Bal Krishna Sharma and Prem Phyak

On May 15, 2012, we facilitated a one-day workshop on ‘critical literacy in teaching English’ for secondary level teachers in Lalitpur. We had an enthusiastic group of 16 participants for the workshop organized by NELTA Lalitpur. There were two major goals of the workshop:

—  To understand the ways of linking authentic materials to local contexts in order to develop the students’ critical literacy skills.

—  To prepare and demonstrate a lesson plan that includes the use of locally available materials, addressing a critical social issue in Nepalese society, and demonstrates the teaching of language structure(s) (e.g. grammar, vocabulary, communication skills, etc.) based on the mandated secondary school level curriculum/textbook.

We went through the following stages in order to deliver the workshop.

  1. Materials preparation and evaluation: We (Bal Krishna Sharma and Prem Phyak) first independently worked on preparing materials. Bal Krishna prepared three English language lessons for teaching critical literacy: Domestic Child Labor, Women and Girls in Education and Dowry Practice. Pictures and essays were drawn from newspapers, magazines and other online sources. Prem drew on experiences from his previous workshop on critical literacy at NELTA Conference and a published article on NELTA’s Proceedings (co-authored with Rachel Bowden). Prem himself took a number of pictures of street children in Nepal, environment pollution in Kathmandu and prepared materials and lessons following OSDE methodology in order to train teachers at the workshop. Drawing ideas and materials from these two sources, we decided to train English teachers who were teaching English at secondary and post-secondary levels.
  2. Input: Before we engage the participants in actual activities and tasks, we thought that some theoretical and conceptual information on ‘critical’ pedagogy and literacy was essential. Our experience with similar workshops shows that the participants do want to ‘learn about’ recent developments and innovative ideas on English language teaching. Some of the questions that we asked the teachers to contemplate on as we worked on during the workshop were:
    • What are some critical issues in teaching English as an international language?
    • Are we isolating the students from or making them familiar with critical social issues while teaching English?
    •  Do the activities/texts/ methods we introduce in classrooms really encourage students to engage in dialogs?
    • Do we try to explore diverse ideas or single (so-called right) idea from the students?
    • Are we imposing teachers’ power or liberating students to come up with their own ideas?

    We talked about Paulo Freire’s ideas on critical pedagogy and his criticisms of banking model of education (Freire, 1970).  We made a distinction between traditional transmission model of education and relatively modern view of student-centered teaching. With the help of powerpoint slides, we explained different technical terms used in the field: critical pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, radical pedagogy, transformative pedagogy, and pedagogy of hope/possibility/empowerment (Wallace, 2003).

    3. Issue Elicitation: It was necessary for the participants to remember that English teachers should not only be teaching grammar or vocabulary or language skills, but also be putting language in a broader Nepalese societal context and teaching critical social issues.  We asked a question ‘What are some critical social issues in your locality?’ The participating teachers volunteered to mention social issues that are very much concerned about and are interested in addressing their English lessons.  As they said, we noted them down on the board:

    Gender inequality in education; Domestic violence; Dowry in marriage; Discrimination of gender at and after birth; Caste/ethnicity/class discrimination; Brain drain; Human trafficking; Cultural pollution/ degradation/ imperialism; kidnapping ; Poverty; Child labor; drug addiction; superstition; sexual harassment; global warming; bullying; cyber bullying; corruption; unemployment; price hike; energy crisis

    Then, as part of a mini-task, we asked the participants to read a text on child labor from a national daily The Kathmandu Post: No festive season cheer for domestic child workers  and gave the following instructions:

    -Read the text and prepare one critical reading question that you can ask your students.

    -Share with your group members and discuss how you can make your questions more engaging and critical.

    -Choose one question to share with the whole group.

    We visited individual groups and overheard what they were talking about. They were discussing how they could make the questions more ‘critical’. Following are the questions that each group shared.

    —  How could you react if a similar situation happens to you at the age of 16?

—  Why is Sanju Shrestha unable to go home to celebrate Dashain?

—  Why do you think Sanju does not feel good?

—  Is the mistress doing good for Sanju? Why (not)?

In addition to these questions, group discussions showed that the following language items can be taught:

—  vocabulary: fragrance, activities, leisure, privilege, monitor, flashcards, phonetics, meaning, synonyms, use in a sentence

—  narration/reported speech: underline,

—  voice: helping verbs and active and passive: underline;

—  Expressing likes and dislikes: elicitation; underline; compare and make them work in pair or group

We followed a similar process using the following picture asked a similar question: “How will you use this picture in your class? What language item can you teach?”

Image

4. Reading a Sample Lesson Plan on Critical Literacy:

Then we asked the participants to read a lesson plan on Gender differences in schooling and occupation. Since we wanted the participants to have a thorough reading of the lesson plan, we prepared a set of guidelines to help them focus on each component:

—  What are the teaching items for this lesson? (page 1 top)

—  What are the SLOs and instructional materials?

—  What are the main components of the lesson plan?

—  What activities, materials, and SLOs are mentioned in the lesson?

—  What do pre-reading activities include (page 2-4)? Fill out some slots in page 2, 3 and 4.

—  What activities are used for the reading text?

—  What grammar items are focused in this lesson?

—  What makes this lesson more interactive? How does this address critical literacy issue?

This sample lesson plan reading activity started with an individual reading followed by pair and group discussions. We visited individual groups to see if they have any questions.

5. Preparation of a Lesson Plan:

Obviously we wanted to let the participants choose a critical social issue on their own and prepare a lesson plan based on that. However, neither we nor the participants had materials necessary for any open-ended issues. We grouped the participants into four and provided them with the pictures (one example is given below.  We took this picture from The Kathmandu Post) and reading texts. Here are four themes and some pictures we provided: street children, elderly population, pollution, witchcraft practice. Image

The participants were expected to start with Student Learning Outcomes and work on detailed components of a lesson plan for a 45-minute class, keeping the language and social background of their students. Each group engaged in discussions and each decided to teach different language skills/aspects while simultaneously teaching a critical social issue. Here are some pictures from the event: ImageImageImageImage

6. Why This?

Classroom teaching in Nepal strictly follows prescribed textbooks because students are tested from the textbooks at the end of the academic year. While the English medium private schools make use of textbooks published by international publishing houses like Oxford, Cambridge and Longman, government-aided public schools use textbooks approved and published by the Ministry of Education. These textbooks make very little attempt to encourage local teachers to design their own materials that supplement the textbook topics. There is enough room to contextualize the materials and activities in the textbooks that make connection with the learner’s everybody life in their community. This workshop illustrates that it is possible to teach, for example, vocabulary and grammar and other language skills by linking them to broader societal contexts that the learners are part of. When the teachers include a critical literacy component in their teaching, students do not only engage with language practice; they in fact can constantly take part in making discourses that question or negotiate the power and hegemony persistent in their societies.

Here is a response from one of the participants.

I learned how to make students active and enthusiastic to read a text themselves. I knew how to engage students in asking and responding critical questions. …. I learned how to organize group works to promote classroom interaction. We can teach grammar from the text (which is related to a critical social issue). We can collect the individual report and share their knowledge among their friends through critical discussion. It helps them to experience a friendly environment in the classroom. I learned how to make an effective lesson plan within a fixed time. The workshop provided me an opportunity with designing a lesson plan in collaboration with friends. I also learned how to make lesson plans objective oriented and demonstrate them before they are really used in the classroom.   Now I feel comfortable to teach in classroom with a lot of contextualization. My students too feel so happy to read actively and creatively. It makes my students curious to know more about their society and interested to share their views in the classroom.

References

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (MB Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum, 2007.

Wallace, C. (2003). Critical Pedagogy for language teaching. In Critical Reading in Language Education (pp. 49-78). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

An English Teacher’s Dilemma

Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

Umes Shrestha
Shining Stars Boarding School, Sanepa, Lalitpur.

This is one of the common expressions students in my school use. I’ve been teaching English in a secondary school in Lalitpur for almost two years, and here are few of the problems I have come across.

The first one – the students, both juniors and seniors, have the habit of speaking in “progressive” almost all the time. For instance:
Sir, he is beating me and taking my book.
He is pushing for me.

She is pushing for him, and beating for him. And he is crying.
(Their endemic use of ‘for’, too)

I am not so sure how the students picked up this sort of English speaking habit in the school. But I think they might have picked it from the teachers in the first place. A common logic says – students learn from the teachers. May be from the English teachers, or may be from other subject teachers.

The school system says, we need to create English environment. Everyone must speak in English, both the teachers and the students (except for in the Nepali classes). This system is followed in most of the private boarding schools all over Nepal. I don’t know how far the system has been effective. But, I can’t change the system. If it was up to me, I would give the students a choice between learning other subjects in English or their mother tongue Nepali. I’m not sure if that would work either. Until that happens, the teachers need to stick with the system and try to be better at it somehow.

Coming back to my situation, the second problem – the students speak a weird form of English; a version which is a direct translation of Nepali to English and mixed with incorrect/unusual sentence structures. Some call it “nepanglish”. Some say its okay, and that we should use English in our own Nepali context. It will even help develop a new dialect of English – a native-tied version of English, they say. Some, just like me, frown over it.

I’m facing this crisis in Class 9 and 10, every single day. I’m stuck in this strange dilemma – whether to finish the course in time and prepare them for the SLC exam or to teach them right from the basic grammar and basic English expressions.

May be the whole concept of teaching English in the schools has to be redefined. May be the system (like, English Speaking Zone) needs to be discarded. May be we’re giving pointless importance on English as a foreign language.

Or may be, we should be able to use English without grammatical errors and we need to strive for it.

May be, we don’t have to speak or write correct version of English at all and we will still do well in future. Lots of may be-s, lots of opinions.

Meanwhile, here’s a list of some “nepanglish” expressions I’ve heard students (and teachers alike) use in the school.

Homework became.
Give fast. (Fast giving.)
I am not beating him and. (Yes, they end the sentence with an ‘and’)
Book give.
Headache making.
Homework show.
Fall downing. Take outing. Get upping.
I am catching book.
Shouting much yeah?
Have must go home.
Have you pen?
Angry coming for me.
Nonsense fellow, Hero becoming?
Late became.

Well, how is it at your school?

——————————————

Umes Shrestha also runs a personal blog:
Personal blog:  www.latebecame.wordpress.com.

Advanced Reading Courses: New Aspirations and Challenges

Teacher Training, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

                                                                                     Bal Ram Adhikari

                                                                                    Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tahachal

The contribution of reading to the development of overall language proficiency cannot be overrated, especially in the EFL contexts like ours where students’ contact with English is almost what they read in and outside the classroom. Our students often end up with reading, and with some vocabulary and grammar practice activities that follow. Sometimes, the position the reading skill has enjoyed in the course, classroom practice and examination is at the expense of other vital skills of English, namely listening and speaking. Despite this, written texts are the most accessible, reliable and structured source of English input for the majority of our students, who, in their attempt to appropriate the foreign tongue, are struggling in the under-resourced academic environment. The challenge that looms large in front of university teachers teaching the reading courses is how to assist their students in exploiting the reading materials at the fullest for multiple purposes. The purposes range from reading for gist, specific information, and language awareness to extensive reading for one’ pleasure as well as professional development.

Having students read a variety of texts in the classroom and encouraging them to do the same outside are motivated by the twin-goals of knowledge acquisition and language acquisition. That is, the ideal combination of knowledge component and language component leads to the organic development of language in students. It is possible when the latter is subservient to the former. The focus on the knowledge component engages students in the comprehension, analysis, synthesis, application, evaluation and most importantly creation of knowledge by employing the linguistic and non-linguistic resources at their disposal.   The courses Reading Writing and Critical Thinking, Expanding Horizons in English, Readings in English, prescribed by Tribhuvan University for its B Ed and M Ed English students reflect the emphasis on the combination of knowledge and language components, and the integration of language skills backed up by the critical thinking component. For this, the reading textbooks under these courses consist of authentic texts from the diverse fields of knowledge such as humanities, pure and medical sciences, social sciences, environment science, psychology, religion and mythology, spiritualism, language and society, gender studies, cultural studies,  mass communication and technology, to name but a few. Obviously, it is our first experience of being exposed to such a vast array of authentic texts from different fields.  As a result, the teachers and students both are overwhelmed by the demand made by the courses. The challenges they have been facing since the implementation of the courses in 2010 are many. The teachers express mixed feelings about the nature of the courses and possibility of their effective implementation.

Against this backdrop, I’d like to shed light on some of the challenges that teachers and students of these courses are facing. Also, I’d like to make some workable suggestions to overcome them.   To serve this purpose, I have drawn on my own experience of working in these course books as a contributor and trainer.  Some of the insights into the challenges faced by the teachers and students are also based on my personal communication with the teachers during the different training programs. I begin with the common aspirations expressed in these reading materials, then move to underlying theoretical assumptions before I discuss the common challenges and ways of overcoming them.

Common aspirations expressed in the course books

The prescribed books, namely, New Directions: Reading, Writing and Critical Thinking (ed. Gardner, 2005), Expanding Horizons (eds. Awasthi, Bhattarai and Khaniya, 2010) are prescribed for Bachelor’s first and second year students majoring in English education, and Reading Beyond Borders (eds. Awasthi, Bhattarai and Khaniya, 2011) is for Master’s second year students. These books contain the authentic reading materials from the diverse fields of study. The aspirations expressed by the editors of can be summarized in the following points:

  • Enriching students’ vocabulary through implicit and explicit exposure to authentic written texts.
  • Fostering critical thinking in the reading and writing process.
  • Emphasizing the role of the critical thinking component  in the English for Academic Purpose
  • Training students in reading and writing strategies through intensive reading activities in the classroom so that they can transfer such strategies to out-of-classroom reading and writing.
  • Fostering simultaneous development of English language acquisition and subject matter acquisition.
  • Encouraging students to use English as a means of accessing content information on the diverse fields of contemporary world.
  • Integration of all language skills and language aspects.

The editors are also aware of the fact that academic or advanced reading is incomplete without academic writing. That is, the tasks for students are developed in such a way that reading and writing feed off each other and the critical thinking component backs up these two processes.

Theoretical assumptions of the courses

The following theoretical assumptions seem to underpin the reading courses:

  • Reading is an interactive process.
  • Reading is a purposive process.
  • Reading is a critical process.
  • Reading proficiency calls for extensive reading habit.

Of them reading as interactive and critical processes deserve a special mention, for they challenge the traditional notion of reading as a passive skill and the reader as the mere recipient of information. Contrary to the passivity of the reader and mere receptivity of information, these two assumptions redefine reading as a highly productive, interactive and dynamic process. To be more specific, reading as a critical process has been the prime focus of the courses, at least in theory.

