Welcome to NeltaChoutari: August 2013

Editorial

Praveen Kumar Yadav
(with kind support from Madhav Kafle)

Welcome again! With the publication of July Issue 2013, the new editorial team of NeltaChoutari is completing its first round of publication. We tried our best, and we know that we can do better–with your participation and encouragement.

Most of the issues in this round leaned toward being special issues. After the old and new team produced a joint issue in January, in February, we focused on seeking a theory-practice interface in Nepalese ELT; March was a conference special; April issue advocated for the integration of creative writing in ELT; May issue mainly focused on teacher’s perspectives on scholarly ideas;  June issue stretched from ELT practitioners’ reflection on their achievement to action research; and July issue featured topics on local pedagogies especially in multilingual settings.

As most readers already know, this is a friendly and unofficial blog started by a group of NELTA scholars and now run by a new group of ELT professionals at home and abroad. Inspired by and willing to work in the same direction of the vision of NELTA to promote professional conversation and build local scholarship, we strive to encourage fellow ELT practitioners from across the country (and often the world) to share their ideas. There may be no clear distinction between local and global, ours and others, even practical and theoretical when it comes to scholarship; but we do want to share thoughts about what we actually do as teachers and scholars in our own contexts, tackling our own challenges, pursuing our own needs. Thus, there is a great need for more pedagogical and scholarly discussions in Nepal. We want fellow teachers/scholars at home and our friends and well-wishers abroad to recognize and join hands in addressing this need. Obviously, we don’t have an agenda, not even a theoretical one. That is why, as we have tried to articulate in some new resources that we’re publishing with this issue, that members of the community can contribute whatever they have expertise or interest in, within a broad framework for what to write about and using a set of general guidelines for how to write for this forum.

As we move forward, we ask you again to contribute to the professional mission by contributing to this forum as a reader, writer, and active participant of the conversations that follow the publication of each issue. You are the secret of the blog’s great success, and together we can continue to make a difference, one comment or blog post at a time.

This issue focuses on teachers’ narratives followed by some very useful resources for our contributors. Chura Bahadur Khadka and Angel Lin highlight the importance of interaction in EFL contexts like Nepal. Suman Laudari shares thoughts about his professional history from being a novice to a better teacher. Dipendra Kanu tells us an unforgettable teaching moment when he was successful in teaching a story very effectively and comprehensively with the use of audio visual aids in the classroom. Sharing her teacher’s style of teaching in a brief entry, Jyoti Tiwari, shows how professional and skilled teachers can teach the students effectively in spite of the lack of resources in our schools. The last piece in this set is an open access source link where you can find sample theses for ELT scholarship in general and research activities in particular.

Then there is something special that we want to share with our readers who would like to contribute their own blog posts for Choutari. We have been trying to gradually implement some general guidelines so that blog entries read like blog entries. So, in addition to the general guidelines that we used to have, we have now added two new pages. The first page, “What to Write,” tries to answer a frequent question that we read from potential contributors. Using/linking examples from past issues, this page describes different kinds of blog entries that you can write for Choutari. The second page, “How to Write,” practically illustrates the general guidelines for writing blog entries by using an example. Based on a legacy from past editors, we want to further develop ways to support writers with how to write effectively; we also want to ask more experienced writers to consider the audience, genre, and context when writing for this blog.

Here is a list of the topics hyperlinked for navigating the blog entries:

1. Interaction in English language classrooms to enhance students’ language learning, by Chura Bahadur Khadka and Angel Lin
2. My journey from a Novice to Better Teacher, by Suman Laudari
3. An Unforgettable Teaching Technique, by Dipendra Kanu
4. An effective teaching through a student’s eyes, by Jyoti Tiwari
5. Resources for Researchers, (courtesy of Bal Krishna Sharma)
6. What to Write for Choutari (Choutari Editors)
7. How to Write Blog Entries for Choutari (Choutari Editors)

Please share what you read and like. Please leave comments to encourage writers. Please join the conversation by writing new entries for future issues of Choutari.

