” of ELT methods and resources from the ground up may never happen unless our teachers, as the ultimate practitioners, do not see how they can practically do so. I would like to add some more specifics ways to achieve the goal to the many concrete examples and practical suggestions that the authors have provided in their post.

Since the advent of language learning as an academic discipline, there have been gradual shifts in language teaching methodology from Grammar Translation, to Audiolingualism, and those applied in more recent and well known Communicative Language Teaching. However, ELT practitioners have put forward an array of opinions, arguments and concerns over the issue that which of the suggested methodologies works best in language teaching. But, a variety of factors, such as official language policies, the role of L2 in a distinct speech community, learners’ need and their linguistic background, cultural and economical state of the institutions, teachers’ background, students’ previous linguistic competence, etc. affect the selection of methodology – this is why a single methodology was not effective enough to quench the thirst of language learning of all the time and circumstances.

For me, the most relevant experience is that a method should no longer be a prescription made from a linguist; rather it should be a pattern of activities made by a distinct language teacher accounting for his/her classroom scenario. Moreover, all the methods are best for their corresponding situations, as Prabhu (1990, p.161) states ‘…..different methods are best for different teaching contexts; that all methods are partially true or valid; and that the notion of good and bad methods is itself misguided’. In the meantime, it is very significant for a language teacher to remain aware of scientific principles of language learning or acquisition, they are more importantly free to make their own personal methodology based on their distinct context, which Prabhu (1990) calls as teachers’ ‘sense of plausibility’. It is also worth suggesting that a language teacher needs to choose various activities or techniques from a certain method, not because of the faith in the underlying method but because that is suitable in their own unique contexts.

Thus, I assume, it’s high time we should start framing our own method that can best fit in our unique classroom rather than following sets of prescriptions.

Need of Teachers’ Authority for Syllabus Design

The reason I focus on teacher-driven syllabus is again based on so-called ‘teacher sense of plausibility’. I have been motivated to develop my own personal teaching methodology for my unique class, that requires me to set my own syllabus rather than following syllabus set somewhere else. Put it other way, considering learners’ need, cultural background, age group, etc., teaches should be authorized to frame his syllabus against marketed textbooks. Furthermore, prescription of a methodology, syllabus, course, materials, activities, techniques, and an assessment procedure does not support the views, such as every class is unique. The teachers should be authorized to make decision on aforementioned aspects of teaching.

A Dark Practice and Ways out

There are a few dark practices in Nepalese ELT that seem to be in high need of evolution, out of which Teaching a subject vs. language skills is one.

Teaching English is merely a subject to pass in the examination in our concern, rather than developing our students’ language skills. It might be my overgeneralization but this as a consequence of my teaching experience and observation in some leading educational establishments in Nepal. We rely on ‘a’ textbook and we teach them page-by-page and finally, test them if they have comprehended what mentioned in the textbook. But, in fact it works for no good. Using textbooks is necessary, but what seems irrelevant is just to interpret what are printed on textbook pages. The situation not only exists in school teaching but has been the same in university level; for example, the General English for B. Ed. under Tribhuvan University has recommended three textbooks; (a) New Generation in English, that is a collection of exciting and helpful reading texts including some literary pieces written in Nepali contexts- but, what we do is to render the meaning of the texts in Nepali with near comprehension (that helps for nothing) rather than getting out students to read them extensively to develop reading skills and intensively to do the tasks set; (b) Exploring Grammar in context, indeed a good textbook that is based on Hallidayan approach and contains grammar for written and spoken discourse – in this concern as well, we just try to teach them rules of grammar, practice only the exercises and prepare them for examination instead of having them explore meaning of the grammatical items for natural communication; and (c) Academic vocabulary, at this point, we just teach them the meaning of words in isolation and the students hardly keep those in their head – the best thing we can do is to teach them ‘lexical chunks’ in contexts with the help of ‘corpus’ grounding our teaching on Michel Lewis ‘Lexical Approach’, so the students will be able to make use of those vocabulary in their real academic writing. Additionally, this gap is the consequence of our examination system, especially question pattern that contains questions from the textbook exercises itself without a word alteration, normally. The textbooks are to be used as reference, rather than a subject to have students’ mastery over. Teaching English means teaching language skills that help students expose themselves in English speech community. Moreover, as Phyak, Sharma and Sharma show, there is an urgent need to realize our own potential and bring our local resources to support our students develop their language skills rather than grounding our teaching on mere textbooks.

Making Our Own Ground

Firstly, as Phyak, Sharma and Sharma emphasize, our focus has to be on practice instead of discussing the problems; teaches should build confidence in themselves and use approaches and resources that are readily available to them.

Secondly, where there are potential teachers equipped with the knowledge of different paradigms in our society, we should no longer be reading literature and theory developed in different contexts somewhere else in the world with an aim of implementing those theories and methods in our classrooms—even though ideas from anywhere are good for expanding our knowledge. Instead, we must frame a plot of our own stories, to shape our own educational future.

Thirdly, to develop and implement any approaches, methods, and syllabus, we need to figure out what we can do even within the material and technological limitations in our classroom. Thus, instead of being demotivated, we can attempt to let the things go with what available to us in a best way. In Phyak, Sharma and Sharma’s words, we have to shift our belief from what we do not have to what we can do well and with what we do have.

Conclusion

To say in a nutshell, since English is no longer the only language of English, we have freedom to teach and learn it in ways that fit our needs and interests, and it is high time we stopped searching for methods originated in some other situations. It is time that we explore and understand our own teaching scenarios in order to form whatever methods and whatever blends of methods we find good for us. For this to happen, it is necessary to authorize our teachers and allow them to develop their own syllabi and their own materials, however impossible or difficult it may seem at first. Without more independence for our teachers, it may never be easier for teachers to teach language skills, instead of textbooks. And if we are to move beyond complaining about what we do not have and what we cannot do, we must start using readily available resources as well as use available opportunities for teaching language as it is used in life and work, instead of just whatever the textbooks includes.

————————————————————————————

Pramod Kumar Sah is an M. Ed. in English from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He is currently pursuing his MA in TESOL with Applied Linguistics at University of Central Lancashire, UK.

Translanguaging to teach English in Nepal

July 1, 2013Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous, Scholarly Article, Teacher Trainingadmin

Ofelia García*

Introduction

English language teaching throughout the world has suffered from a monoglossic bias; that is, the view that English could only be taught in isolation and separated from the languages spoken by students. This was, of course, the pedagogical tradition that emerged from the West, and especially from North American and British scholars in particular, who saw the teaching of the English language as a monolingual imperialist enterprise. But in the 21^st century, English teaching has gone global, no longer in the hands of colonial masters, but taught throughout the world by many who share language and culture with students. And yet, our pedagogies have remained as monolingual as ever, robbing students of opportunities to use their home languages to make sense of the complex use of English that is demanded in the world today.

I argue here that we need to adopt a translanguaging lens, a lens which allows us to think about language, bilingualism and learning from the perspective of emergent bilingual students themselves. I start by considering the concept of translanguaging. Using the translanguaging lens, I then provide counterarguments to some of the constructions about English language speakers, English language acquisition and learning, bilingualism, and language education that have been responsible for much failure in the teaching of English to students throughout the world.

Translanguaging

The term translanguaging was coined in Welsh (trawsieithu) by Cen Williams. In its original use, it referred to a pedagogical practice where students are asked to alternate languages for receptive or productive use; for example, students might be asked to read in English and write in Welsh and vice-versa. Since then, the term has been extended by many scholars (e.g. Blackledge & Creese 2010, Canagarajah 2011, García 2009; García & Sylvan 2011, Hornberger & Link 2012). I have used the term to refer to the flexible use of linguistic resources by bilinguals in order to make sense of their worlds, and I have applied it mostly to classrooms because of its potential in liberating the voices of language minoritized students.

I use translanguaging here to refer not to the use of two separate languages or even the shift of one language or code to the other (for simple Questions and Answers on translanguaging for educators see my introduction to Celic and Seltzer, 2012). Rather, translanguaging is rooted on the principle that emergent bilingual students select language features from a repertoire and “soft assemble” their language practices in ways that fit their communicative situations. Translanguaging in education can be defined as a process by which students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices that include ALL the language practices of students in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate and appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new sociopolitical realities by interrogating linguistic inequality. In today’s globalized world what is needed is the ability to engage in fluid language practices and to soft-assemble features that can “travel” across geographic spaces so as to enable us to participate fully as global citizens.

Counter-narratives about English, its speakers, learning English, bilingualism, and teaching English

The education of emergent bilinguals suffers from five major misconstructions about English, its speakers, the learning of English, bilingualism, and the teaching of English that can be counter-narrated through a translanguaging lens as follows:

English is not a system of structures.
“Native” English speakers are neither the norm nor objective fact.
Learning English is not linear.
Bilinguals are not simply speakers of a first and a second language.
The teaching of English cannot be enacted in total separation from other language practices.

I will develop these counter-narratives to deconstruct some of the myths with which we have been operating in educating emergent bilinguals.

English is not a system of structures

English forms and meaning are not auto-sufficient, but arise in and through social practice, as linguistic practices get used repeatedly in local contexts for meaning-making. Language is a series of social practices and actions that are embedded in a web of social relations and that orient and manipulate social domains of interactions. Pennycook (2010: 9) explains:

A focus on language practices moves the focus from language as an autonomous system that preexists its use, and competence as an internal capacity that accounts for language production, towards an understanding of language as a product of the embodied social practices that bring it about (my italics).