Reading as a critical process

Any reading which is critical is also purposive and interactive. Reading as a critical process can be interpreted from the two dominant perspectives. The first perspective deals with the cognitive aspect of reading that requires readers to engage in the higher order thinking as postulated in the Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom 1956, and Grondlund, 1970, as cited in Law and Gautam, 2012,  p. III).  The second perspective takes reading as “a social process” (Kress, 1985, as cited in Hedge, 2000, p.197). According to Hedge “from this perspective, texts are constructed in certain ways by writers in order to shape the perceptions of readers towards acceptance of the underlying ideology of the text” (ibid.). A text is a dynamic space where the ideology (i.e. socio-cultural, political and professional beliefs and values) of the reader comes in direct contact with that of the writer often in the form of either resistance or  submission. Critical reading in both cases calls for the active interaction between conscious readers and the writer. Such interaction can take place in two different but interrelated modes.

a)      Interaction with the text

In this mode of interaction, the reader interacts directly with the text. It can also be termed as the outer-projected interaction in which the reader interacts with the textual features: its theme, characters, linguistic features, cultural elements and writer’s style. This mode of interaction is active mainly, but not necessarily exclusive to, the while reading phase, which focuses on the extraction of the required information and comprehension of the gist. The strategies employed by the reader can be receptive reading, skimming, scanning and intensive reading.

b)     Interaction with the Self

Comprehension is necessary but not sufficient. Readers have to transcend the mere extraction and comprehension of information. They should relate what they have comprehended from the text to their experiential world, reflecting on what they have learned, what it means to them, and pondering how they can use it. This mode of interaction can also be termed as the inner-projected interaction. Readers who do not relate textual information to their purpose, experiential zone and existing knowledge fail to move upward in the higher order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation and creation. It is also difficult for them to challenge the writers’ viewpoints and maintain critical distance from them. This mode of interaction is active mainly, but not necessarily exclusive to,  pre-reading and post-reading phases. The reading strategies employed can be reflective and refractive.

Organization of the textbooks

The texts from different sources are structured under different thematic headings. The overall organizations of the materials can be divided into macro- and micro-levels. At macro-level, each book is thematically organized under different headings such as Intercultural Communication, Education, Mass Media and Technology, Gender Roles and Work (New Directions, 2005),  Humanities, Social Sciences, Human Rights and Freedom, Education and Language Teaching, Globalization and Postmodernism, East and West, Masterpieces, War and Piece, Travel and Adventure, Health and Medical Science, Sports and Entertainments, Science and Technology, Nature, Ecology and Environment ( Expanding Horizons in English, 2010), and Literature and Art, Democracy and Freedom, Multiculturalism, Globalization and Postmodernism, Philosophy and Ideology, Memoire and Revelation, Science and Technology, Sports and Entertainments, and so on (Reading Beyond Borders, 2011).  Each thematic heading is fleshed out with different relevant texts.  The variation in the macro-level organization seems to be the matter of choice, interest, and focus of the editors. At micro-level, each chapter is structured under the different headings such as Unit Opener, Core Readings, Making Connections, Additional Readings, and Easy Topics (New Directions); Before You Read, Vocabulary, Dealing with the Text, and    Beyond the Text (Expanding Horizons in English); Dealing with the Text, and Beyond the Text (Readings Beyond the Borders).

Classroom pedagogy

The classroom pedagogy suggested in all these course books is an integrated approach. The teachers are supposed to interpret the term integration from two perspectives: integration of content areas with the English language, and integration of major language skills and language aspects. The first implies that learning English with relevant content areas leads to deeper processing and hence ensures better output. The second implies that integration of two or more language skills is a natural phenomenon in real life language use, and vocabulary and grammar are integral components of language skills. Hence, “students might read and take notes, listen and write a summary, or respond orally to things they have read or written (Richards and Rodgers, 2001, p. 208).

Major challenges

The type and the magnitude of challenges faced by teachers and students vary depending on the nature of texts and the amount of schematic knowledge the readers bring in, and resources available to approach these texts.  The common challenges can be discussed under the following headings:

1)      Nature of the texts

The text is what students interact with for the enrichment of language and subject matter knowledge. The output from this interaction cannot be high if the the text itself poses a problem for students.  The interaction between students and texts can be negatively affected if the text has its origin in the culture almost unknown to the students and if its language and subject matter are too taxing for them to process. Povey (1979, as cited in Celce-Murcia and Hilles, 1988, p.123) has used the terms cultural, linguistic and intellectual humps or barriers for these constraints imposed by the reading text itself.

a)      Cultural barriers: Cultural barriers include imagery, tone and allusion (Celce-Murcia and Hilles, 1988, p. 123), along with myths, folk tradition, religion, national history and a way of life embedded in the text. The reading materials which belong to foreign cultures are more difficult to interpret than those belonging to readers’ national or regional cultures. Because of the cultural elements embedded in them, the chapters such as Paradise Lost, Contemporary Writing in Arab Countries, Death Valley, and Iliad from Expanding Horizons are obviously more challenging for our students than OM, The Bhagvat Gita and The Necessity of Religion. The texts with foreign cultural elements require sufficient contextualization before students deal with them.

b)      Linguistic barriers: Linguistic barriers include complexity of syntax, lexicon and style of the text. Language used in the text can be seen as one of the major barriers to the effective interaction between text and students. This barrier seems formidable, especially for those (both students and teachers) who lack extensive reading in English. The chapters such as The New Age of Connectivity, What is a Novel? , Contemporary Writing in Arab Countries, The Birth of Sex Hormones, etc. from Expanding Horizons do not lend themselves to easy interpretation because of their jargon, complex sentences and formal style.  Similar is the case with the chapters like  Post-structuralism, Asymmetries of Commerce and Culture, Religious Tolerance- Peacemaker for Cultural Rights, and Japan included in Reading Beyond Borders. Because of area-specific words, lengthy and complex sentence structures, and highly formal style, many texts in the course books are linguistically too challenging for the readers to process the content. These texts call for a lot of language preparation work before making entry into them.

c)      Intellectual barriers: Intellectual barriers occur when the reader lacks “intellectual maturity and sophistication necessary to appreciate, relate to, and comprehend the subject matter” (Celce-Murcia and Hilles, 1988, p. 123).  The texts such as The Birth of Sex Hormones, The Science of Heredity, The Promise of Global Institutions, The Age of Connectivity and Cubism are not intended for general readers. These texts represent the recent findings in their respective fields. The editors seem to presuppose that students have sufficient knowledge in the fields like genetics and anthropology, Information Technology, and painting and sculpture. The teachers during the training often complained that the issues discussed in these texts are too difficult for them to understand, let alone their students.

2)      Attitudes to reading skill

The prevailing attitude towards reading as a receptive skill has also remained as one of the major barriers to the successful implementation of the courses. As discussed above, the courses embrace the recent trends in teaching reading as an interactive and critical process while the prevailing classroom practice shows that all that a good reader needs is the ability to answer the comprehension questions given in the course book. Similarly, there seems to be a gap between what the teachers and students expect from each other. The teachers expect their students to read the text and answer the questions that follow. Students, on the other hand, expect their teachers to read the text for them and supply summary and answers.  This classroom practice fails to see the value of pre-reading and post-reading activities and is almost confined to the comprehension phase of reading. As a result, the integration of other language skills with reading is missing.   For such teachers and students the reading activity begins from and ends with the given text itself, i.e. for them the text is the end not the means.

3)      Text as an end: Those we consider reading as a mere receptive process tend to take the text as an end to itself. Such a view undervalues the multiple purposes that the prescribed reading materials can serve. A text should be taken as a means to access information and language resources. In other words, a text is a means to   activate the reader’s schematic and language knowledge, to play with various writing styles and strategies, and to create another text that either conforms to or resist the writer’s stance. Its classroom implication is that readers should begin from and end with the non-textual world vial the textual one.

4)      Institutional constrains

Lack of adequately trained teachers, sufficient orientation to them, sufficient preparation time available for them, and the large class size have remained other challenges to the teachers and students.

Insights into the nature of the courses, organization of the reading materials, the suggested classroom pedagogy, and challenges faced by the students and teachers in the actual classroom can help us to think of the areas to be addressed and design effective classroom procedures.

Some basic questions to be addressed

It is important that the teachers address the following issues before engaging students in the actual act of classroom reading:

  • What to do before, during and after students read the text.
  • How to guide students   through the text to read meaningfully, purposively and critically.
  • How to have students read/learn cooperatively in pairs and groups.
  • How to assist students in connecting what they already know to the text and what they have learned from the text to the real world.
  • How to integrate the reading skill with other skills.

Classroom procedures

The prescribed course books Expanding Horizons in English and New Directions have followed the established practice of the three-phase procedure: Pre-, While-, and Post-reading. These phases can also be termed as anticipation phase, building knowledge phase and consolidation phase respectively (Crawford et al., 2005). Crawford et al.  have used the organic metaphors to highlight the value of these phases of critical thinking and productive learning. In the anticipation phase a wheat seed is planted in rich soil, the seed sprouts and a plant grows in the building knowledge phase, and finally in  the consolidation phase the head of wheat is mature, and contains seeds of many other plants (2005, p. 4-5.)

New Directions and Expanding Horizons both are rich in the variety of reading tasks under each phase. However, Reading Beyond the Borders has skipped the Pre-reading phase, leading the students to an abrupt confrontation with the text. If not handled by an experienced and trained teacher, the students are likely to experience a sense of bewilderment for want of background information required to enter the text.

a)      Pre-reading phase

This is the preparation or schemata activation phase. While engaging students in the pre-reading or anticipation tasks given in the books and teacher’s manuals or designed by the teacher himself, the he should

  • respect and capitalize on the student’s experiences, knowledge and language resources.
  • assess informally what they already know, including misconceptions (Crawford et al, 2005, p. 2).
  • provide a context for understanding new ideas.
  •  ask them to write down what they Know about the topic and what they Want to learn or expect from it.

b)     While Reading Phase

The students in this phase deal with the text. The teacher should set tasks that require them to inquire, find out and make sense of the reading materials. The while reading tasks should encourage students

  • to indentify the main points and their supporting details.
  • to find new pieces of information from the text.
  • to compare their expectations with what is being learned, and to revise them or raise new ones (Crawford, et al. 2005, p.3).
  • to react to the opinions expressed, ask themselves questions, and to predict the next part of the text from various clues (Hedge, 2000, p.210).

c)      Post-reading Phase

This phase takes the students beyond the text. However, the tasks in this phase should be tied up with pre-, and while-reading phases, and should lead to writing and speaking tasks.  That is, this phase has both backward-looking and forward-looking purposes.  The instructor in this phase should set the tasks that require the students:

  • to reflect on what they have learned by summarizing the main ideas in their own words.
  • to interpret the main ideas.
  • to share opinions in groups
  • to agree or disagree with the writer’s stance.
  • to role-play major situations or characters given in the text.
  • to create a parallel text.

Although the classroom reading procedures are divided into the three different phases for the theoretical convenience, these phases and activities under them lie in the continuum. In the actual classroom practice, it is almost impossible to say when one ends and another begins. Such compartmentalization is not desirable either.

Conclusion

Compared with the previous ones, the courses Reading, Writing and Critical Thinking, Expanding Horizons, and Readings in English prescribed by Tibhuvan University for its Bachelor’ and Master’s programs mark a paradigm shift in English Education . The reading texts under these courses have embraced current trends in ELT that gives priority in flooding ESL/EFL learners with relevant, contextualized and authentic texts.  However, it goes without saying that the effectiveness of these courses depends on how the course books are exploited in line with the aspirations expressed in them. Both teachers and students should bear in mind that there is no easy and direct route to journey into the textual world.  Much depends on how clear we are about our destination, how well prepared we are for it and how skilled and experienced we guides are.

Awasthi, Bhattarai and Khaniya (Eds.) (2010). Expanding horizons in English. Kathmandu: Vdhyarthi Prakashan.

Awasthi, Bhattarai and Khaniya (Eds.) (2011). Reading beyond borders. Kathmandu: Vdhyarthi Prakashan.

Celce-Murcia, M. and Hilles, S. (1988).  Techniques and resources in teaching grammar. Oxford: OUP.

Crawford, A.,  Saul, E.W., Mathews, S. and Mkinster, J. (2005). Teaching and learning   strategies for thinking classroom.  Nepal: Alliance for Social Dialogue

Gardner, P.S. (Ed.) (2005).  New directions: Reading writing and critical thinking. Cambridge: CUP.

Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and learning in the language classroom. Oxford: OUP.

Law, Barbara, and Gautam, G. R (2012). Teachers’ manual: Expanding Horizons. Kathmandu: NELTA.

[1]  I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Law and Ganga Ram Gautam with whom I had an opportunity to work as a contributor to the teachers’ manual for Expanding Horizons.  The basic outline of this article was developed during the training we (Barbara and I) conducted together in Gulmi.

Reflecting on my Trip to the US and Some Insights for ELT

Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

Madhu Neupane

Tribhuvan University

Teaching language also involves teaching of culture. While the profession of ELT in the past mainly emphasized teaching the culture of ‘native’ English speaking cultures (e. g. those of the US or the UK), EFL practitioners have now become increasingly aware of the importance of teaching multiple cultures from around the world and develop learners’ cross-cultural awareness. I also believe that the US culture, for example, is not the culture we should be teaching, but one of the cultures our students need to know about and be aware of as more Nepalese youth opt for higher education in the US and have been more influenced by popular culture developed in the West. The goal of this essay is not to teach American culture or offer pedagogical tactics in teaching students’ non-native culture, but to provide my reflection of experiencing a culture different from the one that I grew up with and shed some lights on how different themes can be important for a critical pedagogy. This is based on my recent visit to a number of US states sponsored by a program called the US Society and Culture.

The central focus of the program ‘US Society and Culture’ under Study United States Institute (SUSI) was America’s reconciliation of cultural and social diversity with national unity. The successes and failures of the United States in achieving this reconciliation was discussed in the program with the help of lectures, panel discussions and accompanied field trips to different places.  North America was founded in the conviction of diversity of its component groups for the establishment of a well ordered society. For the promotion of autonomy for supporting diversity and liberty, decentralization has been applied.  Federalism based on the principle of decentralization seems to be working successfully in America. Richard Pious, Ochs Professor of American Studies, Bernard College and Columbia University highlighted the concept of marble cake federalism in American government. Even with the federal system whole postal service is national and the collection of revenue is highly centralized.  Education has been extremely privatized and not enforced by the states. There is involvement of interest groups in all the areas. Ethnic interests are marginalized as far as possible. People have nationalized culture, very effective internal security system, and conflict management system. American people place high premium on national identity “American creed” and take pride in it.

The management of diversity with national unity has been central to the discussion in academic disciplines, research and literature. In the book Achieving Our Country Richard Rorty emphasizes the Darwinian view of animal in human life. Our sense of community, according to him, is the product of evolutionary course. Communities are always shaped by the ongoing urgency of environment. There is no more reason to live rather than responding to urgency. Rorty’s view is oriented to future and hope for the betterment of community. It leads to the idea of democracy. Everyone is involved in the project of forward looking community. Democracy, in Rorty’s view, is something that is yet to be achieved; it is not something that a country has already achieved. Underlying meaning of his discourse is that unity in diversity is yet to be achieved in complete sense because we need to work for better situation than the one existing now. The play “Other Desert Cities” by John Robin Baitz also shows the tension between independence and control as well transparency and withholding of information.