Thank you.

Praveen

Interaction in English language classrooms to enhance students’ language learning

Chura Bahadur Thapa & Angel M. Y. Lin *

Introduction

EFL contexts like Nepal seldom provide students with opportunities for authentic communication in English. Therefore, deliberate ‘interaction in the classrooms’ is emerging as one of the leading conventions to enhance the students’ linguistic resources as well as equipping them with appropriate skills for communication. The major intent of this entry is to share a teacher’s insider experiences of developing interactions in an ESL classroom in Hong Kong while fully recognizing that the contextual differences between Hong Kong and Nepal will necessitate teachers’ own creative adaptation or re-invention of whatever tips shared from elsewhere. We shall, first of all, present the concept of interaction from sociocultural perspectives and discuss various challenges for the front-line EFL teachers to plan and implement lessons that incorporate interactions in ESL or EFL classrooms. Then, insider experiences of the first author of this entry in overcoming those challenges are shared. Assuming that the textbooks and teaching materials play a vital role to promote and facilitate the interactions in classrooms, a sample activity designed for the Secondary Two (Class 8) ESL students in Hong Kong is also included and discussed.

Interaction in language classrooms

Classroom interaction has been considered one of the most important pedagogical research topics in language classrooms in recent decades, mostly due to the influence of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotskian sociocultural theory (Hall & Walsh, 2002) views the act of language learning as a social activity in which children build their knowledge through the help and scaffolding of more knowledgeable peers or teachers. Interactions in language classrooms are important social activities for students through which they not only construct knowledge, but also build confidence and identity as competent language users (Luk & Lin, 2007). In an in-depth ethnographic study of teacher-student interactions in Hong Kong, Luk and Lin (2007) found out that students develop multiple identities through their classroom interactions with their language teachers. Although the study took place in an ESL classroom where native English language teachers are available, Luk and Lin (2007:188) present a telling story about how students negotiate identity and cultural resources, which are “translated into non-institutionally sanctioned language practices and identities”. Perhaps, the social knowledge students bring into the classrooms might be those “non-institutional language practices”, which schools and teachers are supposed to build on in order to enhance their learning.

Interaction in the classroom refers to the conversation between teachers and students, as well as among the students, in which active participation and learning of the students becomes vital. Conversations are part of the sociocultural activities through which students construct knowledge collaboratively. Conversations between and among various parties in the classroom have been referred to as educational talk (Mercer and Dawes, 2008) or “exploratory talk” and “presentational talk” (Barnes, 2008:5). Presentational talk is the one-way lecture conducted by the teachers in the classroom, mostly featured in Nepalese EFL contexts, which contributes little to encouraging and engaging students in a communicative dialogue. Exploratory talk is a purposeful conversation, often deliberately designed by teachers, which provide opportunities to students to engage in “hesitant, broken, and full of deadend” conversations enabling them to “try out new ideas, to hear how they sound, to see what others make of them, to arrange information and ideas into different patterns” (Barnes, 2008:5). Given the limited linguistic resources the EFL students possess in their school years in EFL contexts like Nepal, these hesitant, broken and deadend conversations could be developed into spontaneous conversational skills. When students engage in interactions, they produce “symmetric dialogic context” (Mercer & Dawes, 2008:66) where everyone can participate, get respected and get the decisions made jointly. Students’ participation in interactions, therefore, can help them enrich their linguistic resources and build their confidence to communicate with others in English.

Designing interaction: challenges and ways ahead

When I started teaching English in a Hong Kong school, I noticed that students in Hong Kong like to talk a lot. These talks are often characterized as responses to the multiple stimuli such as various gadgets and social media. To realize the importance of students’ talks in their knowledge building was a paradigm shift in me, as my high school days in Nepal still remind me of the very quiet classrooms where often only the teachers talked. The process of designing lessons with meaningful interactions in my ESL classroom in Hong Kong posed several challenges such as incorporating various forms of interactions, achieving the lesson goals through such interactions, participation of students in meaningful interactions, and making sure that all the students engage in conversations and learn from the teachers as well as from themselves.