English is not a system of language structures; rather, languaging through what is called English is practicing a new way of being in the world. This understanding of what English is and is not has enormous implications for our conceptualization of English speakers, the next counter-narrative that I propose.

“Native” English speakers are neither the norm nor objective fact

It is important to recognize that monolinguals are not the norm in the world. Although estimates are difficult to make, well over half of the world’s population is bilingual or monolingual. In the second language acquisition literature, the “native” speaker is always held as the ideal. But the notion of who is a “native” speaker has been questioned in the fluidity of today’s global world. Often “native” has become indexical of being white. The ideology of the existence of a monolithic “native” English creates an order of indexicality (Blommaert, 2010) that favors the language practices of white prestigious monolingual speakers. Thus, the other “native” practices are reduced to being “corrupted,” “stigmatized,” “deficient,” “needing remediation.” As many have argued, there is no “native English standard.” Being a “native English speaker” is not simply being monolingual or speaking a certain way. At the same time, learning English does not happen in a vacuum, and is not linear. This is the misconstruction addressed by the counter-narrative in the next section.

Learning English does not proceed from scratch, is not linear

The learning of English has often focused on an end point, the ultimate attainment of a “native English standard.” When students haven’t achieved this, they are said to have a “fossilized interlanguage”; that is, their language system is said to be permanently deficient. Rarely has the learning of English paid attention to the resources students bring and to the dynamic process through which language practices emerge. But students are much more than just blank slates that are subsequently filled with English structures. They bring to classrooms knowledge, imagination, and sophisticated language practices. In addition, they do not forget what they know in order to take up English. These students are emergent bilinguals with full capacities. Their new language practices do not surface from scratch, but emerge in interrelationship with old language practices.

If the English language is not, as we have seen, simply a system of structures, then it follows that it is not possible just to add up structures in linear fashion in order to learn. Instead, English learning emerges as a flexible continuum, as students take up practices in interrelationship with others. The result is never an end point at which students “have” English. Rather, emergent bilinguals “do” language, languaging in ways that include practices identified as “English” in order to negotiate communicative situations and meet academic expectations. Emergent bilinguals are not simply in a stage of “incomplete acquisition.” The next section questions the misconstructions about bilingualism held by schools that have served to alienate the complex language practices of emergent bilingual students from English learning and provides an alternative narrative.

Bilinguals are not simply speakers of a first and a second language

Bilingualism in schools is often understood as being additive. Additive bilingualism refers to the idea that a “second language” can be added to a “first language,” resulting in a person who is a balanced bilingual. The views about languaging that I have been developing here lead us to reject the idea of “first” and “second” language, as well as balanced bilingualism.

Although most bilinguals may be able to identify which language they learned “first” and which language they learned “second,” the assignment of a “first” and “second” language to bilinguals is as much a theoretical impossibility as is the concept of being a balanced bilingual. New language practices emerge in interrelationship with old ones, and these language practices are always dynamically enacted.

I have argued that bilingualism can be better seen as dynamic. In contrasting dynamic bilingualism to an additive perspective, I go beyond simply the perspective of language systems and refer to the multiple and complex way in which the language practices of bilinguals interact and form a complex language repertoire. I have used the image of a banyan tree to suggest that language practices emerge and develop in intertwined ways.

As bilingualism emerges, the identification of language practices belonging to one or another “language” has to be questioned. Bilinguals translanguage, disrupting conventional ideas of what languages are or of the languages that bilinguals have. Bilinguals are clearly not two monolinguals in one. They use their complex language repertoire to fulfill the communicative needs that emerge from the different landscapes and speakers through which they shuttle back and forth. I have used the image of the All Terrain Vehicle to suggest that bilinguals use their complex language practices selectively as they adapt to the ridges and craters of communication in different languagescapes.

Traditionally, bilingual use has been understood as following a diglossic compartmentalization, with one language spoken at home, another one in school. But the translanguaging lens we have adopted makes clear that the language practices of bilinguals are transglossic, and that their full repertoire of practices is used in homes, and often “invisibly” in schools. The structures of language and education programs and their pedagogies have to respond to greater fluidity. This is the misconstruction addressed in the next counter-narrative.

The teaching of English cannot be enacted in total separation from other language practices

Traditionally, the teaching of English has taken place in English only. But as the complex translanguaging practices of bilinguals are made more evident, structures and pedagogies that separate languages artificially have to be abandoned. The language separation approach that is often used has to be abandoned.

All teachers must adopt translanguaging strategies in teaching. It would be important for English teachers to leverage the children’s entire language repertoire in making meaning and to develop the children’s metacognition and sense of self-regulation as they translanguage.

Oral discussions that include all students’ language practices enable their class participation, deep and reflexive thinking, and rigorous cognitive engagement with texts. The reading of difficult text is facilitated when students can access background material about the content of the text in other languages. Engagement with writing English texts is also facilitated when students can discuss, read and write first drafts that may include other language practices besides those that are in English. Translanguaging is an important tool.

A translanguaging lens enables us to understand the teaching of English to emergent bilinguals in new ways. Focusing on translanguaging practices enables us to shed notions of system structures that can be linearly taught, of the proper usage of natives, of the value of monolingualism, of bilingualism as simply double monolingualism, of the teaching of English without considering the entire language and semiotic repertoire of students.

References

Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) .Multilingualism. London: Continuum.

Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Canagarajah, A.S. (2011). Codemeshing in academic writing: Identifying teachable strategies of translanguaging. The Modern Language Journal 95(iii), 401-417.

Celic, C. and Seltzer, K. (2012). Translanguaging: A CUNY-NYSIEB Guide for Educators. New York: CUNY-NYSIEB. Online document: http://www.nysieb.ws.gc.cuny.edu/publicationsresources/

García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21^st Century: A Global perspective. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley/Blackwell.

García, O. and Sylvan, C. (2011). Pedagogies and practices in multilingual classrooms: Singularities in Pluralities. Modern Language Journal 95(iii), 385-400.

Hornberger, N. and H. Link. (2012). Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms: A bilingual lens. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 15(3): 261-278.

Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. London and New York: Routledge.

*Ofelia García is Professor in the Ph.D. program of Urban Education and of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has published many book chapters, articles, and books. She is the Associate General Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language.

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.

Creative Writing for Students and Teachers

April 1, 2013Creative Writing, Creativity, Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, ELT Resource, English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneous, Scholarly Article, Writingadmin

Alan Maley

U.K.

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

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

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

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

What is Creative Writing?

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

Expository Writing

Creative Writing

Instrumental

Facts

External control

Conventions

Logical

Analytical

Impersonal

Thinking mode

Appeal to the intellect

Avoidance of ambiguity

Aesthetic

Imagination

Internal discipline

Stretching rules

Intuitive

Associative

Personal

Feeling mode (plus thinking!)

Appeal to the senses

Creation of multiple meanings

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

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

The Case for Creative Writing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Promote the development of group cohesiveness.

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

general.

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

classroom events.

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

attractiveness of tasks.

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

task participants.

20. Present and administer tasks in a motivating way.

23. Provide students with regular experiences of success.

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

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

29. Increase student motivation by actively promoting learner autonomy.

33. Increase learner satisfaction.

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

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monolingual Policies in Multilingual States: Implications for Language Teaching

March 1, 2013Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, English as a Global Language, Global thought, Miscellaneousadmin

Madhav Kafle

Penn State University, USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teach English, Speak English, Why? The Importance of Conversations on Choutari

February 1, 2013Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, English as a Global Language, Native Perspective, Nelta Networking, Scholarly Articlesharmashyam

Dr. Shyam Sharma
Stony Brook University, New York

Choutari is now in the hands of a brilliant new group of NELTA scholars, and I am excited about that. The old and new teams who were working together for a while in order to make this conversation under the shade of this forum even better had to go through a somewhat difficult time during the month of January—it’s a story that may be worth telling someday, perhaps years from now, and it’s a good one—but we also had a wonderful opportunity to further realize the tremendous value of promoting professional conversation in this great community. With the talent and enthusiasm of the new team, I am sure that we are going to see in the years to come great strides in the work of welcoming, encouraging, urging, prodding us to give back in the form of ideas and inspiration to our society. This work of building our scholarship from the ground up is extremely important to us as educators in a struggling nation right now and it will be, for different reasons, for generations to come.

Among the reasons we started this blog, one was to make our professional conversations serve as useful resource by making them open and accessible. And that’s what I want to write about in this reflection today.

Since I promised the editor of this month, my friend Bal Ram Adhikari, that I would contribute an entry for the issue, I’ve been trying to write about something that has kept me professionally “awake,” so to say, since I started teaching in a primary school in Butwal almost 20 years ago, something that I continued to ask for the next 12 years in grade schools and eventually at TU and then when I decided to switch from English to Writing Studies. And that something is a whole range of questions, which used to often discourage me while I taught at home: Why am I teaching what I am teaching? Does teaching grammar help students learn language? Why are we asking students to speak in English only? The teaching of literature seems to contribute to students’ personal development quite a bit, but how far does it contribute to their social and professional lives and the society at large? Why do we do little more than giving lecture in the name of “covering” the content of the course and helping students prepare for the exam—and what if there are better ways to achieve these same goals and also make education more worthwhile? What do we mean by “English education”?