Principally there is no dominant religion and the state secular. Everyone is free to practice their religion. However, the country in practice seems to be dominated by Christian Protestantism.  According to survey conducted by Pew Forum in Religion and Public life, American people believe that religious faith lead to eternal life. “In God we trust” is printed in notes and coins. Though secularization is the part of democratic process people belonging to Muslim religion are having hard time in America. Khalid Latif, personnel in New York police department emphasized that the country has negative attitude about Muslim today and the situation has been worsen by the narratives produced against Islam though most of them, in his opinion, are based on stereotyping and propaganda. The impact of September 11 has remained the same even today. Even if Latif is a police personnel in New York Police Department, while travelling he has been detained and questioned for 2 to 6 hours. “You are young, you are male and you are Muslim. These three things do not go very well here”, they say. The idea ethnicity and religion is still very powerful. The understanding is that it is essentially being radical posing challenge to the unity in diversity.

America has been very successful in entrepreneurship. In the beginning America was an agrarian society with many people living in the rural areas but now the percentage of individual farming is very low. Because of industrialization, America has been successful in increasing its GDP dramatically by generating wealth through trade and maximizing difference between input and output in production. The factors that have contributed for the economic success in American community, according to George Smith, Professor of Economics in NYU, are: good institutions, vibrant entrepreneurship, sophisticated managerial capacities, enabling political system, and effective financial system.

Joshua Freeman, Professor of History in Queens College mentioned that most Americans lack class consciousness. Whether there are classes is a controversial issue in the United States. Class consciousness is considered to be inherently negative. The idea is that classes do not exist and if they do exist it is a bad thing for society. Many people identify themselves to be middle class which lacks an agreed upon definition. The labor movement is certainly getting weaker and unions are not central to the discussion. The government has passed a lot of rules protecting people to organize.  The legal protection for workers has declined and welfare system has gone down. However, the union has played important roles in the life of workers. Many people associate unfavorable working conditions with weakening unions which are under tight regulation. Government wants to do away with any type of class. However, the class war is going on whether someone is conscious or not. The enemies of union have devised wonderful language and want destroy it at all cost. They want to have right to do anything they like and say that “let the free market decide”. There has been an attack in public sector with the slogan “get government back”. However, the class war is going on whether someone is conscious or not.

Though America is one of the richest countries in world, 15 percent of American people live below poverty line. Though people tend to define poverty in terms of how much they earn, it really depends on income and expense both. Forty-six million people in America live in poverty. Though the country has the highest per-capita income in the world it does not have the lowest poverty rate. Because of the great recession poverty has increased because of the increase in unemployment. Though there is some job training and other job support program by government to reduce poverty have not been very effective because of government cutting public expense refusing to increase taxes. There are many voluntary organizations working in this sector. Since both main parties are capitalist in nature, the program for reducing poverty has not been effective there. Stave Randol, a media analyst highlighted the fact though altogether almost 50 per cent people are affected by poverty; poverty hardly gets any place in media.

Immigration has been a great issue in America from long ago. People have mixed attitude about the effect of migration. Public and private conversation about immigration is different. In public many people talk about it positive impact but in private the situation is mostly opposite. The immigrant museum in Ellis Island in New York shows terrible time people had during great migration. Only the ‘free white’ people were allowed to enter the country and whiteness was considered to be gold standard for citizenship. Unwhiteness was supposed to be the lack of freedom and associated with slavery. It was not only about skin color. In 1816 the immigration law made provision not to allow the people who were prostitutes, idiots, lunatics and Chinese to enter the country because they were not considered to be the right kind of people. The Chinese were the only people to be specified on the basis of the nation. By 1924 Asia Immigration was stopped because they not supposed to be the right kind of people. During the first recession only the white people were included in the welfare program given by the government. Though the immigration act in 1965 threw out the old rule, there is still segregation and the anxiety about unity in American Society because of immigration from all parts of the world.

The main important factor of democracy is that there is a fair and competitive election. There is a significant decline in the voting participant in America. There has been 40% decline in the last 2o years.  There are multiple political identities because people can belong to one coalition this year and the next coalition the next year. The biggest problem is to represent the minority. Though there is the idea that the minority should be prevented from the tyranny of majority, the chances for other parties to come to power are very low. People say that political polarization at this time in America has been the greatest in the history. Republicans want small government playing lesser roles whereas democratic want to increase government participation. Political discourse can manipulate the people in such a way that they even vote against their own interest and the same has happened with the welfare system in this country. There is a dysfunctional aspect in American political system where the money and media matter a lot than the real interest of the people.

Almost all people are using the modern technological devices that information communication technology (ICT). Newspapers are losing their readership since there is increase in the use of internet devices for getting information. The social networking has also been increasing with the use of the internet. The use of technology is narrowing down the differences as well as promoting digital divide. The right to privacy, a highly emphasized right in American constitution, has been threatened due to the use of new technology, for example wire tapping, wiki leaks, etc. There is invasion of privacy from the private sector as well because service providers tend to keep records of conversations for different reasons. There is over concern about the suspicious activities. The high emphasis placed on freedom of speech, in the opinion of American people, has somehow promoted lack of professionalism in media.

Because of automobile and well developed highway system, there has been great increase in suburbs. In 1920s many people used to live in cities while in 1970s the number of people living in suburbs surpassed the people living in cities. Middle class define themselves in terms of space and suburbs provide them with space. Suburbanization began right after the Second World War when the industrialization replaced the labor force in most of the areas. Suburbanization is also associated with race because there were mainly white people living in such suburbs. The earlier suburbs have all become cities now. Highway system and federally subsidized housing system contributed for the boom of the suburbanization.

High divorce rate, single parent family, pregnancy before marriage and women’s giving more priority to work rather than family and marriage have been major issues in family related discourse. The state does not have good welfare system and most children who have completed their graduate education cannot depend on themselves so they come to their parents. They describe this situation as boomerang family anxiety. As per the data of 2005 majority of children born in US are born to immigrants. The race has been a legacy from the very beginning. Socioeconomically the society is still segregated. “Race suicide” (white race), some people think, is taking place because native women have fewer children and immigrants have more children. There was anxiety that the women, if educated would not give birth to many children which would lead to race suicide which still an issue in family related discourse. Through fitter family contest, the idea of larger family was promote in 1970s. Women were expected to have children and live at home. Women at that time came with the idea that if we want to change the world we need to change the perception of people about it and which is possible through the creation of discourse.

Though higher education is free and compulsory, college education is very expensive for many people. I could not believe that the percentage of people completing college education is less than 30 per cent. The percentage of Ph. D holder is not two percent yet. The quality of public schools in comparison to private school is perceived to be very low and the well-off peoples do not send their children to public schools. Performance of school children in average, as mentioned in lectures, is lower in comparison to other developed countries like Canada, the UK, Singapore, Taiwan.

Concluding the reflection, the country’s overall development is really amazing. I was really impressed by cleanliness, well developed highway system, rule abiding system, punctuality, planning and persistence of American people. The things preserved in American museum made me think about our politicians who sold weapons of historical importance in penny. The things that were contrary to my expectation were, lack of security of workers in work place, low quality of education in public schools, and high influence of money and the power of wealthy people to influence decisions that affect life of common people in politics. Besides gaining general knowledge about American society and culture it provided us with the opportunity to learn a lot from the participants who represented 18 different countries. I wish we had similar program to disseminate similar knowledge of our country to other people in the world.

So what then?: I am not saying that this is the best country in the world, but mentioning a number of things that we can learn from for our lives. At the same time we can also question dominant ideologies and practices tied to these issues. A number of themes appeared in my reflection — for example, religion, race, migration, technology, divorce, pregnancy, marriage, environment – and these are important concerns for a critical pedagogy. These are the themes we have been teaching in textbooks produced by the international publishing houses. Learners can compare their cultures against the US or other similar dominant culture. When we teach English following insights from critical pedagogy, we not only teach vocabulary or grammar, but also issues that matter to our lives. For example, I mentioned selling Nepali historical weapons to a US museum. This could be a topic for you critical reading lesson. You can extract a text from the Kathmandu Post “Lost history: Gehendra-made guns sold off to US company” and plan a lesson around this topic. You can also read Bal Krishna Sharma and Prem Phyak’s post regarding how to design lessons around critical social issues.

(Ms. Madhu Neupane is a lecturer at the central department of English education in the University Campus, Kirtipur.)

Editorial, July 2012 Issue

Editorial

I hope everyone is having a nice summer.

Here is July 2012 issue of Nelta Choutari. This is a variety pack. The increased diversity of contributors is exciting. And we are also excited about the fact that our contributors share their experiences while discussing issues at more or less general scholarly/theoretical level.

The first piece is a reflection of one of our colleagues, Kapil Neupane, who shares his experiences about beginning to use lesson plans and improving his teaching. In an entry about corporal punishment, Atmaram Bhattarai and Praveen Yadav first describe the scenario of corporal punishment in Nepal and then argue why corporal punishment is not the solution to problems that it is supposed to solve. The authors also provide alternatives and make an appeal to NELTA as a professional organization to address the issue of corporal punishment in our schools. Tirtha Wagle writes about an issue that most of us are are not aware about, decision making before, during, and after teaching. Sometimes, we ask editors to join the conversation, so in this issue Bal has provided an entry in which he discusses how experienced teachers deal with diverse students in the classroom. Finally, we have included the second half of the interview from last month with a veteran English language teacher Dr. Rajendra Bimal (thanks to Praveen Yadav again for collecting the interview). For convenience, here is the list:

I hope that you will enjoy this issue and join the conversation as always. You don’t need grand ideas, just any response, thought/opinion on the topic, or a genuine appreciation or critique. And please remember to share it on your professional/social networks.

Thank you and happy reading!

Shyam Sharma

Importance of Lesson Plan in ELT Class

Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

Kapil Neupane, Model Boarding Higher Secondary School, Bhaktapur

A “lesson plan” can be defined in many ways. As someone who learned the idea of lesson plans after having taught for a while, I have found lesson plans to be the most valuable asset in my teaching. Without a lesson plan, I get nowhere with my teaching. A lawyer spends hours planning a case before appearing in court, a couch spends hours planning the plays and watching the team and a director explains his film story to his actors again and again, just why? Any successful professional knows that the quality of planning and preparation affects the quality of results. So, a lesson plan is to a teacher what a calculator is to an engineer, a stethoscope to a doctor, and a packet of seeds to a farmer. A lesson plan gives teachers an eagle’s eye of view of things to be taught and learned everyday. It also helps them determine when to insert ice breaks, interesting facts, and other components of engaging learning for my students. In fact, if used well, a lesson plan can also help students’ learning by helping them know what comes when and how things are done during a class by the teacher and by them.

Now, let me share my experiences of teaching which really began ten years ago. During those days, I did not really plan and prepare what I wanted to do during a class before entering the classroom; I read the material and thought that I knew the content well enough to teach it. In retrospect, I understand that my students did not pay much attention—and some did their homework for the next class and others just seemed to wait for the bell to ring—because I did not have clear purpose and organization behind my teaching. I got many complaints about my students being noisy from the teachers teaching at another class next to mine, and I complained about my students lack of attention. Some of the students pretended to listen to me perhaps to keep me pleased.

Frankly, I too waited for the bells to ring because the classes were painfully disorganized and students’ didn’t behave well. During class time, I had no fixed time for students’ performance and exchange of their learning, and when the bell rang I would frantically try to tell students what to do for the next class. There was no time for students to ask questions about homework or revisions. I rarely went to class with teaching material other than the course book, and my only objective was to finish teaching that material. Many of my students failed their exams, and I had to explain why. In response, I was upset and I went to the extent of scolding and blaming the students for being lazy. But the problem was that most students who failed in my class did better in other subjects. There had to be a reason. And for sure, the key reason was that I did not teach with a plan and a purpose. I did not use lesson plans, did not assess the outcome, and improve my teaching.

It was when I joined the bachelor of education degree that During I studied a theoretical subject in which I got the opportunity to learn about how to plan and execute a lesson and what the benefits of doing so are. I also later got other opportunities to participate in ELT trainings and workshops.

Today, I realize that the failure of students can be indirectly the failure of their teacher. Students who are taught without a clear sense of purpose and well-designed learning activities fail more often than students others. Now I enter any classrooms only after preparing a compete lesson which allows me to visualize every steps of teaching process in advance. In addition, a lesson plan records and saves my time as I teach similar subject and lesson in the future. Although it requires an investment of time, energy, and thought, lesson planning has been more than worth the time and energy to me.

We can … without corporal punishment

Critical Outlook, Native Perspective, Scholarly Article

Atmaram Bhattarai & Praveen Kumar Yadav
Plan Nepal Sindhuli/Rautahat

Abstract

Cruel and humiliating forms of psychological punishment, gender-based violence and bullying remain a daily reality for millions of children in schools. Such different sorts of violence adversely affect quality education and create fearful learning environment violating the rights of children to learn in a safe school environment. The short article attempts to look back to the history of corporal punishment, moves further with the consequences and reasons for such punishments and finally concludes with alternative ways to create learn without fear environment. Overall, it appeals all the stakeholders to join hands to contribute Learn without Fear campaign launched globally with an aim to end violence against children in all schools.

Scenario of Corporal Punishment in Nepal

Corporal punishment in school has become a preferred measurable tool for making children disciplined. 57.77% of school going children in the world is potentially risk of receiving school corporal punishment. A study done by Plan Nepal in different 7 districts in 2011 shows that 39.34% of children realized punished corporally by the teachers. They also mentioned that 5.34% of total school droppers are because of the corporal punishment.

The above data makes some of us cringe while it is common for some.  No doubt, we were compelled to grow up in fearful learning environment in Nepalese context. The Learn with Fear concept or method has become a culture in teaching learning activities. We need to remove the culture with our collective efforts. The present article starts with some historical background of punishment given to the learners, goes ahead with the causes behind punishing the students followed by its effects and concludes with some alternative ways of teaching.

A look at the history

Our education system from traditional age is largely influenced by our religious books such as Vedas, Purans, Manusmriti, etc. According to Tulsikrit Ramayan, Ayodhyakand, one of Hindu religious books “भय बिनु प्रिति नहोई” (which means that there can be no love or motivation that leads to success without punishment/fear). But gone are the days when there was Gurukul Education and the teacher who was known as guru used to be powerful. Today, the traditional education has shifted to new generation and the power is misused by so called gurus. As a result, children are victimized due to excessive power exercised by the teachers.