Secondly, of course students’ varying language abilities, topics that generated the conversations among them and matched their abilities presented a micro level challenges in managing interactions. Students in my class came from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and I believed that they brought with them their own unique knowledge base. Their varying English language ability might sound simple to some or unnoticeable to others, but addressing them in the classroom would very much influence how they view themselves and others (Luk & Lin, 2007) and make them feel how their cultural and linguistic knowledge base could be important in furthering their academic journey.

To overcome the underlined challenges, I took a closer look at other teachers’ practices and suggestions by researchers (Jong & Hawley, 1995). I found Jong and Hawley’s (1995) suggestions particularly setting up group roles, teacher monitoring and evaluation, peer evaluation, appropriate group size and configuration quite useful. Assigning group roles and group configurations could be thought during the planning stage. Teacher monitoring should be conducted at the while-teaching stage, and teacher and peer evaluations are elements to be incorporated at the post-teaching stage. I often incorporated three stages of interactions in my lessons.

1. Interaction of the students with the teacher (Teacher Student Whole-Class Interaction): I often asked students to respond to a certain question related to a emerging topic or a topic that was already taught as part of the whole-class interactions. For the responses, students were randomly selected based on their ability, seating arrangements, gender and cultural groups to make sure that they all get represented in the interaction process.
2. Pair Interaction (Interaction with their peers sitting together or next to them): This interaction often took place during the pre-teaching stage, for example to activate their schema on a topic. As part of assigning group roles, students were usually asked to interact with their partners on a topic given by the teacher and present it to the whole class.
3. Group Interaction (Groups of 4-5 students): This form of interaction often took place during the while-teaching stage. After students read a text, for example in a reading lesson, they could pick up a concept for discussion. Their discussion could dwell on expanding the practical meaning of the concept, finding solution to a problem or bring up a creative issue out of the topic. Based on Jong and Hawley’s (1995) suggestions, students’ roles were often divided based on the nature of the topic such as a note taker, a facilitator, a presenter, and so on. Assigning these roles was crucial to prevent the students to digress from discussion their topics or and contribute meaningfully in the whole learning process.

The idea of teacher monitoring took place during the process of pair or group interactions. Teachers could evaluate the extent and forms of interactions students conducted during the process, and at the same time, provide feedback and support to the weaker students. I often walked around the class and monitored the students’ interactions to make sure that they are up to the tasks and are supported when in need.

Timing the interactions was another important aspect handling the students’ conversations purposefully and meaningfully. I often gave the students 5-10 minutes to interact among themselves and prepare a presentation poster or speech. The timing depended on the topic’s extent of difficulty and students’ ability as well.

Students were often asked to present the outcome of their interaction to the whole class in poster or speech forms. In order to ensure every students’ participation, they were trained and assigned with roles to make contributions individually even during group presentations. This was at this stage that the teacher and peer evaluation took place. I often adopted a range of techniques to evaluate students’ performances such as asking students to fill in an evaluation rubric or asking students about their peers’ performances and grade them on the board. Sometimes this process generated heated debates and quarreling, friendly though; among the students because they thought that some of their peers were not evaluating them fairly.

Last, but not the least, I also created teaching materials and worksheets conducive to the diversity of the students particularly in order to scaffold on their linguistic and cultural resources. Textbooks nowadays are found incorporating activities for some forms of interactions, but they often become irrelevant in the classrooms because these textbooks cannot address the range of students’ ability levels, skill levels and their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Most textbooks in Hong Kong, for example, incorporate elements of Chinese and Christian festivals and ask the students to interact on that. However, students from Nepal, Pakistan, India, or Sri-Lanka in Hong Kong would not be able to use their cultural resources and construct knowledge from the interactions. Although English language textbooks in Hong Kong are considered to be the most advanced resources for ESL students, modifications often needed to suit to my students’ needs. These changes sometimes also needed to address the students’ willingness and skills to spontaneously engage in interactions. For example, some students in my class were very poor in English and found it hard to even properly construct questions to ask their friends, while others were at a native English speaker’ level.

