Monthly Archives: August, 2022

Editorial

By NELTA ELT Forum on August 30, 2022 | 1 Comment

Dear Readers,

We are immensely happy to bring the August 2022 issue of the NELTA ELT Forum to its publication. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to those who contributed their write-ups for this issue. Simultaneously, we appreciate our valued readers for their relentless support and feedback. We are careful to include research-based write-ups in our every issue, at the same time we want to offer a vivid experience by incorporating texts from various genres, especially related to teaching and learning.

Our efforts will remain incomplete unless our valued readers scroll through the NELTA ELT Forum. We have striven for clarity and ease of reading. We are committed to improving its quality standard with every publication we make. Your constant feedback and suggestions are the only means to push us forward in the odyssey of publishing the best quality NELTA ELT Forum. Although the Board of Editors makes an ample discussion for every entry we receive, we may not have, dear readers, been successful to address your expectations so far. However, we assure you that the NELTA ELT Forum will be a supporting guide on the way to developing your professionalism.

Six write-ups—an interview, a book review, an experience-based success story, two research articles, and a training session plan—are featured in this edition. All articles represent the writers’ individual viewpoints or research findings.

In the interview about transformative learning with Dr. Kashiraj Pandey, he highlights what and how aspects of transformative learning. “Transformative learning is a learning process that focuses on the idea that learners can adjust their thinking based on new information,” he says. Transformative learning helps learners modify their thinking in response to new information. Moreover, about English language teaching and learning in Nepal, he draws a contrast between traditional and transformative learning. He also gives insights into teaching English using transformative techniques.

Mr. Dammar Singh Saud reviews the book entitled “New Approaches to Literature for Language Learning” authored by Jeneen Naji, Ganakumaran Subramaniam, and Goodith White. According to him, the book illustrates how multidisciplinary approaches to literature and culture can be used for language acquisition. He goes on to argue that the writers adequately illustrate the value of literature in language acquisition using examples drawn from real-life situations and snapshots. Each chapter of this book, in his opinion, provides new insights, practical activities, rich resources, and handy snapshots. He awards the book with five stars out of five.

Inspired by a conversation between a child and her father in Australia, Mr. Nixan Thapa Kshetry analyses the customs of immigrant Nepali communities on the acquisition and use of their children’s mother tongue in his paper “Use of Mother Tongue among Nepali Immigrant Children in Australia.” He uses narrative inquiry as a research method. Furthermore, he collected information from direct observation and interviews; he did follow-up interviews with the parents on social media as an add-on to the research. He discovered that the majority of the youngsters had acclimated to the English language and parents have been supportive of this language learning process. However, the parents make an attempt to strike a balance between the acquisition of two languages.

Similarly, Mr. Suman Pokharel, in his experience-based success story “English Teaching in Rural Areas: A Challenge or an Opportunity?” outlines how he became able to successfully teach English to Tamang students for whom English is a third language. At first, he convinced them by just telling them that English is not a bugaboo. Then, he presented real-life instances of how their kinships who desired to travel overseas studied languages such as Japanese, Korean, and even English successfully in a short period. Moreover, he discusses how dictionaries assisted him in teaching English successfully. Finally, he devises a plan that is to be implemented gradually so that the students may practice their English, and develop their proficiency in English.

Next, Mr. Hayat Singh Dhami, in his article, “EMI Implementation in Public Schools: Opportunities and Challenges” explores the opportunities and challenges in introducing EMI in public schools of Nepal. He conducted this research using narrative inquiry as a method, chose four teachers as the sample purposively, and used a questionnaire to conduct semi-structured interviews. The majority of teachers in public schools, according to his research, are supportive of the use of EMI. He has separately presented his results into two categories: opportunities for using EMI and challenges in the implementation of EMI in public schools.

Finally, Mr. Manoj Chhetri outlines the detailed steps for conducting the training session for the poem “A Day” by Emily Dickinson in his training session plan. He outlines the structure of the session including the trainer’s roles, trainees’ roles, required materials, and possible challenges, and provides a detailed description of the activities.

We believe that this issue will provide a crucial learning forum in both the local and global ELT community. We, once again, wish to thank our valued contributors and reviewers for their efforts in bringing the August 2022 issue to its publication by contributing their write-ups and expertise respectively. We hope for a similar kind of assistance from all spheres in the days to come as well.

Happy reading!

Editor-in-Chief