In the Western world, such punishment was used for minor judicial and educational misconducts in the past. It was the most popular form of punishment until English philosopher John Locke stirred up some controversy with his paper, Some Thoughts Concerning Education around the late 1700s. In this paper, Locke explicitly criticised the manner in which corporal punishment was central to education. But it was as early as the 18th century that European countries banned corporal punishment; for example, Poland banned all forms of CP in 1783. Gradually, the practice of corporal punishment declined through 20th century globally to some extent. However, it is sad to note that corporal punishment is still prevalent in our schools of Nepal.

Why teachers beat the students in Nepal

Corporal punishment is given to the students in the following conditions or for the causes mentioned here:

  • When the students fail to submit their homework
  • When they make a noise in class room
  • Debate with the teacher in class room
  • When learners are found fighting with each other
  • If they come to school with no uniform
  • Lose / forget to bring copy, books and other stationeries
  • Cheat and hide others’ copy, book, pencil, etc
  • When they sleep in the classroom or show misconduct
  • When they are unable to answer correctly
  • If they receive poor marks in exam
  • When they leave some classes and run away
  • If a student is absent or does not attend the school regularly
  • If students speak unpleasant words
  • When they come to school late
  • They fail to pay school fee in time

What types of Corporal punishment is given in Nepalese Schools

  • Scolding, verbal abuse
  • Making the students sit in a discomfort position
  • Locking them in toilet/other room
  • Slapping a child by his/her own classmate
  • Making them stand for long time at side of the door, corner of room, on bench and ground
  • Pulling hairs and cheek
  • Twisting the ears
  • Hitting with the objects on any part of the body (like duster over the head)
  • Throwing some objects at child
  • Discrimination of equal participation because of caste group or gender
  • Hitting with stick on palm, back, head, legs, etc.
  • Preventing students from entering the classroom for a while
  • Squeezing a pen/pencil between the fingers
  • Pinching, Hanging, kicking
  • Making them lean against a tree and tying up with the rope
  • Threatening
  • Making the students run around the school premises or playground many times

What results when the teachers beat students (Consequences of Corporal Punishment)

  • Intellectual loss
  • Increased delinquency
  • School drop outs of children
  • Mentally / physically disabled
  • Nurture violence behavior
  • Lower self esteem / lose confidence/humiliation
  • Training for children to use physical violence
  • Liable to instill hostility
  • Rage without reducing undesired behavior
  • Associate with negative outcome
  • It does not only hamper the individual development but also disturbs/ruins the social harmony
  • Suicide /Death

Why corporal punishment is not the solution

Extensive research shows that corporal punishment does not achieve the desired end – a culture of learning and discipline in the classroom. Instead, violence begets violence. Children exposed to violence in their homes and at school tend to use violence to solve problems, both as children and adults. Key research findings show that corporal punishment:

  • Some learners blow their own horn about being beaten as something to be proud of, as a badge of bravery or success.
  • Undermines a caring relationship between learner and educator, which is critical for the development of all learners, particularly those with behavioural difficulties.
  • Undermines the self-esteem and confidence of children who have learning or behavioural problems and/or difficult home circumstances and contributes to negative feelings about school.
  • Does not build a culture of human rights, tolerance and respect.
  • Does not stop bad behaviour of difficult children. Instead, these children are punished over and over again for the same offenses.
  • Does not nurture self-discipline in children. Instead, it provokes aggression and feelings of revenge and leads to anti-social behaviour.
  • Does not make children feel responsible for their own actions. They worry about being caught, not about their personal responsibilities. This undermines the growth of self-discipline in children.
  • Takes children s focus away from the wrongdoing committed to the act of beating itself.

Why ban corporal punishment

Nepal is a one of the signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which compels it to pass laws and take social, educational and administrative measures to protect the child from all forms of physical and mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse.

By the result, banning corporal punishment is responded in School Sector Reform Program (SSRP-2009-14). The SSRP states that no child shall be subjected to physical punishment in any form in the school. Teacher and school found guilty of practicing corporal punishment shall both be subject to disciplinary actions that may include suspension of teacher’s grade and an official warning to the School Management Committee (SMC).

Similarly, Education Rule (sixth addendum), 2059 has added ‘no students should be physically and mentally violated’ under the teacher’s code of conduct. At the mean time, the ministry of education has approved a policy named ‘Policy Provision for Banning Corporal Punishment in Schools- 2011’.

Ministry of Education in the collaboration with the Department of Education, National Centre of Educational Development, Plan Nepal, Save the children and UNICEF launched Learn without Fear (LWF) Campaign in Nepal on 21st November 2008.  It is a campaign for preventing all forms of violence against children in schools. This includes corporal punishment, sexual abuse, neglect, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and bullying in schools.

So What?

CP crates fear among children. Where there is fear, there is no effective learning and the children can not construct their knowledge. The teacher should adopt alternative ways of CP. If teachers are to have a positive culture of learning and teaching in their schools, the learning environment must be safe, orderly and conducive to learning. There should be close relationship among teacher and children. The children should be loved and affected.

There are also those teachers who believe that corporal punishment is wrong, but they don’t always know what to use instead of physical force or the threat of it to maintain discipline and a culture of learning in the classroom. Discipline is a part of the daily life of students and teachers, but it is not a simple issue; it demands a great deal of time, creativity, commitment and resources.

A classroom climate based on mutual respect within which learners feel safe and affirmed will decrease the need for disciplinary action. By implementing a proactive approach, teachers can put things in place, which will safeguard the culture of learning, and teaching in their classrooms. Simple things like preparing for lessons; exercising self-discipline; having extension work available; ensuring that teaching and learning happen consistently; ensuring that learners are stimulated; establishing class rules with the students; making a space for time out or a conflict resolution corner; affirming students; building positive relationships with children; preparing and implementing job chart are all strategies which will set the stage for a positive learning environment and can significantly reduce problems with discipline in the classroom.

Similarly, the other alternatives ways of CP for a positive culture of learning and teaching are:

  • Providing disciplinary actions for misconduct inside the classroom: Carried out by class teacher; Verbal warnings; Community service; Additional work which is constructive and which possibly relates to the misconduct; Small menial tasks like tidying up the classroom; Detention in which learners use their time constructively but within the confines of the classroom i.e. they cannot participate in extra-mural activities or go home.
  • Adopting a whole school approach and making sure that the classroom discipline reflects the school’s policies.
  • Establishing class rules by the learners in the participatory way; be serious and consistent for implementing class rules.
  • Building a relationship of trust in which learners feel respected, understood and recognized for who they are.
  • Managing the learning process and the learning environment enthusiastically and professionally.
  • Being inclusive by using materials, pictures, language, music, posters, magazines and so on that reflect the diversity of the class so that no children feels left out or that his or her identity is not valued.
  • Giving students the opportunity to succeed.
  • Allowing children to take responsibility.
  • Giving attention seekers what they want.
  • Adopting strategies for behavioural modification like setting expectations, positive reinforcement, consistent consequences, presenting role model, etc.
  • Preparing and implementing code of conduct in school

Conclusion 

We observe that ‘pounding an animal is cruel; pounding an adult is crime and against human behaviour whereas pounding a child is a corrective measure for their proper adjustment into the social and cultural norms that the children need to respect’. Sometimes, punishing a child is considered the ‘right’ of parents or teachers. Teachers who are unmotivated and poorly trained are more likely to resort to punitive and physically violent methods of control, but this is not always the case for all teachers. But, globally, the practice of corporal punishment in school is being rejected and promoted alternative non violent discipline method to facilitate children’s behaviour and learning activities. A total of 106 states of the world have already legally banned the practice of CP in schools and care institutions. Similarly, 24 countries of the globe have legally banned corporal punishment at home either. In a society like ours with a long history of violence and abuse of child rights, it is not easy to make the transition to peace, tolerance and respect for human rights at a pace. Schools have a vital role to play in this process of transformation by nurturing these fundamental values in children.

 Our Appeal to NELTA

Most of the English teachers of school level in Nepal are known and blamed as cruel teachers as they mostly punish children in the purpose of making them success. Most of them (mostly of lower grades) are not aware that English is not learnt with corporal punishment. English can be taught using love and affection to the children in the communicative way using the above alternatives. Therefore, it is our humble request to NELTA to adopt Learn without Campaign within the network to wash the blame of cruelty pasted on the forehead of English Teachers in Nepal.

What we can do is to prepare some posters for promoting ‘learn without fear campaign’ in collaboration with ministry of Education, Department of Education, Save The Children, Plan Nepal and UNICEF and disseminate among the teachers all over the country through our branches existed in more than 35 districts. This will prove a milestone to make the campaign a grand success.

References

Education Rule (sixth addendum), 2059

Learn Without Fear Campaign Plan (October 2008-2011), a core document

Policy Provision for Banning Corporal Punishment in Schools, 2011

School Sector Reform Program (SSRP), 2009-2015

Teaching without punishment, a training manual to teachers, NCED, 2063

http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/pdfs/SchoolsBriefing.pdf

Decision Making in ESL Classroom

Scholarly Article

Tirtaha Raj Wagle
Saptagandaki Multiple Campus,  Bharatpur Chitwan
Small Heaven Model School, Aanptari, Chitwan

In any area of ELT, different approaches are available, so teachers are able to make the best decisions to suit particular situations and goals while planning, teaching and evaluating the students or themselves. But due to the lack of training, they are unable to make the right decisions. This entry attempts to raise awareness in teachers about making the right options which will help to develop their professionalism. The entry is divided into three sections: Planning Decision, Interactive Decision and Evaluative Decision. Each of the sections presents some reflective questions, summary of the topic and tasks for discussion.

Teaching English as a second language can be challenging for any teacher. But this is also a field where tremendous amounts of knowledge and scholarship exist, so teachers can learn about many different approaches, methods and techniques as they will fit their classroom. Teaching involves making a number of individual decisions which are the outcomes of reflective thinking. Since teaching itself is a thinking process, English language teachers have to think through and plan before actually teaching in the classroom. The decisions at this stage are Planning decisions. When the teacher enters the classroom, he or she starts making decisions on the spot; such decisions are Interactive decisions. At the end, the ESL teachers must make decisions about their own teaching which are known as Evaluative decisions. My concern, here, is to discuss how making these decisions effective can boost the professional development of ESL teachers.

(A) Planning Decisions

Neither a novice nor an expert can make his/her second language classroom effective if planning has not previously been made. Lesson plan is intended to help the teachers organize the lesson effectively. It usually includes description of objectives, mentions instructional materials, the activities students will carry out, time needed for each activity and teaching strategies to be used. It makes the teacher aware of possible problems and above all provides with alternative techniques to face them.

The way teachers prepare lesson plan depends upon their personal belief system. Planning of the lesson also differs in great deal on what a teacher believes about English as a second language, language teaching, language learning, language curriculum and language teaching as a profession such as,

Teacher A: I believe vocabulary is the most difficult aspect of English for its second language learners.

Teacher B: In my view, English Grammar is more difficult than vocabulary for its second language learners.

Here Teacher ‘A’ while planning a lesson for second language learners of English may focus on spelling, word meaning, pronunciation or sentence formation. On the other hand, Teacher ‘B’ tends to focus on providing grammar rules through inductive mode. His planning of the lesson seems more like teacher dominated. But, any other Language teacher with alternative belief may try to construct the knowledge in students’ mind from their previous experiences using deductive mode of language teaching. He may try to make the students more creative rather than making them passive receivers of the rules.

Teachers are generally encouraged to develop lesson plan in micro level for every lesson that they teach. Richards (1990) believes that the Planning decision is guided by the objectives of the lesson and should be mentioned using action verb. In a grammar lesson, for example, one of the objectives might include the following:

Students will be able to make a sentence in simple present tense using the structure:

Sub + V-present + Object

Objectives of the lesson lead the whole classroom activities from material use through Language practice and evaluation to homework assignment.

Planning decisions reflect the teacher’s belief about teaching, learning and the lesson plan itself. Beliefs on planning of lesson from five different teachers are mentioned below:

Teacher A: Detailed planning of lesson discourages student’s response, neglects students’ needs, avoids their interest and makes them less creative.

Teacher B: Without a detailed lesson plan, a teacher wanders off tasks in the class and achieves no prescribed goal.

The ESL teachers are suggested to consider the following reflective questions to make and select appropriate planning decisions:

• What do I want my students to learn from this lesson?
• Why should I teach this lesson?
• How should I start the lesson?
• Am I able to fulfill the professional roles?
• Do I have enough knowledge regarding the content?
• What instructional materials are needed for this lesson?
• Do I have materials needed for this lesson?
• What methods, techniques and approaches can be used while teaching this lesson?
• How should I organize the activities into different stages?
• Is the lesson too easy / difficult for this level?
• How can I deal with problematic students?
• How should I deal with students’ ability levels in the class?
• What role should I play during this lesson?
• How will I check students’ understanding?
• What will I do to manage discipline in the class?
• How will I handle interruptions to limit interference in this lesson?
• How will I motivate the students, involve them in language practice and evaluate them?

(B) Interactive Decisions

 

Since teaching itself is an interactive process, the teacher has to bring a number of changes in his planned lesson when a situation demands. Lessons are dynamic and unpredictable in nature, therefore, are characterized by constant change. The teacher has to make situational decisions to fit appropriate context of classroom teaching. Some teachers often comment that the classroom environment, while teaching, goes on changing and seems to be completely different from what it had been supposed it might be while making planning decisions. While selecting an option in planning the lesson, a teacher can not predict what may go on in real classroom.

A teacher whose teaching is solely guided by a lesson plan and who ignores the international dynamics of the teaching learning process is less likely to be able to respond students’ needs. Interactive decisions enable the teacher to access students’ response and modify the teaching strategy to provide optimal support for learning.

Parker (1984:220) observes – “Teaching- Learning contexts change, and teachers’ behavior must change accordingly: There is no one way to behave in language classroom.’ A number of behaviors are appropriate to the complexity of classroom.

Interactive decisions involve the ability of a teacher to observe the class her or himself to find alternative behaviors and select the best one to suit the specific immediate teaching context.

Consideration of following reflective questions will help the ESL teachers to make appropriate interactive decisions:

• How is my relationship with the students at this moment of teaching?
• Is my voice clear enough for the students to understand?
• Do the students understand it?
• Are the students paying attention?
• Is the class going on comfortably?• Is there anyone with hearing problem?
• Is this too difficult/easy for this level?
• Should I follow the different strategy?
• Am I out of my track?
• Is it going as I planned?
• Why is student ‘A’ not paying attention?
• Shall I ask him about his problem?

• Should I continue this task or start another one?
• Are the students interested with what they are doing or they are feeling bore?

• Do they think it is useful for them to develop certain language skill?
• Do the students have enough vocabulary to carryout this Language activity?
• Do the students need more information or it is too much for them?
• Can I meet the objectives if I teach this way?
• Am I transferring the knowledge or creating it in students’ mind?
• Am I playing the role of dictator or facilitator?
• Am I going according to my needs or students’ needs?