Taking these questions into consideration, we present an activity (Activity 1) that can potentially be used to promote pair interactions in an EFL classroom. This activity is a modified activity from a secondary two (Class 8) English language textbook in Hong Kong, which is believed to suit students with moderate English ability. The moderate language ability in this context is the students’ ability to use connectives and quantifiers in authentic situations. This activity incorporates multicultural elements in the context of Nepal as it contains pictures of various Nepali festivals as well as Western festivals such as Christmas. Students can ask their peers about their likes or dislikes and jot down their answers to present to the class. Phrases given in the boxes are meant to cater for learner diversity. For higher proficiency students, this activity can be presented in a different way to suit their levels.

___________________________________________________________________________

Activity 1:

Worksheet A

1. Study the pictures in the boxes in pairs. Ask questions to your friend about items that he/she prefers or doesn’t prefer more (or less) and why. Write your friend’s responses in the checklist at the bottom.

You may begin like this: Which festivals do you like more/less/most/least? Why?

 ………………………………………………………………………..

Check List

2. Write your friend’s answers below. You may need to present it to the class.

* My friend likes ___________________________ more, because ______________

* My friend likes __________________________less, because _________________

______________________________________________________________________

* He/She likes ___________________________ the most, because _____________

______________________________________________________________________

* My friend likes ___________ the least, because __________________________

Conclusion

This entry presented the concept of interaction from a sociocultural perspective sharing the first author’s teaching experiences in a Hong Kong school. The sharing included the challenges as well as possible strategies a teacher might adopt to devise, implement and evaluate interactions in an EFL classroom. The sharing could present a model for EFL teachers to choose from many other pedagogical options in order to enhance the students’ English language learning. The activity presented in this entry is only one example of hundreds of such possible activities. The original activity might not be suitable to adopt exactly in Nepalese EFL classes, as there are diversities in terms of language, culture, students’ abilities as well as available resources based on geography, developmental level and proximity to urban life. Teachers need to bear in mind that they understand their students the best and they need to know how students can best interact and learn the language in the classroom.

*About the Authors:

1- Mr. Chura Bahadur Thapa is a PhD Student in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. He was an English language teacher in a local college in Hong Kong for almost 7 years before joining HKU as a postgraduate student. He is currently researching the language learning and motivation of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. His other research interests include- education of ethnic minorities, linguistic and cultural identity, intercultural communication and citizenship education. He can be reached at chura@hku.hk

2- Dr. Angel Lin received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, Canada. She is an Associate Professor of English Language Education at the University of Hong Kong.  Well-respected for her versatile interdisciplinary scholarship in language and identity studies, bilingual education and youth cultural studies. she has published six research books and over eighty research articles. She can be reached at angellin@hku.hk.

REFERENCES

Barnes, D. (2008). Exploratory talk for learning. Exploring talk in schools. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE, 1-15.

Hall, J.K. & Walsh, M. (2002). Teacher-student interaction and language learning. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 186-203.

Jong, C.D. & Hawley, J. (1995). Making cooperative learning groups work. Middle School Journal, 26 (4), 45-48.

Luk, J.C.M. & Lin, A.M.Y. (2007). Classroom interactions as cross-cultural encounters. Native speakers in EFL classrooms. Mahwah, New Jersey, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Mercer, N. & Dawes, L. (2008). The value of exploratory talk. In Mercer, N. & Hodgkinson, S. (Eds.). Exploring talk in schools. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE, 55-72.