When we started Choutari, I was happy because this platform allowed us to ask questions like the above as part of a broader professional conversation among hundreds of other scholars and teachers who may have similar questions, different perspectives, better answers. In this post, I want to build on a recent conversation that took place (and at the time of this writing is still ongoing) inside NELTA’s Yahoo mailing list that many of us are subscribed to. I responded briefly there, as it fit that medium, and I want to explore the issue further here, from broader educational, professional, and social perspectives. I request you, dear colleagues, to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

A fellow NELTA member, Umesh Shrestha, asked in the mailing list recently whether we, as English teachers, should communicate in English beyond the classroom and school (because, the writer seemed to imply, we don’t practice what we preach). This was a very thought-provoking question (and among other colleagues, Suman Laudari has responded with some great ideas on the list). Let me get into the relaxing mood of choutari and share some thoughts—for the beauty and fresh air of early spring is returning to the hillsides and I am truly excited by the arrival of a whole group of gaunles under the shady tree.

The question of whether we, even teachers of English, should speak English everywhere, as well as require our students to do so in school and encourage to do so outside is not new. And I happen to have strong views not only about whether even our students (forget about us) must be required to speak English at all times in school (if not beyond it!) but also about whether we should use English as a medium of instruction and for what purposes, if at all.

Let me take a step back and ask a more basic question: “Why” is it that English is the increasingly dominant, increasingly popular, increasingly unquestioned medium of instruction in Nepal? Is there a straightforward “ELT” answer to this question? Does the use of English as “the” medium of instruction raise the standard of our education overall? Does it make classroom teaching and classroom learning more effective?

First, if the answer to questions like the above is more of a “no” than “yes,” then should we make it our professional lives’ priority to make the answer “yes”? Or, should we instead pause and think why the answer is “no”? That is, if using English rather than Nepali and/or other languages of instruction—at least in certain subjects, grade levels, regions, etc—does not have an “ELT” answer (which I presume it doesn’t), then why are we insisting that “English Only” must be the medium of instruction? If imposing English as the only medium of instruction does not raise the standard of our students’ education, then how have we come to embrace the delusion (sorry, but that’s what I think it largely is) that English “is” education (as in the phrase “English education”)? Is there, in the world of reality, such a thing as “English” education (one that is of a different order of intellectual significance than education acquired “in”? another language?)– or have we just created a feel good phrase to describe “English language education/learning” by dropping the key word in the middle?

To stay on the yes/no questions above, I would readily say NO, there is absolutely no doubt that IF requiring only English as the medium of instruction, communication, and jus being in school had ZERO SIDE EFFECTS, then the benefits are so many, so significant, so long term, so attractive… that we wouldn’t need to have this conversation. I would whole-heartedly support the use of English as the “only” medium in/throughout school. I’m not joking about this, but IF our students were to come out of high school speaking fluent English while ALSO writing effectively (whether that’s in English or not, please note), demonstrating critical thinking skills at par with their peers in other nations, being able to pursue and generate new ideas on their own, excelling in math and science and technology, etc, and IF the “medium” of English was a significant reason for our students’ elevated standards in all the above areas, then NO we would not have this conversation either. We would just call the adoption of English as the “only” medium of instruction as a straightforward, non-political, purely pedagogical decision. But that’s not the case. We know for fact—and we have been in denial for a few decades now—that the English medium that we have imposed in the name of improving the “quality” of education has VISIBLY affected the effectiveness of just too many teachers’ teaching, thereby their students’ learning, the teaching and learning of math and science and social studies and economics and environmental studies and agriculture and you name it. The English medium is certainly justified for teaching the English language—although even in this case, I have a hard time understanding why we teach it for 12-16 years and our students’ English is not as good as the Nepali proficiency of my Christian missionary friend who has been in Nepal for less than a year. Yes, our students’ English proficiency—and indeed our own as English teachers—may be too low. And it is for us as teachers (plus scholars) to develop solutions by having serious curricular, pedagogical, and educational discussions. But our good intentions to solve a problem don’t justify just “any” means. For instance, it would be terribly absurd for us as English teachers to tell our colleagues teaching social studies and math and physics and chemistry and their students who are solving algebra problems or playing khopi or eating samosa in the canteen that they must use English because— oh, wait, I forgot what I was about to say! English, you know, English, and like English education. Like globalized world. Opportunities. The internet. Facebook…. Okay, I can’t think anymore. Let me do something different. Let me tell you a story.

I have a nonnative English speaking (Chinese) student named Bao in my “intermediate college writing” class (here at the State University of New York). During the first class meeting in a one month long intensive writing workshop, while I was describing one of the assignments, a “rhetorical analysis” of a text that students would choose, Bao raised his hand, with his face looking like he was terrified of something, and said: “Professor, I don’t have the ‘professionalism’ to criticize the author’s writing style….” Bao’s English language “speaking” proficiency was so low that I couldn’t help thinking how many of the international students (15 out of 20, from 6 different countries, with different extents of exposure to “native” English speaking communities) were going to pass. Bao’s case was particularly striking: he not only struggled to express himself in English, as a student who had just come from a sociocultural background that doesn’t value “challenging” or even “analyzing” the ideas and expressions of established writers and scholars, he was saying that he neither could nor would like to “criticize” how a scholarly article was written. I gave a short answer and invited Bao to my office for further discussion. During the first discussion I realized that Bao was “confusing” his low proficiency in English with his lack of “knowledge” about what “rhetorical analysis” means; so I gave him a text (an excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech), a sample rhetorical analysis that he and I found online, and a long list of questions with which I broke down the assignment (as supplement to the assignment description). Long story short, the rhetorical analysis that Bao wrote within the first week of class (before the class moved to another project) was in many ways better than the writing of most other students in class, including the native English speaking students (some of whom, by the way, implemented what they had already learned in high school and turned in their papers, and their papers showed little new learning). One of the things that Bao had done was to copy, adapt, and echo the rhetorical analysis “moves” made by other writers in the many samples that he had gone on to find: he deliberately avoided looking at rhetorical analyses of the text he was analyzing so he was not plagiarizing. When he submitted the finalized analysis, I had to start by asking whether and to what extent someone else had helped him write the paper and/or he had copied from another writer’s analysis of the same text. He had not, as I found out that he had done what I just described.

So, it was not because Bao mastered the “medium” (indeed, it was “in spite of” the medium that still lagged significantly) but because he was engaged with ideas (a highly thought-provoking text), because he had an unyielding commitment, because he learned how to learn, because of his commitment and motivation that Bao was able to do what seemed so impossible. Even as he imitated and echoed and adapted and ventriloquized sentence structures and phrases and worlds from the samples that he gathered from all kinds of sources, Bao learned a whole new “discourse,” indeed a new language, in his incredible one-week long learning journey, thereby tremendously improving his overall English language skills (including skills for critical thinking, analytical reading, and composition). When I read Bao’s final draft, I questioned some of the conventional teaching wisdom that only rare situations like this make me ask, only situations like this can so beautifully blow up in the air.

Reading the question about how great it might be if we too were speaking English all the time, I was almost depressed to think about the state of our education—I mean about the learning part, the part where the nature and content of education matters, the part where our students are being prepared (or not) to become intellectually and professional capable of navigating (and indeed competing in) the complex, connected, global world that they live in and need to be even better prepared for.

Let us (of course) develop practical solutions for practical problems. But let us do so without being so naive as to think that we can be more effective at doing so by eschewing the larger context of education–motivation, rationale, fairness, etc–in the name of being practical. Let us not allow the politics of denial (or the claim that one is not being political in order to stay above the discussion when the issue is politically significant) to justify an active forgetting and overlooking of the larger purpose of teaching English, or social studies or science for that matter. It is only within the larger social context that our problem-solving of any ELT issues—the questions we ask, the answers we seek—will make sense.

And to connect that to what I was saying about the importance of joining and promoting such conversations like this in choutaris like this, I have the same old, humble request for you. Dear colleague, after you read a post, or two, maybe all, please do not forget to add a line, or two, or many lines, sharing your idea, experience, feedback… as encouragement to the writers and good example for other readers.

What experienced teachers tend to do with ‘silent’, ‘dominant’ and ‘off-task’ students

July 1, 2012Critical Pedagogy, Teacher's Experience/anecdotesBalkrishna Sharma

Bal Krishna Sharma

“I had one person who was always working and two people were just sitting there and watching.”

“At the beginning of the semester I had two very talkative students, and they were sitting in opposite sides of the classroom; and all the time it is them talking.”

“I have had several students who frequently bring topics that are unrelated to the teaching agenda.”

These are some of the quotes I took from my colleagues teaching academic writing at the University of Hawaii. My teaching experience, and perhaps yours as well, shows that students show different learning dynamics and engagement patterns in language classrooms. For example, you may encounter students who are quiet and shy and do not make verbal contributions to whole class or group tasks. You may also find some students who are overtly dominant; that is, they tend to take most of the talk time as well as task time in class as well as in collaborative projects. Still another dynamics: you may find your students engaging in talk and discussions but they may quite frequently drive your teaching agenda to different directions and lead you to off-task situations where you and your learners may not achieve the stated lesson goals. These are some of the learner dynamics I have recently been interested in.

