Editorial…

The season for networking with global ELT professionals, learning in a wider ELT community and exchanging ideas in a bigger ELT platform has just been over. We experienced TESOL, IATEFL and NELTA Conference in Baltimore, USA, Birmingham, UK and Kathmandu, Nepal respectively from March to May and we were fully occupied with the preparation to attend these great convention and conferences. Now we are back to our own practices to give best input with the updated skills that we have got from meeting great ELT scholars. Let’s enjoy the moment of cascading and dissemination of what we have learnt from these great events to our colleagues in our region.

NELTA International Conference featured Peter Medgyes from Hungary, Ruth Ban from USA and Sunaina Singh from India as the Key Speakers. Attended by 1000+ participants from home and abroad, it was held in Lalitpur, Nepal from March 07 to 09 and its theme was ‘Englishes in the Classrooms: Trends, Tensions and Teachings’. Similarly the 50^th TESOL International Convention and English Language Expo was held in Baltimore, USA from April 5 to 8 that was attended by 7000+ participants around the globe. The key speakers were Aziz Abu Sarah, Andy Curtis, Jeanette Altarriba and Anne Curzan and the another consecutive equally great IATEFL conference was held in Biminghan UK from April 13 to 17 which featured David Crystal, Silvana Richardson, Diana Larsen-Freeman, Scott Thornbury and Jan Blake as the plenary speakers. Obviously, there are many conferences going on and on marking our ELT calendar; however, we are focusing on these three conferences in this issue as they have fallen during this term and we have named it as conference season.

This issue shares the highlights of NELTA, TESOL and IATEFL Conferences and convention. It is in a way a reflection of the participants and organizers. The authors share how they found being involved in and what they learnt in the conferences. We believe this brief conference account will help our valued readers plan effectively for the conferences to be attended next

In the first blog entry, Dr. Binod Luitel in his write-up on ‘ Literature, Language Teaching and 21^st International Conference of NELTA: A Reflection’, shares how 21^st international conference of NELTA attempted to link literature and pedagogy through panel discussion event on ‘ Nexus of Literature in ELT’. He has also linked his own experience of enjoying literature in the latter years and working to blend literature for language teaching. The second blog entry is by Sarita Dewan on ELT Clinic that was organized in NELTA international conference. She shares how this Clinic became successful attempt to explore the teachers’ challenges and be the reflective practice to get the solution to overcome those challenges. Similarly another entry was by Mandira Adhikari on ‘ A First Time Speaker in 50^th IATEFL Conference’. She shares her experience as a first time speaker in 50^th IATEFL Conference and further briefly mentions about plenary, forum, individual sessions and evening events which she attended during the conference. The fourth blog entry is by Laxmi Prasad Ojha on ‘Attending the International Conferences: Pages from my Diary’ in which he shares his TESOL and IATEFL experiences along with some of the sessions that he liked in these conferences. The fifth blog entry is on ‘ELT in the Himalayas: Euta Coffee Kura’ by Sagun Shrestha in which he shares how this was introduced as one of the new events in NELTA international conference. He has highlighted the panelists’ views on contextual ELT and the need of teacher education (teacher training and its regular follow-up) for teacher development. Last but not least is by Kunjarmani Gautam on ‘NELTA Social Event: The Road not Taken’. Mr. Gautam in his write-up mentions it was the noble road taken in 21^st international conference of NELTA. This social event was organized basically to appreciate world literature in the

This issue is full of conference details and we hope this will be equally helpful for the readers seeking different conference flavours. For instance, those of you who will look for what some of the renowned ELT figures in the TESOL, IATEFL and NELTA conferences said, you will get their voices through these reflective write-ups and those ones who will plan to attend next year, this will be a guide for

We have hyperlinked the list of contents here for your ease:

• Literature, Language Teaching and 21^stInternational Conference of NELTA: A Reflection by Dr. Binod Luitel
• Reminiscence of ELT Clinic in 21st International Conference of NELTA 2016 by Sarita Dewan
• A First Time Speaker in 50^thIATEFL Conference by Mandira Adhikari
• Attending the International Conferences: Pages from my Diary by Laxmi prasad Ojha
• ELT in the Himalayas: Euta Coffee Kura by Sagun Shrestha
• NELTA Social Event: The Road not Taken by Kunjarmani Gautam

We too have uploaded  British Council professional practices series 7. This page is coordinated by our one of the editors, Laxmi Prasad Ojha.

Please enjoy reading, and if you have any comments related to the particular entry please post your comment on them. If you have some suggestion to us, please write us at neltaeltforum@gmail.com. We highly value your comments for forum’s

Thanking you!

Editor

Sagun Shrestha