My journey from a Novice to Better Teacher

Suman Laudari

Through this blog entry, I would like to share with the ELT community my narrative of professional development. I will first briefly review the notion of teacher development and then, I will share some of the things that I have gained over the past few years to improve my classroom practices followed by my personal attributes. Thus this entry will try to showcase my both personal as well as professional development as a teacher. 

Teacher development

Teacher development is a process of bringing changes in teacher’s behavior, attitude and beliefs in terms of teaching, construction of knowledge and classroom practice. These changes can be brought into two ways; teacher training and teacher development (Richards & Farrell, 2005). The former is related to the activities enhancing the teacher’s existing knowledge, skills and capacities in the subject matter they’re teaching  while the latter refers to general growth that serves a long term goal and is related to understanding the teaching and its different aspects, classroom practices, and themselves as teachers.

            Teacher development in ELT is aimed at understanding second language development process, teaching learning style, changing roles of teachers depending upon learners, classrooms, context and the society and how learners perceive what is taught in the classroom (Richards & Farrell, 2005). Such understanding transforms a novice teacher into an experienced one who then performs things differently as they can anticipate the classroom problems, think of solutions and solve them through different classroom techniques (Berliner, 1987).  This understanding can be gained through different practices such as reflection, action research, collaboration and communication with fellow teachers, training, reading and writing. The following section mentions the activities that I have done to translate the theoretical aspects as mentioned above into practice.

My efforts for teacher development 

The activities and strategies that I was involved in for teacher development can be classified into the following five categories:

1.      Training and workshops: Like as any other teachers, one of the things that I have been doing over the past few years, in fact since I started my teaching career, is attending different trainings and workshops organized by different publication houses, different schools, NELTA (Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association), British Council and later English Access Micro Scholarship Project implemented by NELTA in Nepal in collaboration with US State Department. Most of these trainings were free and the rest of them were paid. I am sure  that all the trainings were not equally useful but I have  certainly learnt  something. I hardly missed any training or workshop opportunities I was offered as I was very enthusiastic to attend them since they either reinforced me with things that I had already learnt at different points of time or taught me something completely new which was largely beneficial to my class.

 2.      Conference and Seminars:  Another source of my learning was conference and seminars basically organized by NELTA. I have not missed any international conference organized by NELTA annually in February since 2007. I have attended the conferences and seminars acting different roles as a volunteer, a rapporteur and a presenter. The different roles I have acted during such occasions enabled me become a matured teacher. Plus, these events provided me with opportunities to meet national and international personalities in ELT and exchange our ideas. Such a gathering encouraged me to be more dedicated to my teaching providing me impetus to keep working to improve my English language competence.

 3.      Reading:  Needless to say, reading holds a great significance to build on one’s professional career. To be honest, I did not know what reading is before I started it myself. The first book that I have read beyond my course book was ‘Robinson Crusoe’ by Daniel Defoe, after I became a teacher. The book made me realize that reading is a fun. I kept on reading a lot of novels both in English and Nepali and now it has not only become one of my hobbies but also a craze. Later, I took to reading ELT books and journals. Reflecting my past, now I can say that there was not a single day when I was not involved in reading a book or an article. It has helped me improve my reading speed and enhance my comprehensive skills. Most importantly, reading provided me with the chances to compare my classroom practices with the prescribed ones in different books and articles I read.

 4.      Sharing sessions with colleagues:  Sharing sessions with fellow teachers and colleagues was another activity that helped me become a better teacher today. . I have always shared my ideas with fellow teachers informally at my schools and formally with and the audience during different training sessions organized by NELTA and other institutions. These sessions comprised of sharing of my good practices from handy classroom tips to English songs. Most importantly, attending these training sessions was a good opportunity for me to reflect on my own practices of teaching and carry out self assessment with the ideas whether they work in different situations.