The following examples of interactive decisions made by two different ESL teachers are the outcomes of above reflective questions:

Teacher A: Yesterday in my grammar lesson, I planned to teach ‘Present Perfect Tense’ for grade x. When all the students were practising on – Sub + has/have + V-past participle (V3), one of them asked about contextual difference in the use of ‘has’ and ‘have’ . When I tried to reply, they got more interest in it. I immediately changed my decisions and started teaching ‘Concord’. The students were more curious to learn it, so I had to spend the whole period to teach ‘Concord’.

Teacher B: Once I planned to teach ‘writing’. To meet my objectives, I involved the students in picture description as I had planned. The picture was differently interpreted by different students. Even a single student described it in two different ways. Students became creative by themselves. When one heard the description from another, the class was lively. I immediately postponed the lesson for another day and let the students involve in discussion. I conducted only oral activities that day. I was satisfied with the consequences because all the students actively participated in language use.

(C) Evaluative Decisions

 

Teacher’s self-evaluation is an integral part of teaching which helps him develop professional proficiency. To evaluate own teaching teachers are typically based on their personal belief system on what constitutes good teaching. For e.g. a teacher following curriculum base approach evaluates his teaching in term of how well s/he explained the lesson as mentioned in the curriculum. In general teachers should make evaluative decisions on the basis of fulfillment of their objectives.

To make self evaluation a teacher should think back his objectives. He should think back his planning, presentation and decide the answers of the following reflective questions by himself:

• How did I start the lesson?
• Were the students well motivated?
• Was I successful to fulfill the desired objectives?
• What did the students get out of the lesson?
• Was my voice loud/clear enough for the students to understand?
• Did I give the correct answers to the students?
• Did the lesson arouse interest in students?
• How did I respond to the problematic students?
• Why did I shout at student ‘x’?
• Couldn’t I do something other than shouting/beating?
• Does shouting/beating bring positive change in her/him?
• Should I reteach any aspect of this lesson?
• What should I avoid and repeat in my next class?
• What were my strong and weak points in teaching this lesson?
• Should I use alternative strategies in next class?
• Were the students attentive all the times?
• Why did student ‘x’ feel sleepy/bore?
• Did all the students take part in oral communication?

After having finished the lesson, the ESL teachers should often evaluate their teaching and make alternative decisions. Following are the examples of evaluative decisions made by two different ESL teachers:

Teacher A: Once I made a plan to teach ‘Instruction’ for the students of grade x. I even got my plan approved by the expert. But, after presentation of the lesson, students could not instruct to make an omelet. I, therefore, concluded that I applied wrong method of teaching and immediately decided to use alternative method in the next class.

Teacher B: In my grammar lesson, once, I was teaching voice. My specific objective was to make the students able to change a simple present active voice into passive. But, about ninety percent of the students, after the lesson was over, could not do it. I concluded that my presentation of lesson was faulty and practice was insufficient. I, therefore, decided to reteach the whole lesson next day.

Second language teachers need to establish a reflective habit which develops the skill of reviewing, noticing, interpreting and evaluating own teaching. Above all, it guides the teachers in planning and selecting. Such reflective habit will help the teachers to face various unpredictable classroom situations in future.

References

Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classroom (Jack C. Richards and Charles Lockhart)

Language Teaching Education (John Roberts)

A Course in Language Teaching (Penney Ur)

Mentor Course (Angi Malderez and Caroline Bodoczky)

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

Critical Pedagogy, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes


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.

Part 2 of Interview with Dr. Rajendra Bimal

Oral History Project

Praveen Kumar Yadav

This is the second part of an interview with Dr. Rajendra Bimal. In this part, Dr. Bimal speaks about key changes in the scenario of English in Nepal (teaching/learning/practices) and about English as an interdisciplinary field.

Please CLICK HERE.

Editorial

Editorial

The fields of English studies and English teaching demand inclusive readjustment today. Beyond the age-old concerns of originality and standard in learning and practice, issues like gender sensitive curriculum, glocalization of indigenous knowledge, inclusion of mother tongue in school education seem to question the authority of English as a major medium and resource for modern education. English teachers must be prepared to take up an increasing pressure of interdisciplinary exposure and networking across diverse geographical locations to cater to this need of readjustment in the days ahead.

The June issue of Nelta Choutari is expected to hint at this reality. We have included the insights of Dr. Rajendra Bimal, a Janakpur-based scholar, in our oral history project. Other posts, in addition to covering usual pedagogical issues, aim to present local experiences to mark an increasing sense of awareness to redefine our roles as teachers and practitioners of English.

In this issue we bring to you:

  1. “Interview with Dr. Rajendra Bimal” (Part One) – by  Praveen Kumar Yadav
  2. “Challenges in Assessing Learners’ Written Skills in Nepal – by Eak Prasad Duwadi
  3. “Learning Style Preferences” – by Khem Raj Joshi
  4. “Writing English in Nepali Way” – by Hem Raj Kafle
  5. “Gender Disparity: A Classroom Issue” – by Mandira Adhikari

Interview with Dr. Rajendra Bimal — by Praveen Kumar Yadav

Oral History Project

This is the first part of an interview with Dr. Rajendra Bimal, a veteran in language and literature from Janakpur.  Dr. Bimal earned doctorate degree in linguistics in three languages English, Nepali and Maithili. He has also been awarded with honorary PhD for his contribution in language, literature and culture of Maithili language from Maithili Vishwa Vidhyapeeth India. He is a linguist, litterateur, professor, poet, author, cultural activist and academician.

Dr. Bimal speaks on the following key points:

  1. His professional growth with English
  2. Memorable moments as an English teacher that have left lasting impression on him
  3. Key changes in the scenario of English in Nepal (teaching/learning/practices)
  4. English as an interdisciplinary field

The second part of this interview will be posted in the July Issue.

The Choutari team thank Mr. Praveen Kumar Yadav for preparing this issue of Oral History Project.

Please CLICK HERE

Challenges in Assessing Learners’ Written Skills in Nepal

Teacher's Experience/anecdotes

– Eak Prasad Duwadi

Being a non-native English as Foreign Language teacher, I have faced innumerable challenges in assessing my learners’ written skills. Out of those, learners’ disliking writing tasks is the most common one. I have seen more than a half of a class often has blank syndromes (causes temporary speechless). Moreover, there are many EFL practitioners and teachers who give marks according to the faces rather than the texts their students have produced.  I think we need some remedies to correct these challenges. Hence, if the teachers are committed and well-trained, many of these difficulties will be addressed.

Some students (mainly from elite and foreign institutions) can answer some questions based on their previous knowledge of extensive reading and exposures, but the capability of  students who come from the schools of rural areas where even medium of instruction of English is not English is quite low. Consequently, what they are able to produce is sentences with wrong spellings, structures and coherence. The courses that I have to teach mainly include the development of macro skills. In assessment tests, they are asked to write reports, proposals, formal letters and academic articles though it is almost impossible to fulfill in a single semester.  Another challenge is that most of teachers do not use analytical rubrics: in my university, for example, there are staffs in controller’s office who has pure sciences background.

I have gained many insights on assessment in this session. Agreeing with Linville (2011), I prefer analytical scoring to either holistic or primary trait scoring. It perhaps is more valid as learners’ performance is not only assessed by a particular aspect but also be evaluated with integrated aspects. I have also learnt from Cohen (1994) who presents a series of reading assessing strategies, their advantages as well as drawbacks says that reading involves a series of abilities: language proficiency, attitudes, motivation and background knowledge amongst others.

Therefore, reading is the must for writing activity too. Be it course books, or reference materials, if learners read it, then only they can reflect or create something new. It is up to us to start trying some or a combination of them in order to find the most suitable for our students and for teachers too. Reading relevant literatures about writing and taking part in the discussion, I have made several assumptions.

First, my foremost duty is to promote students’ achievement in writing. I often do this by carefully designing rubrics, giving clear instructions, monitoring students’ writing to appraise strengths and weaknesses, teaching specific skills and strategies in response to student needs, and giving careful way forward that, I believe, will underpin newly learned skills.

Second, my liability is to provide opportunities for writing and encourage the students who attempt to write. In my own experiences, that is possible only when I also do writing with them instead of just asking them to do so.

Third, I ought to evaluate the writing products according to fluency, contents, conventions, syntax, and vocabulary. Now I believe that designing assessments that confirm to all the five basic principles of assessment (practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity and washback) is no longer an impossible thing for me.

Fourth, before designing writing examination, I should think about what and why to assess although both are very tough questions. For writing, I also ought to select items according to my learners’ needs, levels and objectives of the assessment.

Fifth, because “Each genre of written text has its own set of governing rules and conventions” (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2010, p.225), I should assess not more than one or two variables at a time since assessing too many variables together may violet the principles of assessment by focusing on either micro or macro skills for that moment.

Sixth, I should shun non-relevant amendments but allow to peers’ correction i.e. correcting the mistakes all by students themselves to convey positive backwash. I ought to provide positive feedback rather than merely giving them grades to improve and motivate energetically.

Other trainee friends also have expressed similar challenges that I mentioned in the beginning, whilst communicating online.  I, of course, would like to share some ideas that will help them take new directions so as to assess their learners’ writing.

Assigning them varieties of tasks as Brown (2004) has suggested like imitative, intensive (controlled), responsive (connecting sentences into paragraph), extensive (implies all processes and strategies of writing) and adopting “analytical scoring, we have to facilitate them rather than dictating or dominating. As the axiom goes “like teacher like students”, we teachers have to be role models, first of all. Next thing is that they need to have wider exposures of reading, writing, traveling, etc. Moreover, we must love them unconditionally.

When we involve ourselves with them in writing, we indirectly provide the learners extrinsic motivation and engorgement. Later we first can read out our own, and ask them to comment on it. Gradually, even the shy ones turn up enthusiastically. Ultimately, teachers will be able to shun the situations shown in the beginning of unit 5: Assessing Reading and Writing page.

In Nepal writing is the skill which we (teachers) assess mostly. I think what we must remember is: Why are we assessing? and what are we assessing? I here agree with Brown (2004) while considering about students’ writing ability, we need to be clear about, “What is you want to test: handwriting ability? correct spelling? writing sentences that are grammatically correct? paragraph construction? logical development of main idea? All of these, and more are possible objectives” (p. 218). Writing, therefore, is not only a peculiar element. Actually, it is an integrated form of many other aspects.

 

References

Brown, H.D. (2004). Assessing writing. In Language assessment: principles and classroom practices. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Brown, H.D. and Abeywickrama, P. (2010).  Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices (2nd ed.).  White Plains, NY:  Pearson Education.

Cohen, A. (1994). Assessing reading comprehension. In Assessing language ability in the classroom. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Linville, H. (2011). Assessing Reading and Writing. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://blackboard.umbc.edu

Learning Style Preferences

Scholarly Article

– Khem Raj Joshi

Learners learn a second language in many ways. Each learner prefers different learning styles and techniques. S/he has a mix of learning styles but may find that s/he has a dominant style of learning. It means that learners receive information through their senses and prefer some senses to others in specific situations. Usually, they learn more effectively when they learn through their own initiatives. When their learning styles are matched with appropriate teaching styles, their motivation and achievement increase and are enhanced. Thus,   researchers   and educators try to discover their learners’ style preferences so that they can help them learn in accordance with their own preferred learning styles.

A good teacher is supposed to keep the following teaching credo in mind:

  • What I hear, I forget.
  • What I hear and see, I remember a little
  • What I hear, see and ask questions about or discuss with someone else, I begin to   understand
  • What I hear, see, discuss and do, I acquire knowledge and skill from.
  • What I teach to

From  the above framework  we can  infer that  a teacher’s  job is not only  to present information that learners need, but also to help them understand what  they are good at. Although it is very difficult to address everyone’s needs, it is important to meet as many needs as possible. To accomplish this, the teacher should assess learners’ styles and preferences.

Defining Learning Styles

Learning styles have been defined variously. Cornett (1983, p.9) defines learning styles   as “the overall patterns that give general direction to learning behavior”. In  the same way, Dunn and  Griggs  (1988) define learning style  as  “the biologically  and developmentally imposed  set of characteristics  that make   the  same  teaching  method wonderful for some and terrible for others” (p.3). From these definitions what is inferred is that learning styles are the general approaches that learners use in acquiring a new language or in learning any other subject. Learning styles are those educational conditions under which a student is most likely to learn. It implies that learning styles are not really concerned with what learners learn, but rather how they prefer to learn. Reid (1995) defines learning styles as “internally based characteristics of individuals for the intake or understanding of new information”. Reid clarifies that learning styles are the learner’s cognitive, affective and physiological factors that indicate how a learner perceives, interacts with and responds to the learning environment. On the basis of all the above definitions, we can say that a learning style is a learner’s consistent way of responding to and using stimuli in the context of learning. The learner may prefer one or more styles over others.

Types of Learning Styles

Scholars have divided learning styles into different types. In this article, I am   dealing with the most common types of learning styles:  visual, auditory and  kinesthetic, introverted and extroverted.

Visual Learners

Visual learners are those who “like to read and obtain a great deal from visual stimulation” (Oxford, 2003). For them, lectures, conversations and oral directions without any visual backup can be very confusing. They learn things best through seeing them and like to keep an eye on the teacher by sitting in the front of the class and watching the lecture closely.  Some   characteristics of visual learners are that they:

–         use  words and phrases  that evoke  visual  images;

–        learn by seeing and visualizing;

–        are good at spelling but forget names;

–        understand/like  charts;

–        are good  at sign language,

–        take  numerous detailed notes;

–        find something to watch if they are bored:

–        benefit  from illustrations and presentations  that use  colour;

–        are attracted to written or spoken language  rich in imagery;

–        find passive surroundings  ideal.

 Auditory Learners

Auditory learners are those who “enjoy and profit from unembellished lectures, conversations and oral directions” (Oxford, 2003). They are excited by classroom interactions in role-plays and similar activities. They learn best through hearing. Some characteristics of auditory learners are that they:

–        speak slowly and tend  to be natural listeners;

–        prefer things  explained to  them verbally rather than to  read  written information;

–        learn by listening and verbalizing;

–        notice sound effects in movies and enjoy music;

–        can’t  keep quiet for long periods  and are good in study   groups;

–        talk to themselves or others when bored,

Kinesthetic Learners

Kinesthetic learners are those who like movement and enjoy working with tangible objects. They prefer frequent move around the room. They learn through experiencing or doing things. Some characteristics of kinesthetic learners are that they:

–        learn by doing and solving real life  problems;

–        like hands-on approaches and learn  through trial and error;

–        are good at sports;

–        can’t  sit  still for long;

–        like lab work, adventure books, movies;

–        take  breaks when studying;

–        build models;

–        are involved in material arts, dance;

–        speak  with  their  hands and gestures;

–        enjoy field trips and tasks that  involve manipulating materials.

Introvert vs Extrovert Learners

Introvert learners are those who can do more work when they work alone. They learn best when they study alone. They think that it is fun to learn with classmates, but is hard to study with them. Some characteristics of introverts are that they:

–        are  energized by the inner  world  (what  they are  thinking);

–        prefer individual or one-on-one  games and activities.

