Then the first task we were given was to write a crazy story. We had to write part of the story but we couldn’t see what the others were writing. In the end everybody had a crazy story of their own. My crazy story is as following:

Hari met Laxmi at home. He said,” Your clothes are very dirty. ” She said, “Thank you”. And they fought with each other.

Then from folding crazy story we went to folding poetry. In this task we were all given a paper each and we had to write a single line of poem by referring to the previous line only. We couldn’t see the other parts of the poem. I just tried to rhyme my lines as close as possible to the ones before. The poem that I ended up at the end is as following:

You and me

Holding you lightly under my arms,

Lying under the moon with future plans,

Flying in the blue sky face calm,

Always go up not the down,

Being smile and smile,

You would certainly win the world,

And also win the power of all,

So let’s make a call.

In the third task we were divided into groups of 5 each and we were to contribute 5 words each in the middle. Then we took out 9 words that seemed unnecessary. Then Gnawali sir told us to arrange the words in 4*4 order. Then he told us to write a stanza of poem from it. It was quite difficult to write a meaningful poem but somehow we managed the following stanza:

This struggle of my life prisoned me with difficulties,

Dream of beautiful democracy and freedom brings happiness,

Amazing hiking in the underwater zoo,

That’s all there is to life, I just love eating food.

In the last task we were supposed to write and acrostic poem, which was very fun to write. And some of my friends really wrote good poems. My acrostic poem are as followed:

MOTHER

Moving her hands

On my head

This feels like

Heaven

Even gives us bread

Rise up slowly she said

BIBEK

Brave

In heart

Brave

Each time

Kindles bravely

At the end he reminded us to complete the first assignment concerning critique on CLT and TPR. Then he gave us another report to write on an issue of ELT for which I chose to write on something related to internet’s use in language classroom. He also taught how to section break in word.

• Different methods are best for different teaching contents
• All methods are partially true or valid
• The notion of good and bad methods is itself misguided.

She talked about most of the methods being created for other conditions than that of Nepal. For e.g. CLT was created for Chinese businessmen who had high motivation; Audio-Lingual was created for Army while suggestopaedia is only for beginning of the class. It is similar to tissue rejection in medical term. For e.g. CLT failed in Pakistan as females are not allowed to speak with males.

Then Mabindra Regmi talked on the topic ‘Contextualizing the textbook content’ which also was the theme of his Master’s thesis. He started with an audio and an incident related to a shopping incident. According to him we have to contextualize because:

• It can help learners to understand the function of language.
• It can assist learners in developing appropriate use of language
• It adds to cultural element combining language and culture

After that we were again divided into three groups of three person each. Our task was to complete an incomplete story given by the teacher and draw it in a chart paper. I was grouped with Pabitra and Santona. I first asked what kind of ending they wanted to which we agreed on a happy ending. Then began a roller coaster of ideas coming in which were so funny that we were laughing continuously and Pabitra almost lost her balance while laughing with her face totally red and blushing. At the end of it most of our jaws were paining. We finally decided to have a story with suspense. In which, a childless couple go to a beach house for holiday. When they are at the beach, the girl says that she will come back after swimming but doesn’t return for a long time. The next morning, the boy finds a letter by the door which says that the girl to sorry and not coming back again. The boy follows the trail and searches the whole beach. By the end of the day when he returns he finds himself shocked that his wife is wishing him a Happy April fool’s day. And that seems like a happy ending in comparison to other two groups in which the girl instead elopes with another person for either money or a baby.

Then coming to the theoretical part, Gnawali sir explained that the first thing we did was an activity because it didn’t have a visible product but the second thing we did was a task because it had a visible product in the form of the drawing. At the end we were given an assignment to write at least half page on any English textbook if its unit was task based or not.

Then Gnawali sir began discussion on Communicative Language Teaching by talking on receptive and productive skills, learner-centeredness, authentic communication, accuracy vs fluency and form and function. We mainly learnt that an activity becomes communicative when:

• There is a need to communicate
• There is a desire to communicate
• There is real/authentic use of language
• The participants contribute spontaneously

In this method learners are negotiator, participant and speaker or listener, while teachers act as facilitator, participant, organizer, guide, initiator, researcher, needs analyst, group processor and counsellor.

1. Advanced conversational proficiency
2. Memorization of vocabulary pairs
3. Understanding and creating solutions of problems

Natural approach is based on the naturalistic principles of SLA. It is often confused with natural method, which is similar to direct method. There is an emphasis on exposure or input rather than practice and optimizing emotional preparedness.

1. The goal of learning a foreign language is in order to read its literature or for intellectual development.
2. The first language is maintained as the reference system in the acquisition of the second language

Then he taught us about direct method according to whose principles are:

1. Language is primarily speech
2. Classroom objects help learners understand the meanings
3. No native language used
4. Pronunciation stressed
5. Self correction
6. Conversation activity in each class
7. Grammar taught inductively
8. Syllabus based on situation and not on linguistic structure.

He referred us to buy some books too. We were going to study from these books about different theories related to English language teaching. The books were Approaches and methods in language teaching by Richard and Rogers and Techniques and principles in language teaching by Larsen-Freeman and Anderson. Luckily I found the pdf versions of both which will be very easy to study with my kindle. He also said that we had to buy English books of grade 8-10.

He then asked us to make metaphors related to the classroom, teacher, students and T/L materials. In my case I symbolized the given set as being galaxy, stars. Planets and space respectively. He gave us an assignment to make the symbolization in a chart paper. I really hope I can finish this in time though.

Towards the end of the class he said to us about a research conducted in Nepal and Thailand. And the research showed that in comparison to other countries Nepalese still depend on the teachers for most of the guiding while in other countries people have become more learner centered.