 5.      Online teacher trainings and webinars:  Attending online courses and webinars entitled ‘Teaching English to Teens (TET)’, ‘Critical Thinking in English Language Teaching’, and ‘Teaching English Webinar’ was the latest practices to add in my list. These courses were offered by Regional English Language Office (RELO) in Nepal in collaboration with some reputed universities in the United States. I found these courses and webinars useful for it provided the participants a global platform to discuss and share personal beliefs and philosophies regarding teaching. And these e-courses provided me with opportunities to reflect on my practices and engaged in professional discussion with teachers from global arena. In addition, such courses provided me some assignments like something to read, write and discuss with others as a teacher, which kept me thinking about my course, lesson plans, curriculum and teaching.

Easier said than done. I could go on writing more about these practices and suggest others they should replicate them than I would like to share some of my personal attributes that helped me become a better teacher in the following section.

Personal attributes from a novice to better teacher

One of the attributes that helped me bring this transformation was my passion to become a better teacher. Next, I was ready to embrace new challenges and never said ‘NO’ to any opportunities, no matter how trivial it was. Thirdly, my curiosity to explore the world of teaching was another X-factor in my career. Likewise, I was always positive about my learning despite all the odds. Like any other teacher, I went through hard times.  My earning was meager and the pressure was always escalating, however I was always positive and I lived with HOPE.

Another thing that I kept me alive in this profession was my hard work. I never let my passion drift away. Hard work probably was the result of positive disposition, passion and the enjoyment I that derived from my teaching. Next, I was generous as I did not confine myself in the things that I learnt. I always had my goals set. Most of these goals were not big. I trusted on little goals such as completing the novel by the weekend, writing a haiku a day and writing a blog entry the next week. They gave me something to look forward to. Lastly, I would like to focus on the efforts to self development, which will only be successful when you are ready for. The readiness brings commitment and commitment gives the encouragement and motivation to accomplish a task, and this attribute has brought all the changes in me.

Conclusion

I would like to conclude that any teacher can transform themselves when they wish to do so. It is obvious that teachers have hard time in Nepal but this does not mean that we ignore our professional growth. I have the opinions that positive changes are possible only when we take responsibility for our growth.

REFERENCE

Berliner, D.C. (1987). Ways of thinking about students and classrooms by more and less experienced teachers. In J. Calderhead (Ed.) Exploring teachers’ thinking (pp. 60-83). London: Cassell.

Richards, J.C. & Farrell, T.S.C. (2005). Professional development for language teachers: Strategies for teacher learning. Cambridge: CUP.

About the Author:

Mr. Laudari is a visiting faculty to Kathmandu University and Ace Institute of Management. He is currently in the UK pursuing his master’s degree at Lancaster University under Hornby Scholarship.

An Unforgettable Teaching Technique

Dipendra Kanu

There are so many memorable moments of teaching English language, be it at English language institute or higher secondary school or college. I’d like to share with you what I find to be one of my most effective moments of teaching, which is teaching a story in grade twelve. 

As I was planning to teach students the story ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe for grade XII, I was thinking of presenting a quite new idea in a different way from previous times. But I was quite confused and worried about how to teach the story effectively since I was unable to teach the same last time as effectively as I had expected.  I had not spent a great deal of time and I had prepared the lesson in a complete rush. As a result, I could not teach satisfactorily at the first attempt. However, there was a feeling of dissatisfaction in me as the students were not able to comprehend the texts properly as per my expectation.  

In the evening while I was sitting on computer with internet thinking of the next day’s lesson, an idea of searching some teaching materials struck my mind. When I tried it on Google, I found thousands of useful links there but they were of no help for me. Then I did it on YouTube where I came across a very satisfactory video clip uploaded by The Film and TV Channel on Sept. 21, 2009 and its duration was only 10 minutes. No sooner had I downloaded the clip than I watched it for three to four times to satisfy myself and then made a plan to show it to students on my laptop.