Three years ago, I video recorded five lessons my own class where I was teaching academic writing to international graduate students. When I repeatedly watched the video for a reflection, I noticed that my class included all three types of students described above. As I had just moved from a relatively teacher-centered pedagogic context (Nepal) to a more learner-centered teaching context (the US), I was metacognitively more aware of the belief that ‘Now I have to do a more learner-centered teaching’. As a result, after watching the video, I noticed that I was unnecessarily giving more autonomy to my students. That is, I was not making as much interventions in student activities, particularly in group work, as I now realize I should have.

Then I was curious what other teachers were doing with similar students. I took this issue as a research topic for a Task-Based Language Teaching seminar that Dr. John Norris was teaching. As a next step for my own professional development, I prepared three video clips, each of which contained examples of ‘silence’, ‘dominance’ and ‘off-task’ behaviors of my students. Then I showed those videos to eight writing teachers who were from the same language institute I was part of. As you might know, success of a task depends on all its variables: the nature of the task itself, the learners and the teacher. Based on this principle, I interviewed those eight teachers regarding how they address ‘silence’, ‘dominance’ and ‘off-task’ behaviors of their students. Their responses showed that a teacher has to be well-trained in designing and implementing the tasks in all three stages: pre-task design, task design, and task implementation. Following table gives a summary of these teachers’ suggestions:

Pre-task design

Task design

Implementation

• Know learners by collecting background information, e.g. use of literacy autobiography assignment, learner style survey, background survey questionnaire, etc.• Use awareness raising tasks, e.g. show videos to illustrate ‘good vs. bad’ group participation patterns; explicitly discuss issues with learners, with a reflection from their own classroom, if possible

• Choose familiar topic for the task• Make task guidelines and task goal explicit• Give planning time

• Give worksheet/ handout for preparation

• Designate different roles (e.g. reporter, recorder, time keeper, etc.) in the task itself.

• Do the task first by yourself in order to experience its pros and cons

• Arrange the learners in groups in terms of their demonstrated task engagement patterns•Keep changing group composition unless there is a reason not to do so• Assign learner roles in group

• Keep eyes on what learners are doing

• Make an informed intervention and remind the learners of task goal and allocated time

•Motivate the students

Let us have a look what these teachers say:

“I used to have a video of Cambridge task; it was like about 2 minutes for the task. And one student was dominating the other student. I asked them like how they would rate them. Everyone said that they did not like the student talk too much. And I asked what advice would you give to the one who talks too much or the one who talked too little? So I recommend this to others.”

“Each time I give them a task, I want to engage myself like how much time it should take, its difficulty level like that. And also who is this task for, does it really work? When am I going to put it in class? Am I going to use it in the beginning or end? After I analyzed all of that then I think okay I am going to pair them up or put them in groups. I’m not going to give my students a blind task.”

“I don’t interrupt immediately. I feel it’s kinna rude. And then I indicate ‘okay that’s great, but how about this reading?’ I do expect them to talk about the reading but I am also glad if they are getting fluency practiced. I also feel that it is important to let them talk about social things and make friends.”

“When I see a student talking a lot, I would say something that would go against his or her opinion and then ask the other students which opinion they would agree or disagree with. So, that way quiet students get space between talkative students and they can state their opinions and get involved in discussions.”

“Some students finish tasks before others. Sometimes I go around groups and ask additional questions”.

“If I see that students move to some off-topic talk, I also try to see a reason why they did so. I go next to them and try to restate the task so that they understand what they are supposed to do.”

“Try to let the student do the task independently as much as possible but intervene when it is necessary.”

Concluding remarks: After these two stages of reflection (video watching and interview), I have had more insights on how to deal with diverse students. I have used many of the suggested ideas in my recent teaching. For example, in the beginning of the semester, I always collect student background information through short questionnaire. Frequently, I designate different roles to different students in a group so that each student has a visible contribution to make.

With the incorporation of such ideas, I have had more balanced contributions from my students. Please respond to this if you find the ideas useful to you.

Multilingualism in/and Nepalese Education

January 1, 2012Critical Pedagogy, English as a Global Language, Miscellaneous, Native Perspective, Scholarly Articlesharmashyam

Shailaja Jha

We all know that Nepal is an extremely multilingual society. But what is the status of multilingualism in educational context of Nepal? In this essay, I describe multilingualism and the spread of English in Nepal. I also discuss multilingualism as a means for creating social harmony as well as enhancing teaching and learning in general. I conclude by highlighting the role of teachers in promoting multilingualism.

Most of the Nepalese people are multilinguals, and many people don’t even have a clear order of first and second languages. For example, my home language is Maithili but, interestingly enough, I cannot speak it very well. Instead, I have learned Newari in addition to the mainstream language Nepali. This means that we are such a multilingual society that some of us even get confused as to which language is our “home” or “heritage” language. In fact, most of the world’s population speaks more than one language but most of the population in western cultures is monolingual in one of the “major” languages in spite of being exposed to other languages mainly in the school context. So, multilingualism is the norm rather than exception of human societies, except that educational and political institutions try to create artificial situations where one or a few languages are given systematic privilege without realizing that suppressing language diversity is counterproductive as well as insensitive.

“There are almost no territories [in the world] in which only one languages is used by the citizenry” (Cenoz & Genesee 1998). In South Africa eleven languages are given a constitutional recognition as official ones; in India, this number is twenty-two! When people are left to their own linguistic devices, especially in the urban environments which are increasingly the norm of life in this country, their speech behavior is characterized by fluidity, interconnection, multi component code switching and easy transcendence of notional linguistic boundaries. This is true particularly of informal domains.

Also, if we look at the issue of multilingualism in societies like Nepal, South Africa, and India, we will see that there is no single and simple definition of multilingualism. Multilingualism can be rigidly defined as being native-like in two or more languages, but it can also be loosely defined as being less than native-like but still able to communicate in two or more languages. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). First languages (sometimes also referred to as mother tongue) are acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed. Children acquiring two first languages since birth are called simultaneous bilinguals. Even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals one language usually dominates over the other. This kind of bilingualism is most likely to occur when a child is raised by bilingual parents in a predominantly monolingual environment. It can also occur when the parents are monolingual but have raised their child or children in two different countries.

Many people believe that Nepali language has always been the majority language of Nepal; in reality, Nepali was called Khaskura spoken by a group of people that was probably no larger than other groups like Magar, Tamang, Sherpa, or Limbu today. Nepali (Khaskura) evolved from the language spoken by a group that became politically powerful in the last two centuries, and in fact it also spread far and wide into Bhutan, India and Myanmar. Nepali language is also the official language of the state of Sikkim in India. At present, almost half of the total population of Nepal speaks Nepali; the other half of the population speaks almost a hundred different languages. If you think about it, Nepal is not only home to more language families than all of Europe combined, but also has more distinct and individual languages in one country than the whole of the European community (Yadava, 2003). However, there is the lack of study and discussion of endangered minority languages and the possible reasons of their status of being endangered for the integrated development of the country. Negligence of Government on Language policy towards poor, rural ethno-linguistic communities, and overemphasis on one language policy considering Nepali as the official language and as the medium of creating national identity and homogenization also can be pointed out major influential reasons for disregarding minority ethnic and indigenous languages. The state policy of the government takes endangerment and extinction of minority language as the matter of mere ‘language shift’ whereas the members from the ethnic and indigenous community might take it seriously as the matter of as Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) states as ‘linguistic genocide’. Some linguists diplomatically point towards political and ideological perspective in regard to the matter of endangerment, extinction of minority languages.

The newest and most important dynamics in Nepali multilingualism is the entry of English as a medium of education and a language of business, diplomacy, and cross-cultural communication. On the one hand, everyone knows the benefits of multilingualism: they would like to teach their children not only English but also other languages. But on the other hand, it is difficult for the next generation to develop the same level of language proficiency for academic and professional communication, for higher learning and sharing of complex ideas if they only use their local languages for basic communication and use English only for educational, professional, and intellectual purposes.

Educators understand that multilingualism helps to facilitate access to curriculum and to learning in school. It also improves communication between different linguistic groups. Multilingualism provides children with ability to share in a wide range of intercultural experiences such as literature, entertainment, religion, and other interests. Children can become fluent in more than one language and for many people throughout the world multilingualism is very common. The level of fluency depends on factors such as the language programme children follow in school and the extent of parental support. The ability to speak the mother tongue as well as the national language and an international language creates a much wider range of life choices for individuals but can also achieve national unity. There is no scientific evidence that learning more than one language is intellectually damaging. Children who have a good understanding of how different languages function are more likely to have good analytical skills and are often more effective communicators. Therefore, there is no doubt that multilingualism is a positive social and personal resource.

As teachers of language and literacy, we also know that there is no evidence to show that multilingual societies are more disadvantages than monolingual countries. Social disadvantage is caused by factors other than language. It is important educationally that children learn in their mother tongues in the early years of schooling. Our Government also make policy regarding this.

However, the forces of globalization, prevailing myths about the power of English (as if it is a magical potion that will create jobs and opportunities and intellectual progress on its own) make it very difficult for societies to develop educational systems based on their understanding of multilingualism. Due to the globalization of English, parents and teachers are attracted towards giving education to the students in English medium right from the very beginning. They wrongly believe that students will be able to better succeed in the competitive world if they have English proficiency. In reality, it is knowledge and skills that students most need. A lot of research regarding multilingualism shows that supporting children’s first language will enhance the acquisition of the second and third language. Similarly, there is a link between multilingualism and creativity. Multilingualism broadens access to information and offers alternative ways of organizing thoughts. But unfortunately, these realities get lost in the maze of myths about the magic of English.

