Editorial

Happy New Year 2015

“Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.” – Charles Kettering

Happy New Year 2015 to all our valued readers and ELT Professionals! NELTA ELT Forum has also torn one more leaf of its calendar and is pleased to share some ideas and progress in the form of the professional thoughts, reflections and images. These thoughts, reflections and images based on the classroom experiences and informed choices made by the ELT professionals in different contextual limitation will not only offer ideas for the improvement but inspires for further and everlasting dedication among the professionals. The ideas are simple enough to adopt and capture the realities of our typical teaching contexts and offer some successful attempts executed to overcome.

Laxmi Prasad Ojha in his entry Thrown away in the crowd: Reflection on my first teaching job, a reflective note, has tried to portray how helplessly he was thrown in the crowd of the students when he joined teaching career and tried to recollect the ways he accumulated hope and success in teaching profession. This reflective note not only shares the typical challenges a novice teacher faces in the very beginning of the profession but also shares how s/he can overcome them accumulating the confidence to further teaching as a profession. This also provides an opportunity to the experienced teachers and school managers how the situation can be managed better for greater efficiency and sound professional environment.

Sagun Shrestha in his entry Digital Stories: Different Taste in Language Classrooms has shared his classroom experiences of using digital technology in language class with the step-wise procedure to engage the learners further. This is not only an example of doing things differently but also source of motivation and information for the ELT practitioners struggling to try something different to add value in their language class. This has provided an operative and effective model of using digital technology in language teaching without having a sophisticated digital lab.

In the entry Do Teachers Learn or Teach?, Ramesh Ghimire has recollected his experience of a professional gathering and explored the interrelation between teaching and learning process. He has not only explored the interrelation between adult learning and child learning but also tried to explore the major areas of learning a pedagogue will be interested in for efficient professional practices. He further explores the opportunities that provide such learning.

Rajani Maharjan in her descriptive note Learning with Fun has emphasized the need and importance for creating learner friendly environment to educate, engage and entertain the learners. She has also shared some of the tips to make learning more fun and effective by maintaining variety and creating opportunity for the learners to express themselves. It also highlights the need of trust and friendly behavior of a teacher to gain mutual respect and increased sense of responsibility and confidence among the learners.

Ashok Sapkota in his entry Gaps and its Measures in Translation Studies has shared another dimension of inter language relation. Though he directly shares the gaps and its measures in translation process, it significantly contributes to the teacher knowledge regarding the challenges in translation process along with the successful attempt executed to capture such complications.

Here is the list of contents included in this issue with hyperlinks to access each of them:

Thrown Away in the Crowd: Reflection on my First Teaching Job by Laxmi Prasad Ojha

Digital Stories: Different Taste in Language Classrooms by Sagun Shrestha

Do Teachers Learn or Teach? by Ramesh Ghimire

Learning with Fun by Rajani Maharjan

Gaps and Its Measures in Translation Studies by Ashok Sapkota

We would like to thank all the contributors for their contributions. From our valued readers, we also expect comments and suggestions to improve the blogzine further and for making NELTA ELT Forum more effective way for professional development.

Happy reading!

Editors

Janak Raj Pant

Dinesh Thapa