The Use of Dialogue Journals in an ESL Writing Class from Vygotskyan Perspective

Dialogue journal writing is a way of communicating with the learners through constant written communication over a specified period. Since the teachers who use the dialogue journals do not require their students to be grammatically accurate in their expressions while they are writing journals, the students build their self-confidence. Consequently, they can increase their writing fluency, which ultimately leads to not only the development of writing but also overall language proficiency of the language they are learning. More importantly, it develops learners’ theoretical thinking as they are involved in dialogic discussions through written interactive communications. It is because as per Vygotskyan theory of human development human beings are constantly engaged in interpersonal as well as intrapersonal communications, which expand learners’ zones of proximal development.Journal of NELTA Surkhet Vol. 5 January, 2018, Page: 1-14

A Book Review: New Directions, Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking

This article presents the review of the book that is prescribed for the Bachelor level course. The purpose of the particular review of the book is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the selected book. It is started with the general background of the writer of the book. Then, the objectives, contents are reviewed with other general features. Finally, it was found that maximum contents are selected from the Western World. So, it was concluded to include the texts from the Eastern World and add more pictures to develop critical thinking among the readers.Journal of NELTA Surkhet, Vol. 5 January, 2018, Page: 113-117

Mother Tongue based Multilingual Education (MT- MLE): Teachers' Language Ideologies

Mother Tongue based Multilingual Education (MT- MLE) is a form of multilingual education built on the learners' mother tongue. This article explores the teachers' ideology on the policy (as policy appropriator). The ideologies of the language teachers have been drawn from the interpretive perspectives where the reality is judged based on the experiences of the research and the researched. The participants in this study covered five English language teachers who have been working in the area of multilingualism. The in-depth interview with them supplied the data for arriving into the results and conclusions. Finally, the teachers unraveled their strong belief on the use of MLE for language promotion and protection of indigenous knowledge.Journal of NELTA Surkhet Vol. 5 January, 2018, Page: 28-40

Critical Incidents for Teachers’ Professional Development

Analysis of critical incidents is one of the approaches of teacher professional development. A critical incident is any unplanned event which takes place during the class. It is something we interpret as a problem or challenge in a particular context, rather than a routine occurrence. The incident is said to be critical because it is valuable and has some meaning. In other words, incidents happen but critical incidents are created because of their importance. Teachers can critically analyze any of their lessons and can make a particular event critical by reflecting on it. The teachers ask not only what happened but also why it happened. They then use the incidents for future reference. This article deals with the benefits of critical incidents and the ways to analyze them, which lead to successful teacher professional development.Journal of NELTA Surkhet, Vol. 5 January, 2018f, Page: 82-88

Editorial

Not available.Journal of NELTA Surkhet Vol. 5 January, 2018, page: III

Learning to Read and Reading to Learn in English

Reading is one of key language skills which enables the readers to learn many things i.e. reading is the gateway of knowledge. Enabling the readers to read in English is one of the major issue in ELT. This article defines reading as the key skill with various reading strategies and comprehension as the goal of reading. It is based on the secondary sources of data basically based on the review of related literature and attempts to review on learning to read and reading to learn in English in particular.Journal of NELTA Surkhet, Vol. 5 January, 2018, Page: 75-81

Global Language: Status, Scope and Challenges

The world becomes shareable, narrow, familiar, and accessible for all since we have a common language (English) despite having culture, tradition, territory and idiosyncratic variation. Because of its commonness, it is accepted as an international, global, foreign/ second language or as a lingua-franca among thousands of diverse language speakers. It becomes the global language since its form is cozily perceptible and scope is being open-ended in nature. Having its scope unlimited, the status is automatically broadened and the positional value will be transformable from fewer to more, lesser- users to frequent, foreign to second language, etc. As the status and scope of English growing up, the opportunities and challenges have been raised as well. In the forms of opportunities, people are liable to get better jobs, quality education, and international identity and so on. In contrary, challenges oppose the regular development of it which may result minimizing the status and scope sooner than later. Whatever the situation, English language is stepping forward rather than pushing back.Journal of NELTA Surkhet, Vol. 5 January, 2018

Use of Test-Teach-Test Method in English as a Foreign Language Classes

The present study 'Use of test-teach-test method in EFL classes' aims to find out the effect of teach-test-teach method in developing vocabulary, grammatical and reading comprehension skills of Bachelor level first year EFL students in the faculty of education, Tribhuvan University, Nepal. For this experimental research, the sample population consisted 42 B. Ed. students from a Public College, Pokhara who were selected using purposive non-random sampling procedure. The students were divided into two groups; experimental and controlled; each consisted 21 students on the basis of odd even ranking system. The main tools for data collection were test items. A pre-test was administered before they were taught for 4 weeks. Then, the experimental group was taught using test-teach-test method. After experimental teaching, post-test was administered by using the same set as that was used in pre-test. The results of both the tests were compared and determined using simple statistical tool; mean. The findings revealed that the experimental group was found to be performed significantly higher than controlled group.Journal of NELTA Surkhet Vol. 5 January, 2018, Page: 15-27

Action Research on Improving Students' Speaking Proficiency in Using Cooperative Storytelling Strategy

Speaking is the first way to interact with others in the social community. Furthermore, the success in learning a language at first can be seen from the ability of the learner’s speaking. However, it is very hard for the second language learners to speak the foreign language, especially English. There are a lot of reasons why they get difficulties in speaking, such as lack of ideas to tell, lack of vocabularies to express the ideas, lack of the exposure to speak, and lack of the interesting teaching method or technique that can motivate them to speak. Thus, this research applied Cooperative Storytelling Strategy to Improve Students' Speaking proficiency of the students of grade 11in Nepal Rastriya Chandraganga Secondary School, Gagretal, Surkhet. This research was a collaborative classroom action research whose main purpose was to know whether or not storytelling strategy could improve the students’ speaking skill. Meanwhile, the specific purposes consisted of describing: (1) To implement storytelling strategy in 11th graders students at our School to improve their speaking skill. (2)To enhance their confidence in speaking skill and create fluency in speaking. The data of this research were got from the observations done by Story telling contest and Speaking test. The result showed that there was an improvement on students’ speaking proficiency after the implementation of storytelling strategy. The speaking test result in cycle two explained that the students’ speaking aspects got good progress. Storytelling improved their comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Thus, it can be said that storytelling strategy could improve students’ speaking skill.Journal of NELTA Surkhet, Vol. 5 January, 2018, Page: 97-105

Role of the Literature in ELT Course of Mid-Western University

This article identifies the role of literature course included in B.Ed. English Curriculum of Mid-Western University for the promotion of language skills and areas. It begins with the general introduction of literary course either it supports to EFL/ESL context. The research questions and objectives are set to examine the role of literature course in ELT classroom. Then it is closely observed literature contents in B.Ed. English curriculum. It is discussed via self-inspection and reflection of my own experience. It reaches in conclusion that literary texts provide rich linguistic input and effective stimuli for students to express themselves, and a potential source of learner motivation. These texts also provide an opportunity for multi-sensorial classroom experiences and can appeal to learners with different learning style. The students can promote their creativity and language proficiency in ESL/EFL context of ELT classroom. Therefore, it is essential to design the literary texts in ELT course to promote both the language skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and language areas (i.e. vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciations).Journal of NELTA Surkhet, Vol. 5 January, 2018, Page: 56-64