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.

According to the paper the roots of the interactionist approach can be traced to several lines of research that began in the 1970s. it all started when researchers became very interested in the types of discourse patterns found in native speakers and learner conversations. This led to focus on input and comprehensibility due to modifications such as repetition and syntactic simplifications. This focus was later also found in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, as this hypothesis states that comprehensible input was the driving force behind language acquisition. But interaction between native speakers and learners did not hold any special place in his theories. However from the late 1970s, researchers began to accord more importance to interaction itself. Drawing upon these researchers, Long formulated his initial version of what became known as the interactionist hypothesis.

Early research using the interactionist approach framework sought to describe the frequency and types of interactional modifications used in native speaker-learner and learner-learner pairings. Several of the researchers pointed out this early research to be tending to be descriptive and did not seek to provide direct evidence that interaction was casually linked to L2 acquisition. Early versions of the interaction hypothesis incorporated Krashen’s claims about comprehensible input being necessary and sufficient for development in L2. But later after the out comes from White’s Output hypothesis, the idea of comprehensible input became insufficient. But later the interactionist approach took into account how learners receive information about incorrect utterances.

Till the early 1990s, many other extensions of interaction hypothesis grew out. And drawing upon these researches, Long presented a reformulated version of the interaction hypothesis in 1996, which states that “Negotiation for meaning, and especially negotiation that triggers interactional adjustments by the native speaker or more competent interlocutor, facilitates acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention and output in productive ways”

1. There are many sub-gods like the different parts of our bodies but there is only one main god who watches over everything.
2. His philosophy points towards doing good, seeing good and thinking good
3. According to him you can do whatever you want but it should not harm others

After that Gyanendra presented on Socio-cultural psychology. Then it was Bikash’s turn to present. He showed us 25 wallpapers of different kinds which were very interesting to evaluate. We took out many conclusions from them. One of my conclusions was that during advertisement the companies use different strategies which involve following points:

1. Being unique
2. Being in winner’s circle
3. Personal connection
4. Social welfare

Then bikash gave another presntation on Conversation analysis.

After presenting the first presentation for discourse analysis of the Taxi drivers, folowing questions were asked to us by Dhanapati sir to discuss among us:

1. What is the main lesson learnt from taxi driver discourse?
2. What is their desire?
3. What is their perception on accident, road of Kathmandu and Government?
4. How is the relation beween driver and traffic?
5. Write at least two striking emerging discourse and essence of conversation?

Then he went on to teach us about pragmatics for some minutes.

Exchange means simply the exchange of conversation and more specifically the exchange of topics from one to another. Exchange also is divided into different sub-category, e.g. Boundary or teaching at boundary exchange signals the beginning and the ending what a teacher thinks to be a stage in the lesson. Usually, it consists two moves framing and focusing.

Usually transactions begin with a preliminary exchange and they complete with a final exchange. It has structure in terms of exchanges. It often begins and ends with boundary exchange which consists of a frame and or a focus followed.

Then he gave us some examples showing that discourse can be both process and product. According to Richard (1985:229l,” Two views of discourse: as product and as process is a distinction between a completed act of communication (product) and the underlying abilities and skills used in producing it (process).

The first half of today’s class was very practical as we solved different kinds of problems by either top to bottom process and bottom to top process.

According to Cook’s Model for bottom up process first there is sounds and structure then grammar and lexis, cohesion, conversational practice, discourse function, discourse structure, discourse type, shared knowledge and social relationship at the end. Meanwhile Nunan’s Top down processing Model has Past experiences and language intuitions at first, followed by selective aspects of print, meaning and sound or pronunciation at the end if necessary. We also looked at the 3000 most commonly used words in English language.

But then I had to go home at the middle of the class as my wife was alone at home and she could need my help at home. But I did read the remaining slides given by Djanapati sir, in which he discussed about how to do a discourse analysis of written article. The following question should be asked in given case:-

1. Hidden realtions of power present in the articles
2. Whose discourses are being presented
3. Who are consulted for the article
4. Who is the audience for the article
5. What is left unsaid
6. The use of passive voice
7. The use of adjectives to indicate a strong discourse

• Verdictives (e.g. estimating, assessing, describing);
• Exercitives (ordering, appointing, advising);
• Commissives (promising, betting);
• Behabitives (apologizing, congratulating, thanking);
• Expositives (arguing, insisting).

`     We also learnt that During the 1970s, some language specialists began to argue that teaching learners the formal elements of second and foreign language was insufficient, and that following the work of people such as Austin and Searle, teachers should also teach language functions. Accordingly, teaching materials and procedures began to reflect this change of emphasis.

We also learnt about discourse markers. Discourse markers can be specified, in terms of their functions, as follows: Focusing and Linking, contrasts, concession, contradicting, balancing, dismissal, similarity, change of subject structuring, adding, generalizing, exemplification, logical consequence, correcting, gaining time, showing attitude, persuading and summing up.

• 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