 |
Kathmandu,Saturday May 06, 2000 Baishakh 24, 2057.
|
Teachers are unqualified
This refers to article titled "ELT in 21st century in
Nepalese context" dated April 16, TKP.
I am pleased that my research is being taken seriously.
However, I wish to point that the words "shameful" and "disgusting"
were those of the author of the article, not mine.
The fact is that in 1994, using a variety of language
function criteria as the basis of communicative performance, most government school
teachers functioned on a level between minimum survival proficiency and minimum social
proficiency, ie, level 1 and 2 on the Australian Second Language Proficiency Rating
(ASLPR). In the case of private school teachers, the levels were higher and broader, but
variable from school to school. At level 2 ASLPR, where the majority of private school
teachers perform overall, the standard of English demonstrated by the teachers was
inadequate for them to teach communicative English successfully. My results confirmed the
reports of Prof Alan Davies (1984) and Mr Ram Ashish Giri (1985 and 1985). The lack of
competence, when combined with insufficient and inadequate teacher training, made it
impossible for the aims of either the 1972 primary school English curriculum, or the 1994
curriculum to be achieved. Even in the present day the problems associated with ELT in
private schools are compounded by a lack of curriculum guidelines that reach below year 4.
In 1997 and 1999, I saw no evidence that the standard of ELTs
in Nepali government schools had improved. However, I found there was some improvement in
the standard of ELTs in some of the major private schools I worked in during 1999.
Dr Rosemary Kerr
Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia |
