Dear Readers,

Providing a virtual platform to the ELT professionals to share ideas, innovations, current practices, and explorations about English language teaching and learning, NELTA ELT Forum constantly supports English language teachers, students, and researchers who want to grow professionally and collaboratively. One of the objectives of the NELTA ELT Forum is to encourage English language professionals, principally from Nepali contexts, to showcase their ELT practices through writing and publishing. However, the increasing popularity and broader readership of the papers published in the Forum has attracted many scholars from various parts of the globe to send their writings to be considered for publication in its different issues. Thus, welcoming submissions from scholars from varied educational contexts is an excellent asset for NELTA ELT Forum and its readers. This is because introducing new practices and recent developments occurring in ELT worldwide and contextualizing them in the local context is an efficient way of bringing out innovations in our ELT classrooms.

Our special thanks go to all the readers and contributors for going through all write-ups published and submitting the articles for review in NELTA ELT Forum. We closely worked with the authors by offering guidance and support to polish their writings in publishable shape. As always, we received several manuscripts from scholars from different contexts. Nonetheless, we could not publish all the manuscripts received in this issue; the editorial board will regularly work with the authors to publish the remaining articles in the upcoming issues.

The articles in this December-January Issue provide various hands-on tasks and activities, empirical research findings, literature review-based analytical papers, and reflections in English language education. We hope that ELT professionals will develop some ideas from the articles published in this issue and use them by localizing them in their classrooms.

We want to welcome all the readers to this issue by presenting articles from different scholars and contexts. Deciding to incorporate articles from different areas, we have included articles from varied areas such as English as a medium of instruction (EMI), developing communication skills through storytelling and Tinga Talks, and using short stories in ELT.

In her reflective paper ‘Developing EFL Students’ Speaking Skills Through Tinga Talks in Brazil,’ Dr. Daniela Nicoletti Fávero discusses how Tinga Talks, a conversation club, helps English language learners develop their communication skills in Brazilian EFL context. She further highlights how this conversation club can be an alternative approach to learners’ English language development besides their regular classes at the schools.

Similarly, using a qualitative research method in her article, ‘English as a Medium of Instruction: Pedagogical Practices and Perceptions of Public-School Teachers and Students,’ Ms. Kalpana Shrestha explores teachers’ and students’ perceptions of adopting EMI in public schools in Nepal. She interviewed four teachers, observed their classrooms, and conducted focused-group discussions with six high school students from two public schools. The study showed that both participants supported EMI. However, due to students’ low English language proficiency and insufficient teaching and learning recourses, they used the translanguaging method in the classroom. From the classroom observation of the teachers, the study indicated that teachers were able to adopt EMI by employing student-centered pedagogical approaches, audio-visual materials, and locally available materials to teach the subject matter in English.

Mr. Prakash Rai, in his paper entitled ‘Using Short Stories to Develop EFL Students’ Listening and Speaking Skills and Vocabulary Knowledge: A Literature Review,’ showcases how short stories help develop English language learners’ listening and speaking skills and vocabulary knowledge. Moreover, Mr. Rai argues that by including short stories in English language classes, the learners become competent to perceive what people say and communicate what they want to share.

In her reflective paper ‘Storytelling: A Key to Developing Communication Skills’, Ms. Swati Sinha offers the experience of storytelling as her profession. She unpacks how storytelling has developed her learners’ creativity and communication skills in English. Furthermore, Ms. Sinha discusses that storytelling improves language learners’ communication skills and helps retain the knowledge they have learned in different academic subjects such as Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies.

Likewise, in his article ‘English as a Medium of Instruction in Government Schools of Nepal: A Literature Review,’ Mr. Surendra Pd. Ghimire reviews existing literature on English as a medium of instruction (EMI). Based on the literature, Mr. Ghimire discusses three reasons for using EMI. They include English in the global context, employability, and interdisciplinary nature of English for implementing EMI in government schools in Nepal.

We want to thank all the authors for contributing their articles to this issue. We also would like to thank all the reviewers and editors for their hard work in bringing the issue to this stage.

Happy reading!

Editor-in-Chief:

• Dr. Padam Chauhan

Issue Editors:

• Mr. Binod Dhami (Issue Co-Ordinator)
• Mr. Surendra Joshi
• Ms. Shikha Gurung
• Mr. Sudip Neupane
• Mr. Kamal Raj Lamsal (Technical Support)

We have hyperlinked the articles for readers’ convenience as follows.

• Developing EFL Students’ Speaking Skills Through Tinga Talks in Brazil
• English as a Medium of Instruction: Pedagogical Practices and Perceptions of Public-School Teachers and Students
• Using Short Stories to Develop EFL Students’ Listening and Speaking Skills and Vocabulary Knowledge: A Literature Review
• Storytelling: A Key to Developing Communication Skills
• English as a Medium of Instruction in Government Schools of Nepal: A Literature Review