Just consider the work of a businessperson; most business people need to travel around the world, communicate with people who speak different languages. It is very clear that if your students can speak multiple languages they will be much better business people who can not only sell better but will also create and maintain goodwill with a lot more people in the future. Or consider your students who may become diplomats, administrators and managers of multinational corporations or the United Nations, writers and journalists. There is no profession that I can think of where our students will not do better if they are multilingual. But remember, it will not be enough for them to “know” how to conduct basic communication in all the other languages except English. Only if we allow, encourage, and facilitate the use of multiple languages at higher levels of education can our students be efficient multilinguals in their future careers.

Many educators wrongly believe that promoting multilingualism is costly, impractical, or difficult. The reality is that such assumptions are simply wrong. Promoting multilingualism need not cost anything: you can just encourage your students to use and develop different languages by asking them to express their ideas in different languages in the classroom (maybe as long as everyone understands). Similarly, there is nothing impractical about equally respecting and promoting different languages that your students speak; instead, the opposite should be seen as unprofessional, unethical, and shameful for educated people and educators. Finally, multilingualism is becoming a profitable business in many areas. Think about a student who is able to translate documents. Realizing the importance of multilingualism, nowadays many software companies are developing multilingual interfaces, multilingual applications for translation, multilingual communicative mechanisms, etc.

Yet another problem with educators is that they believe that they are not qualified to teach or promote multilingualism. While it may be true that you are not “qualified” to teach different languages, there is no reason why you should not promote and encourage multiple languages among your students. And, there is absolutely no reason why you should suppress students’ languages. Just think about it: you have no right to do that in the first place.

Yes, politicians try to divide the society along linguistic lines. But as educators we can help our students speak the languages of different ethnic groups and thereby help them become cross-cultural citizens and promoters of cultural harmony. For this we need to realize that we are very rich in culture and its aspects, we need to utilize our culture to create peace and harmony among the people of Nepal not for fighting with each other in the name of culture and language.

As teachers of language in a rich multilingual country, it is our duty to facilitate multicultural education among our students. Trust me, if we do so we will not betray our students’ need to learn more English. If our students continue to learn new ideas, if they grow up as citizens of the world who understand and respect different cultures and their languages, in the long run, their English will be better. We need to prepare students for the real world and the real world is multicultural and multilingual. At the very least, we need to draw on students’ linguistic and cultural experiences and knowledge, allow them to utilize those resources, and never try to suppress them—whether intentionally or not. Teacher in multicultural classrooms should be open to their students and put forth the effort needed to know their students inside or outside the classroom. Evaluating cultural diversity, teachers should build multicultural programs, show appreciation of differences, avoid stereotypes, acknowledge differences in children and discover the diversity within the classroom. If we think about it, respect and promotion of multilingualism could be the basis for a new kind of thinking among the future leaders and citizens of this country—different from the monolingual presumptions that lie at the heart of violence, protest, strike, kidnap, rape, robbery and mass brutality in our time.

References

Crystal, D. (2003). Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Blackwell publishing.

The Interim Constitution of Nepal. (2007). Part 3, Article 17)

Phayak, P. (2009). MA in Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Institute of Education, University of London.

Yadav ,Y.P. (2007). Linguistic Diversity in Nepal Perspective on language policy, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Kansakar, T. R. (1996). Multilingualism. Nepal, Kathmandu.

Subedi, D.P (2010). Multi cultural classroom issues in the Nepalese context, Journal of Education and Research Nepal, Kathmandu.

Koirala B.N. (2010). Opportunities for multi lingual Education in Nepal, Journal of Education and Research, Nepal, Kathmandu.

Towards Local Literacy: Globalization and Nepalese ELT

January 1, 2011Critical Pedagogy, Native Perspective, Scholarly Articlesharmashyam

Prem Phyak

Introduction

Anything that is ‘local’ is generally better in terms of quality and permanence. Let me give some examples: local chicken is tasty, local fruit is hygienic, local vegetable is fresh, and local people make a big difference in your life. What about local literacy? In this short article, I highlight the importance of local literacy in relation to ELT in Nepal. I will also briefly discuss how local literacy in ELT can be promoted in the classroom. Let me start with some perspectives on globalization as the basis of this discussion.

Globalization and Local literacy: What?

We all know that English has become a part of our social and individual lives: it is not only in our education and professions but also in our homes, through television, internet, mobile phones, and other information and communication technologies. Through social networking and new media in particular, English is continuing to work as one of the most powerful means of globalization (See related article in May 2009 issue of NeltaChoutari). We cannot consider the trends of globalization and the spread of English as neutral without being extremely naïve. As Bourdieu (2001) tells us that

“Globalization” serves as a password, a watchword, while in effect it is the legitimatory mask of a policy aiming to universalize particular interests and the particular tradition of the economically and politically dominant powers…It aims to extend to the entire world the economic and cultural model that favours these powers most, while simultaneously presenting it as a norm, a requirement, and a fatality, a universal destiny, in such a manner as to obtain adherence or, at the least, universal resignation. (as cited in Phillipson, 2004)

The term ‘globalization’ has now become a buzz word in every field, and it has very important implications in ELT because the English language is the most influential means of “universalizing particular interests and particular tradition of the economically and politically dominant powers” as Bourdieu argues. To say that we are simply “using” a “common” language for “communicating” across linguistic borders is both absolutely correct but absolutely ludicrous if we don’t “also” recognize/admit that languages belong to societies that wield cultural, social, and political powers through their languages: as language teachers, we must not limit our understanding and scholarship to dictionary definition of “language” because we must also know that the relative difference of the power that different language communities makes huge difference in both material and intellectual terms for people and societies. So, it is important to understand what role English plays in globalization of ideas and practices of dominant cultures. English is considered a ‘global’ language (Graddol, 1997; Crystal, 1997), and the number of researches on the role of English in globalization has increased in the last decade. Recent scholarship in this area helps us understand why and how the role of English as a global language should be assessed critically. The views about the role of globalization in language teaching are, however, more divergent. In their groundbreaking edited book ‘Globalization and Language Teaching,” Block and Cameron (2002) summarize following major views regarding globalization:

Hegemonically Western, and above all extension of American imperialism
Extreme of standardization and uniformity
Synergetic relationship between the global and the local- globalization

We see that the first view takes Gramsci’s ‘hegemony’ and Phillipson’s ‘linguistic imperialism’ about globalization considering it as a means to disseminate the Western and American economic, cultural, political and educational ideologies. In this sense, globalization is another face of Westernization and Americanization. This view is concerned more with the political and ideological discussion which, as I see, does not make more sense in ELT. But the second and third views have a great impact on ELT.

We can relate two major issues – native speakerism and imported method – regarding the ‘standardization’ and ‘uniformity’ in ELT respectively. Standardization here means many things. The most obvious point related to ELT is that in order to maintain standard we have to follow ‘native’ English representing maybe CNN and BBC English. The uniformity can be interpreted as ‘adoption’ of the same textbook, method of teaching and learning material all over the world without considering the ‘local’ socio-cultural context.

The third view – glocalization – is the negotiation between the global and the local in which we find the mixture of the both. At present, this cocktail idea has come to the fore to soothe the criticisms against globalization on the ground of ‘hegemonic’ and ‘imperialistic’ ideology. With this view, we can argue that globalization has its presence at local level as well. We can also say that it is the continuum which has greater impact at the global context but have less impact at the local context. This degree also differs in terms of power, economy and technological advancement. It is obvious that the societies which are poor, powerless and technologically underdeveloped have less impact of the globalization. In this regard, Block (2008) claims

Globalization is framed as the ongoing process of the increasing and intensifying interconnectedness of communications, events, activities and relationships taking place at the local, national or international level. (p.31)

Although it is accepted that ‘local’ components can also be incorporated in the ‘globalization’, questions which have been ignored are: To what extent we have recognized the value of ‘local’ in ELT literacy practice? Which one (the global or the local) is dominant? How can we bring the ‘local’ into ELT pedagogy? In the remainder of this article, I discuss these issues with reference to ELT in Nepal.

Local literacy and local society

Going through various literature and studies regarding literacy (e.g. Wallace, 1999, 2002), we find three major interpretations of local literacy. First interpretation takes local literacy as teaching through local languages. This is concerned more with the anti-linguistic imperialistic discussion pioneered by Phillipson (1992). Second interpretation is grounded on the use of language for daily communication. Teaching of English, in this regard, is considered as a planned and systematic academic endeavor to help ‘local children’ [Nepalese] use English in informal communications outside the classroom. But to what extent, Nepalese children, studying at Grades 1, 2, 3 in rural areas have to speak English while shopping, for example? Does such a projection of the English language as a means to achieve commodity help children achieve true essence of education? These issues are often ignored in academic discussion especially in the global ELT discourse. At the same time, as Cameron (2002) claims, ‘The dissemination of ‘global’ communicative norms and genres, like the dissemination of international languages, involves a one-way flow of expert knowledge from dominant to subaltern cultures” (p. 70).

The third view, which I want to focus in this article, is concerned with the contextual sensitivity of any language literacy including ELT. According to this view, ELT should be in consonance with the socio-cultural and politico-economic realities of particular context where literacy in English takes place. Moreover, this view believes that English language learning is a ‘situated practice’ which happens with the ‘bottom-up’ fashion rather than ‘top-down’ and through so-called expertise-delivered-knowledge. To be more specific, let me ask some questions (although there are many) regarding teaching English in Nepal;

Do the methods we are adopting while teaching English address our children’s values, beliefs and expectations?
Are the textbooks that we use for teaching the English language appropriate to our local socio-cultural and politico-economic realities?