–        are exhausted after working in a  large group;

–        tend  to keep silent and listen in a group;

–        want to understand  something well before they try it.

On the other hand, extrovert learners enjoy joining in on class discussions. They prefer group work to working in isolation. If they have to decide something, they ask other people for their opinions. If they understand a problem, they like to help other learners understand it too.

Some characteristics of extroverts are that they:

–        learn better when they work or study with others than by themselves;

–        meet  new people easily by jumping into conversations;

–        learn better in the classroom  than with a  private tutor.

 What Type of Learner Are You?

You can determine your learning style by looking over the characteristics of different types of learners. If one or more of the traits and characteristics of any type of learner sound familiar, you may have identified your learning style. Several   instruments have been devised to obtain learning style information from the learners. The first instrument widely known in second language acquisition was Reid’s Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire (PLSPQ), which was developed in 1984. Following this, another learning style, Instrument Style Analysis Survey (SAS) was developed by Oxford (1993). Later, Cohen, Oxford and Chi (2001) developed an improved version of SAS, i.e. Learning Style Survey (LSS). There are altogether eleven parts in the survey. The eleven parts are presented in a comprehensive way to help learners identify their own learning style. The framework is briefly presented below:

Part 1: Visual,  auditory and kinesthetic

Part 2: Extroverted vs. introverted

Part 3:  Random-intuitive vs. concrete sequential

Part 4:  Closure-oriented vs. open

Part 5: Global vs. particular

Part 6: Synthesizing  vs. analytic

Part 7: Sharpener  vs. leveler

Part 8: Deductive  vs. inductive

Part 9: Field  independent vs. field dependent

Part 10: Impulsive  vs. reflective

Part 11: Metaphoric  vs. literal

So, we can recognize our own learning styles using the Learning Style Survey which was designed to assess our general approach to learning.

Implications

Second language teachers can benefit by assessing the learning styles of their learners   because such assessment leads to greater understanding of styles. “The more teachers know about their learners’ style preferences, the more effectively they can orient their L2 instruction” (Oxford, 2003). Some learners might need instruction presented more visually while others might require more auditory, kinesthetic types of instruction. It is false to state that a single L2 methodology fits an entire class of learners having different stylistic preferences. If the teachers have adequate knowledge about their individual learners’ style preferences, they can employ a broad   instructional approach instead of choosing a specific instructional methodology. They could incorporate the things to be taught in accordance with their learners’ style preferences. If the learners have the knowledge of their own learning styles, it can be used to increase self- awareness about their strengths and weaknesses as learners. Their preferred styles guide the way they learn. Understanding their learning style is crucial to their personal growth and success. Thus, the major  implication is that an awareness of  individual   differences in learning  makes  the  ESL/ EFL teachers  more sensitive to their roles in  matching teaching and  learning styles to develop the  learners’  potentials in second language learning.

Concluding Remarks

There are different types of learners in a single classroom. If teachers know what their learners’ predominant learning styles are, they can incorporate multiple teaching methods. Identifying  learners’  style preferences  certainly facilitates  teaching  learning process but it does not  mean  that we should divide the  learners  into a set of categories  (i.e. visual, auditory, etc). The main aim is just to allocate a person on some point on a continuum. In other words, we cannot pigeonhole learners as they are capable of learning under any style, no matter what their individual preferences are.

References

Cohen, A, Oxford, R. and Chi, J.C. (2001). Learning  style  survey. Retrieved October 13, 2011, from http://www.carla.umn.edul/.

Cornett, C. (1983). What you should know about teaching and learning styles. Bloomington: IN.

Dunn, R. and Griggs, S. (1988). Learning styles: Quiet revolution in American schools. VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Oxford, R.L. (2003). Language learning styles and strategies: An overview. Retrieved April 13, 2010. From http://www.oomroom.ca/

Reid, J. (1995). Learning styles in the ESL/EFL classroom. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.

Stewart, K.L. and Felicetti, L.A. (1992). Learning styles of marketing majors. Educational Research Quarterly. 15 (2), 15-23.

 

Writing English in Nepali Way

Critical Outlook

– Hem Raj Kafle

Young English writers in Nepal are often confused. Their confusion comes from their seniors’ general advocacy of universality and standard in writings, both in language use and aesthetic productions. The advocacy, in other words, may be of writing English in the English way so that the ‘native’ reader finds it worth reading and appreciation. The confusion would mean there always is a tendency to dismiss the belief that Nepalis can claim some ownership of English by giving it a degree of Nepaliness through local themes and figures.

And this is something to ponder over. Some young writers may begin to wonder the logic of universality against their faith on originality and textual autonomy. They may try to locate their writings within the theoretical trends they are trained (or rather brainwashed) with. Their works may not appear unfit in the Romantic tradition for their touch of spontaneity; nor would they fail the New Critical, formalist, structuralist or poststructuralist/postmodernist ‘standards’ for their autonomy as texts. They would only come low in the strict (neo)classical norms of didacticism, decorum, sophistication and sublimity which the English using elders of Nepal passionately adhere to.

But would that matter much? To many new generation writers, writing in English has all the way been a search for identity and space among the existing Nepali English writers. The ‘established’ writers appear to belong to one or other of the following groups. First, there are literary writers — inspired professors and aspiring young thinkers. The second group comprises the academic and professional circle of researchers and textbook writers/ compilers.  The third includes the commercial group — the ‘writers’ of guides and guess papers, probably the most ‘academically’ sought-after people regardless of the quality of things they launch in the market. The fourth consists of independent contributors of newspapers and magazines, ‘widely’ read and usually forgotten. Many young writers, however, find themselves in the margin of any one the above groups though they may have the aspiration to belong to at least one or all.

The literary writers in English form a smaller group, probably for the same old reason that everybody does not become a poet or a writer of fiction. This group may occasionally meet and make reflections on the types of standard and gravity its individual members (should) maintain in their creations. In such cases, the inspired elders may have all the norms and standards to inculcate on the aspiring young people. One typical characteristic of such reflections, most of the times, is the adherence to either British or American way of thinking, writing and critiquing though from the margin the theoretically inspired young lot may be murmuring the upsurge of postmodernist thoughts and implications.

To put it other way, the (neo)classical ways often confuse the connoisseurs of contemporary English. To study and think in English today almost means to study and think anything irrespective of standards. At an age when postmodernism instructs the blurring of boundaries and standards and shows possibilities of alternative locations, new writers and critics are found at war with the discourse of decorum and didacticism. Our academia has already led the new generation towards study of margins and alternatives with such disciplines as non-Western studies, postcolonial studies and minority studies among others. The English Departments of Kathmandu are already full of ‘discourses’ on alternative literature including Nepali literature(s) in English. So, when the talk of western standards becomes vociferous at times, the attempts to study alternatives appear ironical and therefore problematic.

The old sense of originality is ambiguous. Whose originality? Is it the originality springing from writers’ consciences and contexts, or the one supposedly instilled by old norms and paradigms? Or is it the tendency to westernize thoughts at all costs?  When the writers of non-western locations (say postcolonial thinkers) have already used English as a tool to retort western discourses through realism and indigenousness, what are we doing by advocating western ways most of the times? Theory readers would call it a neocolonial tendency, a misfit for a time when English is no longer the language of a particular nation.

Authenticity is an equally problematic notion. Can there not be a specific way of using English in Nepal? We judge our English either in American or British standards, sometimes disregarding the adaptability of our native images and allusions into this ‘medium’. English, by history, is one of the most acquisitive languages and its power lies in being able to belong to wherever it travels. Nepali English writers need not all the time write for the native readers unless required by a context. Our main intention to write in English is probably not to look like English, but to tell the international readers how much we represent ourselves in this medium. It is also to popularize Nepaliness through a common connecting language. Emphasizing authenticity in western paradigms is therefore pedantic. If not, it is the resistance to originality.

There have always been talks of some kind of Nepali English from some energetic and inspired people, but Nepali English users are yet to see how it looks and sounds. The fact is the most strident advocates of Nepali English are usually the most unappreciative sticklers to classicism. Alternatively, a palatable course for Nepali English writers would be to respect the eclecticism and diversity in the content and readership of English. Can we do away with the changes, when English itself is more a concept, a theory and an encompassing discipline than a mere lingua franca, a confined category? Perhaps we are in need of more thoughts and interactions between the old and new generations. The time is to release oneself from the tendency of waving English and American flags from the location of our native academia. The time is rather to survey the stock of Nepali writings in English — to see whither we are moving, and which course is more appropriate for us in the day ahead.

[Updated from, “Nepali English: Confusions and Directions,” The Kathmandu  Post 23 Sept. 2007]

Gender Disparity: A Classroom Issue

Miscellaneous

– Mandira Adhikari

 

Gender Disparity

Gender disparity means not having equality in terms of gender, either in language use, equal participation in educational program or in the form of textbook or curriculum itself. We can find disparity in different aspects and it is most commonly found in classroom interaction. Similarly, various researches have shown that we can find gender biasness even in the interaction between the teachers and the students. As Freeman and Mcelhynny, (cited in Mckay & Hornberger, 2009) put, especially in teacher fronted classes, the amount of interaction between girls and boys can be defined by the teacher because he/she is the one who defines students’ role and can change the dynamics in the classroom. Thus we can say that the teacher is a person who can provide identity of the students inside the classroom. Wardhaugh (2008) says, gender is a key component of identity (p.316) and if the teachers are focused in the language of a group, another group is left out. Focusing on the place of women in society, Lakoff ( 1973) says “ in every aspect of life a woman is identified in terms of the men she relates to but the opposite isn’t true of men as they act in the world as autonomous individuals but women are only ‘John’s wife’ or ‘Harry’s girlfriend’.  Thus, women’s social identity believed to be is related with that of the men to a large extent.

In the area of applied linguistics, we can find gender disparity because of the use of sexist language. The term ‘sexist language’ means the use of language focusing to a certain gender and not indicating to the other gender. Holmes (2008) says, “Sexist language is one example of the way a culture or society conveys its values from one group to another and from one generation to the next” (p. 317). Thus, we can find the trend of repeating the same sexist language generation to generation as a process and the reason behind it is the use of such sexist language. She further says that language conveys our attitudes and sexist attitudes stereotype a person according to gender rather than judging on individual merits which encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men.  In this way, she has clearly mentioned why the use of stereotyped language helps to develop negative attitudes to the particular gender and if we are habituated to using such language, we happen to use it regularly because we have already developed our attitudes with the help of such language.

Similarly, focusing more on the user of the language, Wardhaugh (2008) asserts that the disparity and the use of sexist language depend on a person. The Chinese, Japanese, Persian and Turkish do not make the kinds of gender distinctions English makes through its pronouns but it is difficult to claim that males who speak those languages are less sexist than males who speak English. So, a teacher using such language in the classroom must be aware.

By and large, the issue of gender is a global issue and can be found discussed in various parts of the world and even in our Nepalese context. Let’s analyze our own context regarding gender disparity.

Gender Disparity in School

School is a place where the learners come from various social backgrounds carrying their own social identities. Freeman and Mcelhinny (cited in Mckay & Hornberger 2009) suggest that in school children come to understand their social identity relative to each other and relative to the institution. They further say that although schools are not only responsible for teaching students their gender-differentiated social roles, they often reinforce the subordinate role of girls and humans through curricular choices or classroom organizations that exclude, denigrate and/or stereotype them.  Thus, we can say that the source of gender disparity lies in the curriculum and it further comes as a reading material which helps learners(especially girls or females) to stereotype them.

Gender Disparity in Textbooks

Various researches have shown that there is imbalance of using language in terms of gender, especially in textbook.  Fatemi, Pishgham & Hidarian (2011) conducted a research on gender delineation in high school textbooks and pre-university ELT textbooks and revealed a clear gender imbalance, both in text and illustrations in favor of males. Similarly, Hartman and Judd (1978) reviewed a number of textbooks for the purpose of assessing the image of women and men that they present to the student and found out that women suffered most obviously from low visibility and in most cases male referents heavily out- numbered the female.

I found through a study that in terms of using language inside the classroom or in different books articles, there is biasness. I tried to analyze the primary level textbooks used in Nepalese schools. I prepared a checklist to analyze whether the use of language of those textbook is biased or not. I selected a book entitled Delights a Multi-genre Reading Course in English’ by Deepa Shakya, Bunu Dhungana and Nina Amarasinge to analyze whether the writers are concerned about the matter of gender or not.

The cover page of the book has altogether four pictures where an adult male can be seen with a boy and an adult female can be seen with a girl. There is the involvement of both male and female gender in the picture and the book isn’t biased in terms of picture in cover page. I then looked at both pictorial and verbal aspects of the book’s contents. In pictorial part, I analyzed the pictures using two categories:

  1. Adult (male or female)
  2. Child (boy or girl)

I analyzed the content part in three different categories:

  1. Title
  2. Main characters refer to male or female
  3. Authors (male or female)

The writers have used 11 pictures of male adults and 3 pictures of female adults, which clearly shows the disparity in using pictures in the textbook. Similarly, we can find altogether 8 pictures of boys and 7 pictures of the girl. In this way the book is biased in terms of gender in pictorial part.

In the verbal part, the author of the first lesson isn’t mentioned but it has got male main character. The author is a male in unit two and the picture of a boy clearly helps us to guess that the main character of this unit is male. Third chapter is concerned with nature thus; the main characters are both. The Fourth chapter is also devoted to male. The fifth chapter has both characters and is written by a female author. Similarly, the sixth chapter contains the picture of a male and is by a male author. The content choice therefore shows a disparity in consideration of gender. It implies that the sense of masculinity is dominant in the text book while the space for feminine gender is literally underestimated and limited.

Concluding Remarks

The analysis of primary level textbook has revealed a clear gender imbalance both in the texts and illustrations in favor of males. This type of imbalance is the prominent factor which must be considered in every policy and publication to reflect equality between males and females.

A shift towards the way of creating the equality among the genders in education ensures the social and individual confidence particularly in female students. This will help in the social uplift of females in the future. So, curriculum planners should broaden their view towards gender roles and stereotypes. This equally applies to text book writers, who I believe, should be careful while dealing with gender in their textbooks.

 [Mandira Adhikari is a Masters in ELT scholar at Kathmandu University]

 

References

Fatemi, A. H., Pishghadam, R., Heidarian, Z. (2011) Gender delineation in high school and pre- university elt textbooks: a criterian- oriented approach to text. The Iranian EFL Journal, 7 (3).

Hartman, P.L.,Judd, E.L.(1978) Sexism and TSOL materials. TESOL QUARTELY, 12 (4).

Holmes, J. (2008). An ntroduction to sociolinguistics. Longman: Pearson.

Lakoff, R. (1973). Language in society. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mckay, S. & Hornberger, N. (2009). Sociolinguistics and language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wardhaugh, R. (2008). An introduction to sociolinguistics. London: Blackwell

Editorial

Editorial

BEFRIENDING GRAMMAR

 

Thanks to language, man became man.