Then I took to Googling again till I found another useful file containing the story in pdf version. I printed the story on some pages albeit the course book already contained the story. The only difference was—the pictures in the story which the book does not have. Similarly, I also found some useful links for its audio clips this and also this in mp3 format. First I downloaded them on my computer and then on my mobile phone set.

The next day, I went to the class fully prepared with the audio clips on my mobile phone and video clip on my laptop and the printed papers of the story with attractive pictures. I had given the class a short notice about some video clips on my laptop the day before. The desire to watch the video motivated all the students present in the class that day with much enthusiasm and curiosity.

First I asked them to be attentive in the class and listen to what I was going to play on my mobile set. I played it for 13 minutes and 28 seconds but some of them hardly understood the sound properly since it was the native tongue. Next, it was the time to show the video on the laptop. The students were quiet to watch the short clip. They tried their level best to understand what was going on. After they listened to and watched the clips, I explained the story to them. It was much easier for them to understand it in a quite interesting way. Finally, I presented its summary with the help of printed sheets of papers containing the pictures accompanying to the story. And I asked them to get them photocopied if they wanted.

As luck would have it, it was the last period and I took advantage of this and engaged them for more time than usual. This time my students were able to comprehend the story as expected. It took me around an hour to finish it. This was the most successful, effective and satisfying lesson that I have ever taught in my teaching career. 

Let me conclude this short blog entry with the message—if we really try to explore the resources around us, they can be useful and powerful tool for our classroom activities and teaching something with audio-visual aids will have large effect on the learners. If you are going to teach the story ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ in grade XII in your class, you can use the hyperlinked resources I have mentioned above to make your teaching effective and feel the success.

About the Author:

Mr. Kanu has been teaching English for more than a decade. Currently he is involved in Popular English Language Institute, Thakur Ram Multiple Campus, Birguj Commerce Campus and Kadambari Academy in Birgunj. Besides, he is a journalist associated with Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) Parsa Chapter and the publisher/editor of The Young Guys, English Weekly Publishing from Birgunj.

An effective teaching through a student’s eyes

*Jyoti Tiwari

Teaching and learning processes involve a lot of ingredients to make imparting knowledge and skills from one person to another effective. Teacher, teaching aids, methodology, planning and strategies are some of those ingredients. In their absence, teaching and learning processes are negatively affected.  Basically, teachers’ knowledge and skills are the main things for a successful teaching learning. No doubt, availability of resources and sufficient teaching aids and materials play a significant role for effective and successful learning. Lack of such resources inevitably creates a lot of problems derailing the learning process.

In Nepal, there are many schools which lack physical infrastructure, trained teachers, and other resources required,  But this does not mean that teaching learning activities do not take place effectively. Many schools have teachers who have taken teaching profession for their passion. They have been carrying out teaching learning activities more effectively and successfully even in the absence of such resources. They have proved the fact that it is the teachers who can be the world in the classroom to their learners.

I am writing to share a story about one of my teachers who taught very effectively in spite of lack of resources. After being in the teaching profession for more than four decades, essentially his entire professional life, he is now retired. But he remains a major source of inspiration for me.

I was unaware of how important the teacher’s knowledge and skills can be while I was  in school. BUT now when I myself am teaching after completing under-graduate studies, I realize and I could not help myself thinking of Ridhhi Kant Singh Thapa, my English teacher from Trijudhha secondary school in Birgunj.  I can still remember his teaching style as quiet different from others.

Mr. Thapa was really passionate about teaching and that was perhaps the most important reason for why he was such a successful teacher. Inspired by his teaching style and classroom procedures, I would like to share with the audience some of his key teaching tips and techniques that had overwhelming impact on the learners through this short blog post.

I can still recall when he entered into the classroom, the environment changed automatically and there was active participation of students. Every student was enthusiastic about reading the text again and again.  At the end of each lesson, we all were busy in making the questions ourselves and writing their answers accordingly on our own. My teacher usually wrote some examples of making questions to help the students who were weak and his individual attention to such students increased confidence and habitué of reading and writing.