We cannot answer these questions in a ‘yes/no’ manner. However, we can be realistic while discussing these issues. Elsewhere, Canagarajah (2002) vehemently argues that the global methods of teaching (e.g. communicative language teaching) have created inequalities in the global pedagogical village. Following a single method with ‘fits-in-all-context’ assumption does not really address learning needs and expectations of local children. Moreover, such an assumption does not empower children rather it marginalizes them psychologically and cognitively as well. This clearly indicates that we need to think about exploring our own practices of teaching English which is relevant to our own soil and people. At the same time, I am not claiming that we should not be aware of the global practices. We should be well informed with them but we should critically scrutinize those practices keeping our realities in view. I think I can discuss much about this when I come to textbook issue in the following paragraph.

In many parts of the world like in Nepal, textbooks are sole source of teaching and learning English. In that sense, textbooks are the most important component of ELT pedagogy in Nepal. However, it is not bizarre to say that, writing and production of textbooks is the most neglected agenda in Nepal. Let me start with the textbooks prescribed by the government. The textbooks in many cases include ‘foreign culture’ as reading texts and situations for conversation, which are difficult to conceptualize for children, are also foreign in some cases. In a way, such situations and texts take children away from their own context. If our goal is to develop reading skills of children, why don’t we bring the texts which deal with local issues, cultures, realities and challenges? Let us research which text (related to local or global text) is effective for enhancing reading skill of Nepalese learners of English.

The textbooks in private schools are more frustrating in terms of local literacy. The global textbooks like Headway/New Headway which are considered to be the global textbooks are prescribed in private schools without any approval from the government. Such global textbooks seem to promote more European and American culture, and project an affluent commodified life style (Gray, 2002). Through the texts like how much Bill Gates earn (New Headway/Upper-Intermediate, 1998) and going on holidays in London, New York, Paris and other expensive cities of the world, the global textbooks are projecting pleasure in life but they are ignoring pain of how a farmer in rural villages works hard to earn and feed his family. Why don’t we have reading texts on holidaying in Jomsom, paragliding from Sarangkot, trekking in Karnali and so on? Can’t we think about including the texts related to Maruni, Kauda, Dhan-nach, Deuda, Goura, Maha-puja, and so on? Are they not useful in teaching English? Of course, YES. On one hand, such texts promote interconnectedness between society and classroom teaching/learning and on the other hand, they help to address precious linguistic and cultural diversity we have. However, we, teachers of English, should always be ready to take the role of ‘transformative intellectuals’ (Kumarivadivelu, 2003) by going beyond our traditional role – teachers as a passive technician in the classroom – to accepting the extended role to show our concern in social reflection and situated practice of teaching English.

Future Directions: Critical Literacy and Postmethod Pedagogy

The above discussion implies that the so-called global textbooks and methods of ELT do not seem to be inclusive and appropriate in diverse world contexts. ELT in Nepal has the same problem. The fundamental reason behind this is that ELT policies we have made are so far shaped by the traditional notion i.e. ELT means teaching about the English language only. But this notion is already obsolete because ‘methods’, ‘textbooks’ and ‘assumptions’ which work better do not fit in other contexts. Moreover, ELT is more than ‘teaching about English’ it is a part of education which is heavily loaded with culture, identity and ideology which need to be scrutinized in relation to local contexts.

How we can promote local literacy is another crucial question we need to discuss. I am not expert at prescribing ideas which work better. But I think, Critical literacy and Postmethod Pedagogy are two major approaches which are helpful to promote ‘local literacy’ practices in Nepal.

The basis of critical literacy is Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) in which he criticises the transmission or ‘banking’ model of education (teachers are depositors and learners are depositories) and advocates for ‘dialogic’ model in which learners are not passive recipient but an active ‘agent’ of whole learning process. We have already discussed this issue in a January 2009 article of NeltaChoutari.

One major issue that critical literacy addresses is inequalities that persist in ELT. It focuses on bringing social issues and controversies into the classroom. Moreover, this approach involves students in a continuous process of thinking critically through a dialogic process in which students are provided opportunities to discuss the issues which have relevance in local socio-cultural context. Thus students clearly see the relevance of learning English in their life which, moreover, promotes local literacy. In this regard, Norton and Toohey (2004) claim

Advocates of critical approaches to second language teaching are interested in relationships between language learning and social change. From this perspective, language is not simply a means of expression or communication; rather, it is a practice that constructs, and is constructed by, the ways language learners understand themselves, their social surroundings, their histories, and their possibilities for the future” (p. 1).

The Postmethod Pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu, 2001) is another approach which may be helpful in promoting local literacy in ELT. The three parameters of the postmethod pedagogy include particularity, practicality and possibility. According to the pedagogy of particularity, “Language pedagogy…must be sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular sociocultural milieu” (p. 538). Similarly, the pedagogy of practicality “does not pertain merely to the everyday practice of classroom teaching. It pertains to a much larger issue that has a direct impact on the practice of classroom teaching, namely, the relationship between theory and practice” (p. 540). Finally, the pedagogy of possibility is concerned with “participants’ experience which draws ideas not only from the classroom episodes but also from border social, political and economic environment in which they grew up” (p. 542). We can see that ‘local realities’ and ‘experiences’ of participants (teachers, and students) are core of ELT in every world context. This indicates that we need to share our experiences to generate more local knowledge which can be a treasure for the whole ELT community of practice. To this end, we have initiated NeltaChoutari as a voluntary work to tell Nepalese ELT stories to the rest of the world. We hope this sharing through monthly publication in future will provide a basis for producing local materials for ELT in Nepal.

Conclusion

The looming trend of banishing ‘local practices’ due to acceptance of ‘global practices’ as a granted is one of the serious global issues in ELT around the globe. The notion of uniformity and standardization do not seem to be appropriate in linguistically and culturally diverse world contexts. At the same time, the expectations, values and beliefs of learners should be addressed through all kinds of pedagogy including ELT. In this regard, we should think about the use of locally produced materials and be fully informed with the process of adapting ‘creative and critical instructional practices in order to develop pedagogies suitable for their [our] community’ (Canagarajah 1999 p.122). Moreover, as Holliday (2005) has argued, we should discuss whether methodological prescriptions generated in BANA contexts (British, Australia, and North America) have ‘currency’ in our contexts, whether they are locally validated or appropriated. In this sense, whole idea of local literacy in ELT is concerned with the idea of (re)generating locally appropriate methods of teaching, (re)producing local materials using local resources and incorporating local issues and identities and accommodating learners’ experiences through a dialogical process in the classroom.

I am not saying that the ideas discussed in this article address all dimensions of local literacy nor I am saying that we should not be aware of global issues. What I am saying is our full dependence on global methods, norms and textbooks in ELT may not help to promote and sustain our identities and treasure of local knowledge. What I am saying is that we have wonderful ELT practices that we are not able to share with the people from other parts of the world which we need to do urgently. Let me give some example: we have very precious linguistic and cultural diversity in which English is being taught as a foreign language. We have been teaching under the shade of tree and sometimes in the open sky. We have been teaching more than 100 students in the same classroom even without chalk, duster and blackboard. We are teaching students who come from various linguistic, ethnic, religious, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Don’t you think that such realities and experiences are important source for teaching English? Of course, they are. We need to document these experiences so that other members of ELT community of practice will benefit a lot. Why don’t we take initiation of using local cultural texts (in addition to the texts given in the textbooks), for example, to teach reading and writing skills and see how it works? Can’t we bring stories of child labor, gender discrimination, inequality, poverty and so on to teaching English in the classroom? Of course, YES. But we need to work hard to achieve this end. We cannot make changes overnight but if we collaborative through different means like NeltaChoutari we can accomplish so many things for better ELT in Nepal.

Finally, the future of ELT in Nepal will be even better if we don’t consider teaching of English not simply as teaching about the English language but also as part of education that aims to empower children and to bring some positive transformation in the knowledge-based society. I argue that English teachers are not merely ‘classroom teachers’, we are ‘agent of change’. This is possible only when have a strong foundation at local level. We can access global means only with the strong ‘local foundation’. I would say that the best ELT practice is the practice which accommodates local realities and helps learners to link them with global ones. For this, we need to be aware of maintaining balance between local and global.

(back to editorial/contents)

References

Block, D. & Cameron, D. (2002). Globalization and language teaching. London: Routledge.

Block, D. (2008). Globalization and language education. In S. May and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: Language Policy and Political Issues in Education, 31–43. Springer Science+Business Media LLC.

Bourdieu, P. (2001). Contre-feux 2. Paris: Raisons d’agir.

Cameron, D. (2002). Globalization and the teaching of ‘communication skills’. In Block, D. & Cameron, D. (eds.) Globalization and language teaching. London: Routledge.

Canagarajah, A.S. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Canagarajah, A.S. (2002). Globalization, methods and practice in periphery classrooms. In Block, D. & Cameron, D. (eds.) Globalization and language teaching. London: Routledge.

Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Graddol, D. (1997). The future of English? London: The British Council.

Gray, J. (2002). The global coursebook in English language teaching. In Block, D. & Cameron, D. (eds.) Globalization and language teaching. London: Routledge.