 Descrates

It is needless to reiterate that we are human beings for the reason that we are gifted with the faculty of language. Aldous Huxley joined Descrates when he made even a stronger claim that ‘deprived of language we should be as dogs and monkeys’. True, hundred percent true!  Words fall short to illuminate the value of language in human life.  However, a million dollar question is “what is something that makes a language?”, What is something that distinguishes language from other communications?   Of course, there are several defining features of language but perhaps most importantly, human communication is set apart from rest of the communications because language has the attribute of grammar which others do not. The enormous complexity in language also leads us to look for grammar.  Thus, men are not merely homo loquens but also homo grammaticus to tag along with Frank Plamer.

Arguably, grammar (and its instruction) is as old as human language.  Though the history of written grammar is traced back to fourth century in the East (India) and even later fifth century in the West (Greece), some grammar plausibly must have existed in oral tradition of language before. This existence of grammar implies the existence of grammar instruction in some way. To say more explicitly, we have been doing grammar in one way or other since the origin of language. And perhaps, we will not be able to imagine language without grammar any time in future.   Despite criticisms against its tyranny in language learning, grammar continues to survive either implicitly or explicitly. We have heard and read controversies for and against grammar instruction but the fact is that every language teacher is a grammar teacher. Whether a language teacher teaches different skills or aspects or various genres of literature, grammar is inherent. It is because language is language because of its grammar.   If so, then a sensible question is:  “how can we befriend grammar?”  Befriending grammar implies befriending changes in grammar. Changes in grammar are shaped by changes in language which is also called a living phenomenon. If the grammar of a language does not proceed in consonance with changes in language, the grammar can/should be declared dead. Similarly, innovations in grammar pedagogy have deconstructed our perceptions and practices both. Thus befriending grammar also requires us to be familiar with the issues and directions in grammar instruction both home and abroad. Some of the current issues in grammar instruction worldwide as Rod Ellis puts are: Should we teach grammar, or should we simply create the conditions by which learners learn naturally? What grammar should we teach? When should we teach grammar? Is it best to teach grammar when learners first start to learn an L2 or to wait until later when learners have already acquired some linguistic competence? Should grammar instruction be massed (i.e., the available teaching time be concentrated into a short period) or distributed (i.e., the available teaching time spread over a longer period)? Should grammar instruction be intensive or extensive? Is there any value in teaching explicit grammatical knowledge? Is there a best way to teach grammar for implicit knowledge? Should grammar be taught in separate lessons or integrated into communicative activities? These issues demand every grammar teacher to be alert and think critically over them.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Nepalese ELT has ever made an effort to adopt and adapt the global trends. The reason is Nepalese ELT does not have its own research foundation. Though some of the issues in grammar instruction can be addressed with the insights from mainstream ELT, several local issues seem to be cropping up and demanding course desiginers, experts and practitioners to think afresh, to initiate research to diagnose the gaps and to reveal new directions in order to reshape it. For instance, nativisation of English in Nepal has led us think in a new way on whether we should continue with grammar of British English, American English or we should have our own grammar of Nepalese English. We are already familiar with the fact that many discussions have taken place to justify new English in Nepal and to build a corpus for it. Likewise, with the privitazation of education, English grammar writers in Nepal are mushrooming but the quality of their products can be questioned on several grounds. Grammars based on borrowed materials and devoid of any attention towards English and Nepalese English corpus can in no way expose language learners with everyday English. Vertical course designing trend also poses another problem in grammar instruction. We gradually seem to be realising that teaching grammar in isolation does not fetch more and therefore it is the time we moved towards discourse grammar of English.

In this May issue of NELTA Choutari, through an interview and two reflective articles, an attempt has been made to inform the ELT practitioners with the issues in grammar instruction and also some insights and expertise to enlighten their perspectives and  practices both.

Though this issue lays its efforts to penetrate into the issues of grammar instruction in Nepalese ELT, we serve you with the following diverse contents:

  1. What, Why And How of Doing Grammar?  An Interview with Dr. Bal Mukunda Bhandari
  2. Gaps In The Expectations Of Course Designers, Teachers And Students –Bal Ram Adhikari
  3. Almost Every Sentence Has A Tense!!!–Madhu Neupane
  4. Examining Examinations–Pavan Kumar Sah
  5.  The Training And Trainees!: A Reflective Report On Training In Birgunj-Suresh Shrestha

We are sure that while you go through the aforementioned writings, you will find the issues thorny, creating controversies and stimulating discussions. Please feel free to share your observations, no matter sweet or sour.

Sajan Kumar 

Editor

May Issue, NELTA Choutari

 

What, Why and How of Doing Grammar? An Interview with Dr. Bal Mukunda Bhandari

Interview


There is no denying that a language is language because of its grammar. Whenever there is a question of teaching and learning of a language, grammar stands as the most focal element there. In the context of Nepal, grammar instruction has ever been a vital element of English language teaching and learning both in schools and colleges.  Particularly, for school levels, many English grammars are written by Nepali authors, authenticity of which perhaps can be questioned in many ways.  These grammars seem to have a lasting influence on English language learning and teaching ahead in their life. Likewise, there are a number of misconceptions and issues with regard to what grammar is in actuality, why our students need to be taught grammar and how it can be instructed more effectively. In this interview with Dr. Bal Mukunda Bhandari, who has been involved in grammar instructions for more than two decades, an attempt has been made to penetrate into the issues regarding principles and practices in teaching grammar and to seek his insights to help address the issues.

About the Interviewee

Dr. Bal Mukunda Bhandari, an Associate Professor in the Department of English Education, Tribhuvan University has been involved in Nepalese ELT for about two decades. Dr. Bhandari has published more than a dozen of books on ELT and linguistics. He is also one of the authors of Lotus English Series, school level textbooks for English. Currently, he is the Executive Director of Centre for International Relations, Tribhuvan University.  

 Do you think grammar is necessary to teach at all in order to ensure teaching and learning of a language? There are many who go for interdisciplinary approach to teaching language where grammar instruction is not explicit.  What is your perception?

Human beings are capable of speaking and understanding language. They can use utterances to refer to a thing, state or action. The sounds they produce with a physiological process are shaped to form an intended word or sentence. They have a level of knowledge of the language that they speak. This knowledge helps associate the human sounds to extra-linguistic world. This is a preprogrammed knowledge imprinted in the human mind. This is the knowledge which in the world of linguistics is called grammar.

A second/foreign language is taught at least for two reasons. It is taught as an end to fulfill the immediate goals. For example, someone is going to work in an English speaking country as a waiter, or a baby-sitter or some people may need English in Nepal so that they can guide tourists, they can run a curio shop, they want jobs in the English speaking countries. In such cases, the learners need to learn English as a language, a means of communication. They don’t need the metalanguage. They don’t need the rules that underlie a language e.g. English. In many countries including Nepal English is taught in schools and colleges as a subject (as opposed to language) of an academic grade or degree. When the main focus is to introduce lexis and grammar (as a device of making sentences), the tests and grades matter a lot.

We have been applying two completely different approaches of English education in Nepal. In an approach we have courses on grammar from primary to tertiary level (post graduate level). A significant portion of the syllabus is occupied by grammar. In another approach we teach English through contents such as essays, conversations, interviews, short stories, poems, plays and novels. Students learn English mainly through reading, and their knowledge is tested through writing. There is neither grammar lesson in the class nor there are questions to test any specific grammar points. On completion of their education both the products are sent to perform the same function. No difference in the proficiency of language or in their performance has been noticed. Those who have undergone grammar course can’t exhibit better performance in grammar itself. This shows that grammar teaching in a language class has no ground support.

It is important to keep in mind that there is a strong relationship between grammar and vocabulary. Lexical items inherently posses some property. For example, no NP follows the word ‘die’ whereas an NP should necessarily follow the word ‘kill’ and ‘murder’. At the same time the words suggest that the NP that follows ‘kill’ has to be an animate but it should be human NP to follow ‘murder’.

The value of grammar instruction has been debatable since the beginning of teaching modern language as a foreign language. Everyone involved in teaching and learning has an opinion for or against grammar teaching. Some of them opine that a good knowledge of grammar is necessary if the learners’ have to use the language correctly. While others think grammar instruction is not necessary at all. They think it hampers language acquisition and slows down the fluency.

In the fields of second language acquisition earlier research findings (when communicative language teaching was in fashion) showed that grammar had very little to do in language teaching but recent research findings show that grammar has a role but they still do not accept direct grammar teaching. Grammar instruction may be used as a basis in some practice activity or sometimes as consciousness raising device, not as a device to learn to use a language.

Some say grammar incorporates only morphology and syntax but others tend to think that grammar should incorporate all the levels of language. In the broadest sense of the term, what a grammar is in actuality? On What conditions can we say that a particular sentence is grammatical?

Let us consider the following definition of grammar.

Grammar is the study and description of a language in terms of either syntax and morphology alone or these together with aspects of phonology, orthography, semantics and pragmatics. (The Oxford Companion to the English Language).

In past grammar was considered the art of speaking and writing. The word grammar would include the study of everything related to language. Structuralists separated the levels of language and defined grammar as the level between phonology and semantics so it meant the study of rules in a language for changing the form of the words and combining them in to sentences. However, linguists today treat grammar same as linguistics which is sometimes referred to as a linguistic grammar. Therefore to be a sentence grammatical it should be phonologically (in speech), orthographically (in writing), morphologically, syntactically, semantically and also pragmatically acceptable.

 There are two ways of teaching grammar: deductively and inductively. Most observations show that Nepalese teachers find deductive method to be more comfortable to instruct language with. Why is it so? Which method do you recommend and why?

I don’t label any method ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Both the methods have advantages and disadvantages. For example, the rules and explanations help students understand what is being taught. It respects the creative and generative power of human mind. It introduces bits of language in a systematic and gradual manner. Use of mother tongue makes the environment comfortable for teacher and students. On the other hand inductive method accepts the principle of learning to communicate through communication. It respects the learner as subject (as opposed object in deductive method). In learning a language, we’ll have two goals understanding about the language and learning the language. Deductive method caters for the first goal while inductive method caters for the second one.

I agree with your observation that most English classes in Nepal, we find deductive  (an imperfect  deductive) method. This is because the teachers who have been given the tag ‘trained’ have never got opportunity to undergo, observe or practice inductive classes. The teacher education institutions provide them with the theory of methods – no classroom application. On the other hand inductive method require good command in English, sufficient resources and materials. The attitude of making students ‘understand’ is the chief barrier which stops teachers using inductive method. In fact, language teacher’s job is to make students learn the language.

Application of a method depends on many factors. So the teacher should be capable of analyzing them. Choice of a method depends upon many factors. It is the teacher whose job is to analyze the factors governing the context and choose an appropriate methodology instead of a ‘method’.

Do you think linguistic grammar is any worth for teacher? How do you think a linguistic grammar and a pedagogic grammar interact with each other?

Linguistic grammar, also known as theoretical grammar, is the systematic description of language usually not concentrating on a particular language. It provides a language teacher with the apparatuses to investigate the features of the given language. Pedagogical grammars on the other hand are intended chiefly for classroom use under the guidance of teacher. They may contain rules, exercises, vocabulary lists, dialogues, reading passages and writing activities. There are many good teachers who have not studied linguistic grammar. However, the study of linguistic grammar makes them better. The source of pedagogical grammar is linguistic grammar. For a language teacher linguistic grammar is resource and pedagogical grammar is the teaching material.

Many English grammars written in Nepal are in vogue in both private and public schools of Nepal. How authentic do you find them in terms of contemporariness?  Do they reflect everyday English? How do you think this issue can be addressed? Do not you think that it is important to base grammar on corpus?

Privatization in education is thriving in Nepal. It has opened avenues of opportunities for the people of different sectors. As a result textbooks (pedagogical grammars) of English have come out in abundant number. Few years ago books were produced in Nepal because they were needed, but now books are produced as publishers and ‘writers’ need them. Because of this students and novice teachers are misguided, there is also unhealthy competition. Most of the grammars produced in Nepal are based on (i.e., borrowed materials from) traditional grammars of 19th and early 20th centuries. They have no materials of present day English.

Most grammars now in Britain and America are corpus-based which teach learners the real contemporary English. Languages keep on changing. It is natural and regular process. All the speakers of a language have internalized grammar. They do not follow grammar books but the grammar books have to follow the speakers.

  Do not you think that nativization of English or the birth of local varieties of English has created a big controversy over what is acceptable and what is not? Do you think that different varieties should have different grammar books to describe and explain different grammars? Do you recommend that English grammar for Nepal should base on Nepalese English?

English speaking people from England went to America, Canada, Australia and other countries where their English gradually deviated from the original one, and thus grew many varieties viz. American English, Canadian English, Australian English as so on. Varieties also appeared in the countries where English is taught as a foreign or second language. The English found in Nepal has its own characteristics. So it is also a non-native variety of English. The native varieties are intelligible to each other, but the nonnative varieties are more deviated. A language is what its native speakers speak and what they accept. The idea of writing grammars of different varieties can be done as linguistic research but not for pedagogical purpose. English is not a lingua franca in Nepal, nor a second language. The purpose of teaching a foreign language is to enable the learners to communicate with its native speakers. So the issue/idea of writing English grammar for Nepal based on Nepalese variety of English is illogical and worthless.

 Do you have any other observations to share on teaching of English grammar in Nepal?

In my observation, I have found that most teachers teach the structures in the name of grammar being isolated from the functional aspect of language. They give rule of form (for example, how a tense is formed) and some common examples missing the rule of meaning (for example, how, when and where a tense is used) and activities of language use.

Whoever observes English language classes in Nepal, very quickly recommends that the teachers should be trained despite the fact that almost all the teachers are trained either from a university (mainly from Tribhuvan University) or the ministry of education. The teachers often have to prove their training by showing their certificate. Once a government official rightly announced, “We have given training certificate to 98% teachers”. This situation very easily indicates the inefficiency of teacher education in Nepal. It has to be improved, and we, teacher educators, should take initiative.

Thank you so much for your contribution. 

Gaps in the Expectations of Course Designers, Teachers and Students

Critical Outlook

 

Bal Ram Adhikari

Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tahachal

 

 

Knowledge gap and expectation gap

A gap in our knowledge is natural. It is the gap that makes the process of learning inevitable, our communication meaningful, and living purposeful. In teaching, it is the knowledge gap that brings the teacher and students together in a specific world of sharing and caring. It makes cooperation and interdependence mandatory between them when both the parties strive for narrowing it down. However, before making concerted efforts in bridging the knowledge gap via teaching , we should be aware of another type of gap lying at the deeper level— the gap in the interpretation of the intension, purpose and expectation of the parties involved.  The gap of the second type results from our attempts to communicate knowledge without establishing a common ground for understanding. Successful communication of knowledge cannot take place unless the involved parties have understood the purpose of communicating that knowledge and the expectations that bring them together.  Against this backdrop, I would like to touch upon my own experience of teaching English grammar course entitled “English Grammar for Teachers” prescribed by Tribhuvan University for the master’s level students. Here I would like to shed light on the nature of the gap in expectations of the different parties who are directly involved in the production, communication and consumption of the course.