While teaching passages and stories, the way the teacher adopted was very impressive and interesting to improve reading and writing skills. Here is a series of activities he used in the classroom and they have been presented in a process flow.

First, the teacher [T] selected some reading text ‘passage’ or ‘story’ or ‘dialogue’ from the textbook. He further informed the students [Ss] which text they were going through.

 Secondly, T made Ss read the text themselves and asked to make questions as many as possible while reading the same text.

After that, T asked Ss to note down the answer of the questions they had made while reading the text. 

In the meantime, T wrote some structure and examples on the board so that Ss would feel easy to do their task. He helped Ss with difficult word meanings in order to comprehend the text clearly and write the correct answer of the questions.

Then, T asked Ss to exchange their notebooks with their partner in a pair. After they had reviewed the answers written by their friends, they had a discussion and checked the answers of their friend’s notebook in pairs correcting their mistakes.

T asked Ss the number of the questions they had made and asked them to find the student who made more questions.

T was more interested in finding out which question Ss found hard to formulate and answer. Through this activity, he came to know where they were facing problems and where they required his support. It helped him come up with proper solutions helping Ss understand the text better.  

Then, T wrote all the questions on the board asking Ss one by one from the same list which they had prepared while reading. Similarly, he approved the answers they had prepared asking them in turns.

At the end, T knew how well Ss have understood and comprehended the text and if they are found missing something or clarity required, he was always forward looking to take possible steps to fulfill the gaps. This is how he was successful in making the lesson interesting and effective.

Benefits of using the above strategy

Following are the benefits I have experienced of using the above strategy;

• It is a learner centered method.
• It is easy to carry out without much planning and it requires no teaching aids and materials
• It can be very useful where schools lack resources or cannot afford teaching materials
• It increases confidence level of learners and enhances both of reading and writing skills.
• It is suitable for large classroom especially to make all the students engaged and check their assignments
• It helps enabling learners to comprehend the text themselves
• The role of teacher in the activity is facilitators
• Increased vocabulary power of the learners
• No use of teaching materials and other resources but teacher can use flash cards, pocket chart and pictures in order to make classroom more live and motivated
• Even untrained teachers can easily carry out this procedure and can get control over the large class-room.

As inspired by my English language teacher whom I have lots of respect for because of his uniqueness and successful teaching career, I have shared the above mentioned teaching procedure hoping it  could be beneficial and useful to those teachers who are compelled to teach due to lack of teaching materials and resources required. 

About the Author:

Miss Tiwari is an undergraduate in ELT from Tribhuvan University and preparing for her masters’ degree. Currently, she is working as Radio Jockey for Radio Bindas in Birgunj.

Resources for Researchers

THESIS writing in Nepal seems to be a hard nut to crack for many university students and researchers. No doubt, they require a great deal of patience, research skills, writing proficiency as well as analytic expertise for such writing. However, finding a relevant body of literature is equally important. Especially for the beginners, it is always a challenge. We have seen that they visit libraries and resource centers or send out emails to their colleagues and teachers or google the internet.

Are you writing your thesis or guiding/supervising theses or helping you students and colleagues carry out research? You must be looking for some useful resources especially some sample theses related to your topic. To ease your task of researching, Choutari has brought you a resource link (click here or see the url below) from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, that can be a good resource for language teaching scholarship in general and writing theses in particular.

Since this is an open access source, it can be accessed freely from anywhere and all you need is internet access. The beauty of sharing this link is—you can download the theses as most of them are downloadable. We hope you will find it useful. The link to the source is: https://www.jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/kielet/tutkimus/hankkeet/paattyneet-hankkeet/varieng/en/publications/masters_theses

Acknowledgments: We’re grateful to Bal Krishna Sharma for researching the source link and forwarding to Choutari. -Eds.