Holliday, A. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). Toward a postmethod pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 35/4, 537-560.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond method: Macrostrategies for language teaching. NewHaven, CO. Yale University Press.

Norton, B. & Toohey, K. (Eds.) (1997).Critical pedagogies and language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Phillipson, R. (2004). Review article: English in globalization: Three approaches. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 3:1, 73 — 84.

Wallace, C. (1999). Critical language awareness: key principles for a course in critical reading. Language Awareness 8, 2:98-110.

Wallace, C. (2002). Local literacies and global literacy. . In Block, D. & Cameron, D. (eds.) Globalization and language teaching. London: Routledge.

Active, passive, and professional voices

August 1, 2010Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogy, Miscellaneouskamalpoudel

— Shyam Sharma

I just finished reading the book Writing in the Academic Disciplines: A Curricular History, which historicizes reductionist views about writing among scholars and teachers in the disciplines across the university. The author, David Russell, argues that most scholars outside the discipline of writing itself tend to believe that writing is a transparent tool for transcribing ideas (and not a tool for exploring and learning ideas), that the problem of poor writing should be solved as early as possible by those who are assigned to teach writing (and not that teachers across the disciplines should help students learn to do increasingly specialized writing along with their advancement in the disciplines), and that one size fits all program for teaching universal writing skills, if done well, is enough to deal with the challenge of writing in the university (instead of integrating writing within the disciplines and through the learners’ disciplinary careers). That is why most scholars in most disciplines punish students for poor writing (because poor writing is caused by the fault of the student and their English/writing teachers): they don’t see poor writing in advanced levels of education as caused by their own disregard for writing as a learning tool at all levels, in all disciplines.

When I finished reading this book, I could not help thinking about similarly problematic views about scholarship, about research, and about professional discourse in general in our own scholarly communities at home. Consider this: editors of our blog magazine Nelta Choutari have been urging fellow NELTA members to please kindly contribute any teaching stories/anecdotes, general blog entries in the form of reflection on ELT, branch updates, anything—and we’ve got some very interesting and useful stories and reflections. However, on the one hand, there has been generally a scanty response to this solicitation; and on the other, even when we are lucky enough to receive contributions, which are always great, these materials do not elicit as much response and discussion from the general community as do the topics of grammatical rules on the mailing list. Of course, the mailing group is a more established forum and the email “posts” also prompt response by reaching everyone’s inbox—unlike the blog where users need to either revisit or be reminded by someone that a discussion is going on. But this technological reason aside, if we look at the level of enthusiasm towards subjects of larger import of the profession among the general members of our community, we see a striking need for us to engage more in larger discussions of the profession, to share our stories, ideas, arguments/debates on issues larger than grammar. We need to talk about grammar, but we also equally importantly need to talk about more substantive issues about our profession: we are yet to see that balance. Here I want to reflect on some possible reasons for the relative lack of interest in discussing larger issues of the profession than in the nitty gritty of language.

In general, the Nepali culture is hierarchical. What is a bit intriguing is that even teachers don’t seem ready yet to rethink the internalized hierarchy and focus on more liberal and professional relationships among ourselves. Individuals with higher academic credentials/degrees, those who have more political clout in the academic/professional community, more administrative power, more years of experience in the field, or simply more years in their lives are seen as more important, more respectable. Too often, they are respected for no other reason than due to our internalized acceptance of hierarchy for its own sake. Needless to say, people with more degrees (and sometimes more marks on their certificates), more experience, and simply more years in their lives are likely to have more knowledge and understanding of the subject matter, more refined professional skills, and more confidence. But that is only half the story, the other half of which is my subject here.

Our internalized sense of hierarchy makes us believe that older, more experienced, and more credentialed people naturally/logically have more knowledge, that they must not be challenged, and—this is my point—that the younger, less credentialed, and less experienced people must not be so “disrespectful” as to speak up, challenge, or even contribute their ideas to the professional community. Even when we do participate in discussions, we tend to stick to the ground. This sense of hierarchy, whether conscious or not, and if that is what is keeping the line of division intact, is not only irrelevant today but also harmful for our social, intellectual, and professional progresses.

To illustrate my point, let me share a story. I taught Manoj Khadka in 8th grade, when he was 14, in a public school in Biratnagar, 15 years ago. Manoj is now 29, and say he is an assistant professor of education, has done extensive research and impressive publications, and is leading a major educational project that helps develop educational resource for English teachers across the country. Now, whenever I get a chance to talk to Manoj, he not only considers me his “teacher”—not former teacher but a forever “guru,” and he is forever my “student”—but he also makes sure to praise me for things like how well I taught active and passive voice. He knows that I am still in the field of education, pursuing my own goals, but he and I have not shared much intellectual/professional substance. He found me on Facebook last year, and we are in touch through that medium, besides occasional emails. Since we reconnected, I found out about his professional works and his project, and I have tried to learn more about them—in vain. He says, “ke hunu sir, eso ali ali.” His emails are intimate but there is something fundamental in his language, and the lack of substance, in his writing that seems to inhibit him from talking to me like a fellow professional, a colleague. He rarely seems to have the confidence to describe his fascinating resource development project with me; he downplays its significance, if not refuse to discuss it altogether. I become uncomfortable because I wonder if my own internalized sense of hierarchy has made me somehow sound patronizing to him in my communication, forever guru-like, forever on a higher pedestal. I am not sure….

As evident in the above semi-fictional example of my relationship with a former student, the hierarchical relationship among the different generations of scholars in our professional community seems to me to be the most important factor behind the scholar-teacher division that is so prevalent in our discipline, as well as our society in general. Those who have PhDs are scholars, others are teachers. Those who taught you should talk like scholars, not you, in any forums where both are present. Those who are older should be listened to, not talked with. Those who do research, those who publish books, those who present conference papers, those who write in journals, and those who are capable of writing in online forums… they are scholars, the bidwans, gurus: the rest, younger, without the PhD tag, second-division walas, those who are not authors of journal articles or books, or worse those who haven’t even done a conference paper… these may at best call themselves teachers—actually, look around before you use the word “teacher,” in case there are real teachers nearby: “hoina, sir, ke teacher bhannu. Yeso ali ali jyan palne meso ni.” In between the “jyan palne” not quite even teachers and the awe-inspiring “educators,” there has been and continues to exist a great gap. In some academic disciplines, especially ELT, that gap seems to have somewhat decreased recently, for instance, as indicated by the quiet “hijacking” of the very word “educator” by younger scholars. This can be seen in email signatures and resumes: “Manoj Khadka, Teacher Educator, X Campus.” But the hegemony still basically replicates itself—it’s such a diehard thing—and even with the advent of “loktantra” and “ganatantric paddati,” the academic sphere doesn’t seem to think or act very differently.

Does this mean that we should stop giving the respect that is due to people who have spent their lives contributing to the academia and the society? NO. Should we respect them less? NO again. The question is what kind of respect makes sense and what kind of respect doesn’t make sense. Let us respect and promote ideas and productivity and contribution to the progress of our profession and the society, not respect for the person, their age, political clout, degree, region, sex, culture, class… Let the younger scholars lead new initiatives, invite the older generations to contribute and inspire.

Does this mean that we should start giving more respect to younger scholars than we are used to giving? Yes. But, again, it’s not a matter of “respect” to the person: we need to appreciate younger scholars’ contribution to the professional community, encourage them to share more ambitious ideas—and not be too humble, lacking in confidence before older scholars, just waiting to hear what guru will say. I want Manoj Khadka to share his ideas with me, to tell me how he is doing better work than our professional community has conventionally done, to engage me in much more serious discourse than his emails that simply say things like “dear sir, how are you? … I still remember how you taught active and passive voice…” I have asked him to put more substance of professional significance into his writing; but the more I do that, the less frequently he writes to me! I want Manoj to initiate discussions on subjects that have larger professional significance than the correct use of preposition or conversion of active to voice—or on top of those subjects.

I am not entirely sure—and I want to offer this for discussion (please comment)—but it makes me very uncomfortable when I think that Manoj’s participation in our discussion forums is limited to active and passive voice, preposition, articles because he doesn’t consider himself qualified to engage in discussions of larger issues of our profession. It is possible that Manoj is uninterested or unwilling to go beyond grammar in our discussions because he has a limited view of the profession, or because he subscribes to the division of roles whereby the scholars play the “higher” roles of scholarly discussion, research, and publication and the mere teachers should stick to talking about grammar.

The separation of scholar and teacher is in itself a very troublesome problem for any profession, and it is not unique to Nepal. But that separation becomes even more troublesome when it is reinforced and perpetuated by an internalized acceptance of hierarchy and hegemony and not just due to conscious choice to remain “practitioners” on the part of younger scholars, the non-PhDs, those who don’t have first division written in their certificates, those who live/teach outside Kathmandu, those who don’t have cozy connections with the “big” people at the center, and so on.

Therefore, dear Manoj,
As much as I love to read anything you write—including when you write about articles and prepositions—it would be even nicer of you if you could initiate and participate in other larger subjects about our profession and our development as a professional community.

Your once-upon-a-time teacher, and today a fellow ELT scholar/teacher,

Shyam Sharma

English: a boon or a bane?

June 30, 2010Critical Outlook, Critical Pedagogypphyak

Madhu Neupane

English language teaching (ELT) has been a matter of prestige in Nepal since past. There is a growing trend of learning and using it with an assumption that English provides wider global socio-economic opportunities. However, the condition of teaching English has not been improved as is expected.