The major parties involved in the communication of grammar knowledge are course designers, teachers, students and examiners.  At the deeper level, the threads of communication among these parties are intricately interwoven. However, at the surface level we can specify who communicates what to whom where and how. In our context, this communication is almost one-way. In this monologic communication one party communicates to the other without establishing a sufficient ground for understanding each other’s purpose and aspirations.   Regarding this, I would like to refer to a fundamental question: Who wants what? raised by Chalker (1994) in designing and implementing an appropriate pedagogical grammar. The effectiveness of a course depends largely on how we answer this question.

Course designers and teachers

What do course designers want?   What do teachers want?

Course designers are the major architect of the course. They decide not only what to teach, but also how to teach and how to assess what has been taught and learned.  In our context, they are the people who assume the role of experts and communicate vertically with the teachers who they think are the people to translate their expertise and expectations into practice in the classroom.  Whenever any problem arises during the implementation of the course, the common practice is to come up with the conclusion that the teachers lack adequate knowledge in the subject matter and teaching methodology. On other hand, the teachers criticize the course designers for not taking into account of their views, and situational and institutional constraints. Students criticize both course designers and teachers for demanding too much from them. Such a culture of blame has become commonplace in the Nepalese context, and it is mainly because there is lack of communication among the stakeholders during decision-making process, before launching, during and after the implementation of the course.  The expectations of different parties are often taken for granted.

What is missing?

Knowledge of subject matter and classroom pedagogy are necessary, but not sufficient for the successful implementation of a new course.  The questions are: Have the course designers taken into account of classroom reality by involving the teachers in the decision making process?  Have both the parties shared what they expect from the course? Did both the parties have enough understanding of what they were going to achieve from the course and how? In fact, “these are the questions of negotiation”, and “typically, not enough time is spent on these kinds of questions” (Dragger, Clintok and Moffit, p. 8, 2000).  The lack of negotiation has caused a rift between what course designers want and what teachers want.

Based on the cursory observation of the course content and methodology (Adhikari, 2012), what the syllabus designers seem to communicate to the teachers is that the course is:

  1. detailed, comprehensive and exhaustive ( for it deals with four broad areas of grammar teaching: Basic Concepts of Grammar, Grammar in Practice, Grammar and the Language Teacher, Pedagogical Grammar),
  2. contemporary and in line with the recent research finding and practice of  grammar teaching (i.e. the course deals with task-based language teaching, lexical approach, discourse-based approach, processing-instruction, etc. ),
  3. pedagogical and practical.

In terms of classroom pedagogy, the designers expect the teachers to adopt the following procedures:

  1. Have students read the lesson before they come to the class or have them read in groups.
  2. Give reasons not rules.
  3. Engage students in problem-solving activities.
  4. Have them prepare and present lesson plans (maybe as mini-project work).

What have we teachers made of the course?

What follows is based on my own experience as teacher, and personal communication with the grammar teachers  like me who I came across during my visit to some of the TU campuses in an out of  the Kathmandu Valley:

  1. The course is lengthy. I do agree with the complaint that the course is lengthy. At the end of every session I have the feeling that I am unable to go into the depth of the course. Every year I manage to scrape through it with my epilogue “Yeah, I somehow completed the course.”
  2. The course is difficult to teach. Obliviously, a course becomes difficult to handle for want of sufficient orientation, group discussion, workshop, and training. Except of the one-day course dissemination program that took place once during the formal launching of the course, the concerned authority has not organized any formal/informal programs for teachers and course designers so far.
  3. The course is not well-contextualized. By whom and where the course materials were produced? It is a crucial question.  The course is universalist in its approach. The foreign books are adopted as course materials without taking into account of what Kumaravadivelu (2001) has to say about the parameters of an appropriate pedagogy: the parameter of particularity, practicality and possibility. There is no single academic work prescribed as a reading material that deals with our local/national context. Take for example, the problems that ESL/EFL students face while learning English grammar. All the evidence discussed in the textbook “The Teacher’s Grammar of English” (2009) are from Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, Farsi and French speakers learning English. These decontextualied examples are very difficult to understand for teachers, let alone their students. Even if understood, what could be their relevance to our context?    The course designers have not justified why we need to discuss with our students the firstlanguage-specific problems faced by the speakers of the languages other than those spoken in our context. Nor are the teachers provided with practical guidelines for contextualising the universalist  materials to fit the local Nepalese contexts.

What do teachers want? What do students want?

There is another layer of gap that I have experienced in my grammar class. To align myself to what the course expects me to do in the classroom while communicating grammar knowledge to my students, I have tried to follow the procedures mentioned in the course— the procedure of  discovery-oriented and collaborative. But what I often feel is the resistance from my students by remaining absent or showing their low involvement in the classroom activity. I often have the feeling that I have failed to communicate my agenda to my students and I have failed to understand their agenda.

At the end of the class, I tell them what the coming topic will be and how it will be discussed. If the topic is theory-based, the next class will see the increase in the number of students. Most of them turn up with the prospect of listening to lecture and getting notes and summary.  If the topic is practice-oriented and the mode of learning is interactive, the number of students thins out. During the class, some students show  ‘open opposition’ to use Holliday’s (2010) term, by murmuring or not working out the solution or not showing keen interest in collaboration and sharing.  As I read the face of my students, some of them seem to have the feeling of not learning anything new as they find their notebooks without any notes or summary.

My teaching agenda:

  1. How to make their learning discovery-oriented and collaborative   so that they can work out the rules for themselves from the available linguistic evidence. As it is widely believed that such learning is meaningful and memorable. If so, it will certainly help them secure better marks in the examination.
  2. How to help them read the theoretical portions from the prescribed reading materials under my guidance and supervision. I want them to read extensively for general understanding of the text.
  3. How to help them envisage the wider application of their knowledge of English grammar to other fields such as copy editing, translation and creative/free and academic writing.
  4. How to take them out from the confinement of examination.

Let me present my students’ agenda that they have expressed in and out of the classroom verbally or through their behavior:

  1. How to pass examination.
  2. The most frequently asked questions are: Sir, what types of question are asked from this unit?

Sir, is this topic important? No questions were asked from it in the previous exams.

  1. How to get notes for the theory portion from the teacher.
  2. How to get ready-made answers and grammar rules for the problems given in the textbook.

Who should read the text for whom?

I want my students to read the assigned chapter before they come to the class. They get the following handout before I make formal entry into the course “The Teacher’s Grammar of English”:

Classroom procedures

  1. To succeed in class and examination both, you should have a good command of the material presented in the first section.
  2. Read the first section before you come to class.
  3. Your teacher begins each class going over the exercises. You are expected to answer the questions given in each chapter. The methodology will be “Give Reasons, not Rules”.
  4. From the second section of the chapter, your teacher picks out some typical errors made by the learners with different L1s. He will briefly discuss the possible causes of these errors and engage you in a short discussion of whether these errors should be addressed through pedagogical intervention.
  5. Your teacher will summarize the first section relating it to the second and third sections, which will be the reading assignment for the next class.
  6. The next class begins with problems and teaching suggestions. While reading the problem section at home, examine the types of errors and explore their causes as proposed by the writer. So far as the suggestion for teaching is concerned, examine and evaluate the activities proposed and discuss your ideas with your friends in groups.

Very few (sometimes not more than two or three out of forty or so) students do home reading. This makes the discussion of salient points from the chapter challenging and sometimes waste of time, for  my communication with the students turns out to be monologic, not dialogic. Contrary to my expectation, my students want me to read the text and summarize it for them. On the other hand, they may find what I want from them being contrary to their expectations.

The challenge that I have been facing is how to wean my students from dependency on me and how I can become progressively unnecessary for them. Despite my attempt to act as a guide to walk on their side (as the syllabus designers want me to do), my students’ expectations push me back to take up the traditional role of the teacher as a sage preaching from the stage.

The expectation gap has widened the gap in the communication of knowledge. So it is imperative that the concerned parties negotiate with each other about their expectations from the course. The course designers should sit with the teachers to find out how they have taken the course.  Also, the teachers should think of possible ways of bridging the gap between their teaching agenda and students’ learning agenda.

References

Adhikari, B.R. (2012).  English grammar: Views of student teachers

and  communication of grammar knowledge to their students. An unpublished mini-research. UGC.

Chalker, S. (1994). Pedagogic grammar: Principles and problems. In Bygate, M., Tonkyn, A. and Williams, E. (Eds.) Grammar and the language teacher (pp. 31-44). UK: Prentice Hall.

Cowan, R. (2009). The teacher’s grammar of English. Cambridge: CUP.

Curriculum Development Center (CDC). (2009). English grammar for teachers. Kirtipur: Tribhuvan University.

 Dragger, N.,  McClintok, E. & Moffit, M. ( 2000). Negotiating health development: A guide for practitioners. Conflict Management Group & World Health Organization.

Holliday, A. (2010). Appropriate methodology and social context. Cambride: CUP.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). Towards post-method pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, vol. 35, No. 4. 537-560.

Almost Every Sentence Has a Tense!!!

Native Perspective


 

Madhu Neupane

Tribhuvan University

 

Even after spending 12 long years of my time in ELT, I am still puzzled why ‘tense’ always makes our students tensed. Even students in higher level encounter difficulty in distinguishing between simple past and past perfect not only in terms of structure but also in terms of their meanings and use. Despite our rigorous efforts, students keep on committing errors while using tense. Additionally, they seem to have developed an impression that grammar is merely for the sake of grammar and it has nothing do with the skills of language such as reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Ask students the rules for tense, most of them can easily mention since they have parroted the Nepalised mathematics like formula of each tense. Simple present tense is: Subject+V1/V5+Object and so on for others. Provide them with a sentence and ask them to transform it into twelve tenses, most of them can effortlessly do that.  Provide them with a sentence and ask to change the sentence as indicated in the bracket, they can still do that. Is there anything that they cannot do then with tense? Lots of things! Indeed!! They cannot appropriately use the tenses that they have learnt. They cannot solve the question if it asks them to put verbs in correct form in a given context. One of my students once asked me, “Ma’am, if we are asked to put verbs in correct form (that is tense), are we given the name of the tense that we need to use?” I said, “Usually not”. Then she said, “How can we know then which tense is to be used?” Then I said, “If you know tense, then you know which tense is to be used in which situation”. I do not know whether my answer satisfied the student or not but it did not convice me. This incident let me to think of the ways of making ‘tense’ less tense to my students.

My inference was that this situation might have arisen maybe because of the ways that we adopt to teach grammar. We teach grammar as separate book or separate subject, that is, in isolation from other language skills and ask questions in the same way which, in some cases, seem to be really meaningless in themselves. This frustrated me and I started a text based approach for teaching tense. I asked the students to bring “New Generation English” (one of the books prescribed for B. Ed. First Year) while I was teaching ‘tense’. Then I asked students to read a chapter “Once I Was Lost” at home and underline all the verbs there in the text, notice which tense has been used there, and find out the reasons behind it as far as possible. I asked them to refer to any English grammar book they had to study about tense. I asked them it did not matter if the book explained the rule in Nepali prescribed for any level irrespective of their level if the book has something to say about the tense. Next day students came by underlining the text and brought whatever grammar books were available to them. From this I found that some of them had difficulty even in recognizing verbs. I asked the students to find out the different forms of the verb they had underlined because my target was to make them understand the use of tense in real context and the use of tense is not possible without knowing the proper forms of the verbs for which they had to refer to different texts on grammar. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that the students did not feel that they were talking about tense in class; they were busy in doing things.

It gave them a sense of achievement as well. I asked them the reasons behind the use of any specific tense based on their self study. When they had finished, I started explaining why a particular tense was used in a particular context.  I wanted to make them feel that almost every sentence has a tense. With help of the chapter “Once I was Lost” I taught them simple past, past continuous, past perfect and past perfect continuous.

I selected the chapter “College Teachers” and “Drawing Natural World” to teach simple present tense. I went through the same procedure as mentioned and the students realized that the texts use simple present predominantly since they talk about things that are usually true (that is a sense of timelesslness) because what the writer talks in the text is arguably true. There are three types of teachers in schools and colleges at present, there were such teachers in the past and there will be such teacher in the days to come as well. The same thing is true with drawing natural world as well. The student’s facial expression, their desire to learn by taking their responsibility for their own learning during the process made me realize that text based approach to teaching grammar was more effective than teaching grammar in isolation.

Though the grammar book prescribed for B. Ed. first year is named “Exploring Grammar in Contexts”, it provides short contexts detached from English cultures thereby making the text difficult to interpret in many cases. Anyway it is better than the books which aim to teach grammar devoid of context. But I am in favor of larger context with the use of grammar points we want to develop in learners.

In this regard the textbooks of class nine and ten (I know them better because I taught them) seem to be better. Every grammatical item to be taught has been used there in context. It may be difficult to present each and every grammatical point in context. At the same time the coverage of the course might be low. But having observed the condition of students, I want to say that grammar should be made contextual. Maybe we can only choose certain grammatical points that we consider to be useful for our learners.

The advantage of the grammar books that we have prescribed in M.ED and B. Ed level is that we can introduce the learners with a lot of grammatical items even in the short span of time. This is, I think, a good technique for raising the consciousness of learners regarding grammatical points in question but these do not seem to develop language proficiency of the learners to the extent we assume. Presenting grammatical items without context makes the students suck grammatical items dry thereby reducing their real effect. Other alternative model might be presenting grammatical points with the help of text and making students use grammar books that we are using nowadays as reference books which they can consult if they have any problems with any grammatical points in the text.

In conclusion I want to say that if we are to teach grammar we need to modify the approach that we are practicing now. A point of departure might be text based approach to teaching grammar. The steps in a text based grammar lesson are presented below:

Steps in a Text Based Grammar Lesson

 

Steps

 

Aims

 
Students read (or listen to) the text that contains the target grammar. To check students’ understanding of the context that the target grammar comes from.
Students highlight the target grammar in the text. To focus students on the grammar that is to be clarified
Students check the meaning of the target grammar. To ensure students understand concepts    associated with the grammar (e.g. time       reference, intention etc.) and the way it is    used in native speaker language.
Students check the form of the target grammar. To ensure students understand the     component parts of the grammar and how it is put together.
The teacher highlights the pronunciation of the target grammar (if it is typically used for oral communication). To give very controlled oral practice of    phonological features of the grammar.
The teacher provides controlled to freer practice of the target grammar. To provide opportunities for the students  to use the new language in a variety of contexts.

Consulted

 

http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-4/n2460-esol-teaching-skills-taskbook-unit-4-e—teaching-grammar-2—grammar-from-texts.pdf