One of the major reasons behind this, in my opinion, is the faulty planning of English language teaching programme in general. The improvement in the teaching and learning of the English language should start from the beginning or foundation. If the foundation itself is poor, large building cannot be constructed on it. The evidence to support this idea in the ELT is that of developmental order. Applied linguists (e.g. Ellis 1989) argue that there are certain prerequisites that should be fulfilled for the learner to be able to learn a language item successfully. There are studies to prove that teaching can change the rate of acquisition or learning but not the route (e.g. Ellis, 1989). For example, students cannot master passive sentence without mastering the tense system as it is prerequisite for learning passive.

Similarly, learners should be able to produce correct sentences in isolation before they can write a paragraph. In the context of Nepal, learners at the higher level who are supposed to have reached a certain developmental level are found to be far below that level. This is due to the fact that learners are promoted to upper levels without having the required level of proficiency at their lower level. In other words, they are promoted to the next level without assessing what they are supposed to learn. One of the factors behind this is the faulty examination system. For example, in our examination system students can make fair guesses of the questions that are to be asked in the exam by looking at the list of the questions asked previously. They may learn them by heart and reproduce them in the exam.

In this regard, one of my students once said, “Madam, I passed English in Grade XI without knowing anything but I could not pass English in Grade XII. What should I do?” I had no answer as he had put both questions and answer in his saying. I was puzzled in a way. Likewise, one of my sisters once said, “I used to get good marks in English at school level. I don’t know how that would happen. I was certainly not better in English than in other subjects.” Sometimes, I ask my students at Bachelor level about the marks they secured in the previous levels. When I notice a gap between their marks and the present level of proficiency, I ask them further question, “why is it so?” Their responses vary. Some students say that the answers were written for them on the board in the exam where some say that they copied the answers from talented students. Some of them also revealed that their teachers had asked them to fill in the pages by writing what they slightly know about the questions. Coincidently, while I am writing this article there is news on the television that XII Graders are protesting in different exams centres (final examination) because they are not getting chance to cheat openly.

Many students also say that English has never been an attractive subject for them. One of my students said, “I studied English the whole day but understood nothing.” Other students just don’t pay attention because their mind is already preoccupied with the view that English is not the subject which they can understand. When provided with written assignments, they say, “I could not do it” even without trying it. Correcting their written work takes a longer time. There are many grammatical mistakes which are difficult to identify even. It is difficult to find out what they are trying to say in their writing. On top of that the students are unlikely to go through the feedback teachers provide to them. Due to above mentioned factors learners are not in a position to learn the language in their course which has been designed with an assumption that they have already learned basic things required for present learning. Moreover, teachers always have to face problems to deal with weak performance of the students. On the one hand, there is a pressure to finish the course in time and on the other hand, students cannot learn the things given in the course without providing them background information which are not mentioned in the course (e.g. New Generation English). Sometimes this leads to a frustration as well.

Oops! So much for dissatisfaction!! But we should be optimistic for hope provides us with life. The same glass of water with the same amount of water can seen to be half full or half empty. For the long term solution reforms should be started from the beginning by making the learners learn what they are supposed to learn at respective levels. There should be no compromise for that. But for the students who have come to higher level without the required level of proficiency we can do something.

The first thing that I do with my students is to develop positive attitude in them. I usually do this by saying that they are not as poor in English as they think about themselves. While teaching I ask very simple questions that almost all of them can answer. This provides them with a sense of achievement.

Sometimes I substitute the exercises given in their textbooks with my own. This has helped me to develop positive attitude towards learning English in my students. For correcting their written work I tick the sentences which they have written right rather than crossing and correcting their mistakes. This provides me with a sense of happiness and I also have found students motivated by this. It helps them to build on what they already know and then keep on writing. I believe in course of time they learn to write by writing. To sum up there are many factors that contribute to the poor performance of the learners. But we should be optimistic and start from the point where we are now rather than doing nothing by blaming others. Let’s say, “Yes we can” for when we say we can or we cannot we are usually right.

Use of Technology in Teaching: Issues and Problems

May 1, 2010Critical Pedagogykaflehem

— Khagendra Acharya

There has been a very significant proliferation of literature regarding the use of technology in teaching (Dede, Allen, Muthukumar). Mostly, these writings unequivocally accept technology as the most essential part in teaching, if not a panacea for every problem that exists in teaching. In a sense, a tendency to emphasize on inevitable role of technology in pedagogy to the extent of obliterating human part of teacher by technology part has been very dominant. Even in the balanced arguments, only words of caution for appropriate use of technology seems to be meagerly appearing, “Inappropriately used in the classroom, technology can be used to perpetuate old models of teaching and learning. … Teachers can use multimedia technology to give more colorful, stimulating lectures” (New Horizons). It means there has hardly been any appropriate interest regarding issues and challenges that pertain in technology use in teaching. This paper, based on general model of Public Relations (PR) process developed by Center and Jackson argues that we need to take many issues in consideration so that the use of technology does not become problem.

General model of PR follows a series of logical steps to constitute a continuous four-step process: the first being fact-finding and data-gathering and the other in order are planning and programming, implementing appropriate strategy and evaluating (Center and Jackson 14). Fact-finding and data-gathering, when applied in class-room context, concerns the assessment of not only the instructor but also the students in terms of familiarity with the technology. The question that becomes pertinent in this regard is – are we techno-geeks or technophobes, digital native or digital migrant? The second question that is of equal importance concerns more pragmatic issue i.e. the students’ expectation and needs in the classroom regarding the nature of treatment to the subject. Based on my experience in Kathmandu University (which I am sure applies to many), I have found students having three types of expectations – those who desire entertaining treatment to the subject, those who anticipate only teaching and those who wish for the combination of the two i.e. edutainment. Investigation into these two questions provides an overview of the existing environment of the class.

The second stage – planning and programming – is based on the finding in the first stage. The type of class environment we own largely determines the goal which then dictates the objectives. Goal generally determines the contour whereas objective states the destination. At this stage, primarily we need to get answer to the questions like, i) should we use technology? ii) If so, what is the nature and magnitude of the use? These questions necessarily lead to the third stage.

The third stage – implementing appropriate strategy – follows by design from the second stage. Because the third stage is the function of the second stage and tangible aspect, it should specify the type of game plan and the technology to be used in the class. The process can be illustrated using permutation and combination of the elements discussed in the first stage of PR. For instance, if the teacher is techno-geek and the students are digital natives which are generally characteristics of classes in developed world, any highly sophisticated technology can be unquestionably used. However, any of the remaining combinations demand for selection of appropriate technology. For example if the class comprises digital migrant teachers and students which is the nature of developing society, the use of technology demands for its limitations. In the latter case compared to the first one, the demand for discipline is higher and thus the need for teachers’ authority exercise is more. Consequently, the use of technology in these conditions demand for its controlled and very often minimal use. Nevertheless, the point to note is the necessary revision that this equation might undergo due to the students’ expectation and needs in the classroom regarding the nature of treatment to the subject.

The fourth stage – evaluation – concerns the magnitude of effectiveness of technology use. We need to assess efficiency and impact of technology use. Unless these two aspects are studied, we cannot determine results and decide what, if anything, to do next or do differently.

The four-step process, which finally directs either to intensify or continue or deter or delay the use of technology, brings home an undeniable fact: use of technology is not a panacea; it is spatio-temporal process that is dialectically determined by various components of the class.

Works Cited

Allen, Ethan. Nanoscale Science and Technology. New Horizons for Learning. 29 April 2010 < http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/technology/allen.htm>.

Center, Allen H. and Patrick Jackson. Public Relations Practices: Managerial Case Studies and Problems. 6^th Ed. India: Prentice-Hall, 2002.

Dede, Chris. Testimony to the US Congress, House of Representatives: Joint Hearing on Educational Technology in the 21st Century. New Horizons for Learning. 29 April 2010 <http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/technology/dede1.htm>.

Kumar, Muthu. Learning with the Internet. New Horizons for Learning. 29 April 2010 <http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/technology/muthukumar.htm>.

New Horizons. Technology in Education. 29 April 2010 <http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/technology/front_tech.htm>.

[The argument in this article is based on my contribution as a panelist in an International Conference organized by H. M. Patel Institute, Gujarat, in January 2010. I acknowledge Mr. Hem Raj Kafle and Mr. Tirtha Ghimire for their insights.]

NeltaChoutari November 09 Issue

November 15, 2009Critical Pedagogysharmashyam

A Reflection on Birgunj Conference: Invitation for Discussion

An interesting video
(We think the west is completely advanced, but in most societies education tends to lag behind the advancements of the time)

Some fun with English
chewing gum prohibition: engrish.com
entering the tower: engrish.com

English as an Official Language in Nepal

September 5, 2009Critical Pedagogy, Scholarly Articleadmin

In this time of growing tension of the status of languages in Nepal, I believe we need to discuss some issues related to English. English is not mentioned in debates among the public or in the government nor in the speech of political leaders. But we can see that English is using more and more in banks, markets, products, email, etc. Sometimes code-switching used too much.

In this context, should English be another official language in the era of globalization? What might be its positive and negative consequences? Can Nepal be empowered with English?

Please response yourself. I request all our gurus and gurumas, all nelta executives and members, all well wishers, all subscribers to write thier views. I hope writing will relish oneself. Let’s make this discussion.

Thanks

Sincerely yours

Santosh Bhattarai

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: