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Any new teaching-learning pedagogical experiments like digital learning, gamification, cooperative learning, etc. are welcomed and appreciated by the education community but looking at the social realities, each new approach takes time to reach Indian classrooms (Sarpparaje & Jeyasala, 2020). In order to facilitate and raise the standards of teaching, training, and learning English using a robust methodology, the British Council, India offers a funded project scheme called the English Language Teaching Research Mentoring Scheme (ELTRMS) every year for Indian academics and researchers in the field of English Language Teaching For the year 2019-2020, twelve research groups  received the ELTRMS grant,  and our research on flipped learning held its prestigious position among those that had been selected Through the inspiring scheme, the selected researchers were empowered and inspired to uphold research quality in all aspects of their research works. As part of the research activities, a five-day workshop on “Flipped Classroom Approach to Enhance Communication Competency of College Students” was organized using the project grant to disseminate the idea of flipping to 26 ELT professionals in and around Tamilnadu, India.

The on-site training not only allowed the participants to understand the novel and trending teaching approach but also reinforced the idea of changing their teaching strategy by embracing the flipped method to enable the maximum beneficial hours for students to practice the language using technology. Workshop participants created a sample flipped learning resource package inclusive of self-made video lectures on the contents they usually teach in their respective colleges. They were also guided to implement active learning strategies, and guide students to learn through the flipped method. The effective assessment plans and technological platforms were also discussed in order to execute a flipped lesson in all its essence. Thereby, they felt more prepared to roll out the same to their own students.

The feedback indicated that the participants valued the workshop training and required more ideas to create in-class activities. With the gained confidence and excitement, the participants were highly successful and exultant about their flipped experience which was affirmed by them in the post-survey. As Gopalan et al (2018) rightly point out, it appears that the teaching community is always willing to accept changes happening in the world of teaching and for doing so, what they require the most is this training ignition to be confident and believe in their preparedness to conduct a student-centered class like the suggested model of flipped learning.

Inspired by the workshop, S. Sabitha Shanmugha Priya, one of the workshop participants went on to conduct along with her supportive team of colleagues, a seven-day National Faculty Development Program on “Blended and Integrated Teaching in Real and Virtual Classroom”. It was a mammoth success as it was attended by 70 teachers nationwide and the speciality of the course was that the whole content was delivered via the flipped method (i.e., all the sessions were made available in YouTube while during the session enriching activities were conducted to assess the participants’ understanding). I felt privileged to be invited as one of the resources of this program.

Motivation behind meaningful Faculty Development Programs as this

It is good that teachers are interested in moving forward by employing a student-centered approach to instruction. During the Covid pandemic teachers practised panic-gogy, which is the only way to reach and teach students. What is panic-gogy? It is just  a term combining panic and pedagogy coined by Sean Michael Morris in an interview about the impact of the pandemic on higher education (Baker, 2020).

The recent days of panic-gogy have not only revolutionized teaching but have also also provided an exponential platform and meaningful time for teacher training. Academicians have witnessed a staggering rise in the body of published literature and development programs/seminars/workshops/conferences on virtual learning in almost all disciplines. Such development in tertiary education programs endorse strategic improvements in a professional manner. An effective teacher training workshop should impart the teaching-learning methodology coupled with impactful assessment tools so as to enhance their confidence in the process of teaching and learning. That way, the course on Blended and Integrated Teaching in Real and Virtual Classroom established the relevant effect of such a professional development program revolutionizing teaching-learning practice of both teachers and students.

My  Contribution to the Faculty Development Program

The topic I chose for my session was “Drafting Effective Lesson Plans for Integrating Speaking and Writing Skills in Teaching”. It had been reported by National Association of Software and Services Company that only 25% of engineering graduates are employable and others lack the very basic abilities to speak or write well enough in English.  Hence, the topic and the prevailing situation of the students gave me a humble opportunity to take some sincere attempts to bridge this serious gap between what students learn and what they should acquire. I didn’t try to reinvent the wheel by suggesting what had already been  known,  I just passed on the tasks and activities that I usually conduct in my classes in an attempt to improve my students’ language competency. In addition to sharing my own teaching experiences, my search for online tools to sharpen the speaking and writing skills of the learners made me explore innovative tech tools such as apps StoryBird, Zunal, Word it Out, and Easelly which eventually made me learn how to use them first!  In the process of acquiring this new knowledge I realised that I was learning a lot by preparing to train others.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive the participants’ sample lesson plan draft, integrating all the important points I made via the Google Meet session. Their lesson plans stood as testimony to their involvement in the course offerings and I am sure that they will implement all the beneficial suggestions that they learned. The overall experience was highly overwhelming and I will forever cherish both the learning and the teaching opportunities it offered. Thank you is a small word to express my gratitude for all the benefits I enjoyed through this program and these moments make me a perennial learner who wishes to participate as well as to hold informative sessions to upskill in the constantly changing professional role.    

 PS: Here is the link of the session that I uploaded in my YouTube studio which I would like to celebrate and spread.

References

• Baker, K. J. (2020). Panic‐gogy: A Conversation with Sean Michael Morris. The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 29(4), 1–3. doi:10.1002/ntlf.30239
• Gopalan, C., Bracey, G., Klann, M., & Schmidt, C. (2018). Embracing the flipped classroom: the planning and execution of a faculty workshop. Advances in Physiology Education, 42(4), 648–654. doi:10.1152/advan.00012.2018
• Sarpparaje, M., & Jeyasala, V. R. (2020). Impact of Flipped Learning on Student Perception in Technical English Course. Tathapi, 19(18), 190–201. http://tathapi.com/index.php/2320-0693/issue/view/21

About Sarpparaje Murugavel

Sarpparaje Murugavel has been working as an Assistant Professor of English at Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai. She has been teaching for a decade in reputed technical institutions and she has participated in about 30 various national and international seminars, workshops and conferences. She has obtained CEFR proficiency level C1 in Business English Certificate Higher by Cambridge English Language Assessment in 2017.  She has to her credit two funded projects on from ICSSR (as CI) and the British Council (as PI) and have published three papers in Scopus indexed Asian ESP Journal.

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“If you don’t buy a raffle ticket, you won’t win a lottery.” This was what was written at the end of the email, with the link to the IATEFL Belfast conference scholarship application, sent by one of my professors, encouraging us to give it a shot. This prompted me to apply for the same without giving it a second thought. Provoked by his line, I ended up deciding to apply for the same. There were multiple application calls with different criteria. At the outset, therefore, I was bewildered as I could make multiple submissions. Nevertheless, after giving it a lot of thought, I made up my mind to make two separate applications so that I could land at least one scholarship. I made an application with utmost care and fortunately, I won it. My happiness knew no bounds when I received an email from the scholarship committee that I had won English Language Centre Brighton Robert O’Neill scholarship to attend the conference.

Based on my personal experience, if you want to win a scholarship, you  should first read the requirements of the application carefully and go for one that is the best suited for you. On top of this, you should apply for at least two different scholarships and this way make it more probable that you win at least one; however, you should make the strongest possible application with utmost care and a bit of research. The strongest suggestion I would give is: never submit your application until you are fully satisfied with it; if you aren’t , it can’t satisfy the reviewing committee either. It’s as simple as that.

Hurray! I won the scholarship. After a couple of months, after all the arrangements, finally, I was ready to fly. On 15th May 2022 I landed at Heathrow airport, London before I took a connecting flight to Belfast for there aren’t any flights that directly connect Belfast and my country, Nepal.  It was evening in Belfast when I landed there, and it was drizzling. Exhausted, I took a taxi to Premier Inn Belfast in Alfred Street, my pre-booked accommodation. Soon after dinner, I went to bed as I was completely exhausted after a long-haul flight.

The next morning, full of excitement and nervousness, I woke up to the sound of alarm, for it was the first day of the conference. After breakfast, to get to the conference venue, I had to struggle a bit to adjust to the British transportation system since I come from a country that has a different system. In the end, I got to the venue. It was already crowded with delegates from different parts of the globe. It was a foggy morning and it drizzled outside.

ICC Belfast, the conference venue, was very luxurious. The beautiful scenery around it fascinated me at the first glance. I could imagine from this what Belfast has to offer. The auditorium hall was packed with delegates from different countries. It vividly reflected the unity in diversity within the community of practice. Shortly after that  the conference started formally with educative, enlightening presentations and speeches. My best memory was of the time when the scholarship winners were put in the first row of the hall, on the reserved seats; there was loud applause in the hall when we were introduced by the organizing committee. Those beautiful moments still flash in my head.

The five-day (16-20 May 2022) stretched conference was exceptional in all aspects. It was  a perfect learning and networking opportunity. The conference gave me a wider perspective on education in general and teaching language in particular. I learned more about changing trends in research and teaching English as a foreign language. Most importantly, I learned the importance of considering the ‘context’ while teaching the English language in a non-native setting. Besides this, I made several international friends – teachers, teacher educators, publishers, professors, and so forth. Connecting with them  wouldn’t have been possible without the generous scholarship from IATEFL.

The conference fills your mind but adventures/explorations fill your soul! Who would return home without exploring a bit of British cities? After the conference, I went for a sightseeing tour on the Hop-on Hop-off bus, a bus that enables anyone to get on and off as one pleases. The bus offers panoramic views from the rooftop; it took me to the Titanic Quarter, St. George’s Market, Great Victoria Street Belfast, and many more, but I can hardly recall other names. The bus allows people to explore every area of Belfast.

With all fond memories from Belfast, I flew off to London. At first sight, London didn’t fail to fascinate me. During my short stay in London, I explored  London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, and Centre London Aquarium. The memories from London are still fresh in my head. During each exploration, I thought of IATEFL. Without it, I would not have been where I was.

This entire narration has been feasible owing to IATEFL. It has helped me grow both professionally and personally: professionally by giving me a learning opportunity, exposing me to the world-class conference of English language teaching professionals, and personally by allowing me to connect with professionals from the same fraternity around the globe and to explore international (British) cultures, the way of life and the entire system. All in all, it has helped me grow as an educator.

If you want to learn and grow by attending the IATEFL conference but have financial constraints, I strongly suggest you apply for an IATEFL scholarship without a second thought. Where there is a will, there is a way. Bear in mind, if you don’t buy a raffle ticket, you won’t win a lottery. Nevertheless, once again, a gentle reminder—make sure to submit your application only when you are fully satisfied with it; if you are not , it cannot satisfy the reviewing committee either. And next time you should share a story about your being an IATEFL scholarship winner.  All the best! 

About Babu Lama

Babu Lama is an educator from Nepal. Besides, he also writes on topical educational issues for different national dailies, published in English and is also a scholar of MPhil in English Language Education at Kathmandu University School of Education. He was a  scholarship winner of the IATEFL Belfast Conference 2022.

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As part of my master’s degree programme at Kathmandu University School of Education, I was involved in developing a training programme for the professional development of English Language teachers in Nepal. Before that, I visited three secondary schools located in Kathmandu and Lalitpur cities in Nepal. When I talked to the English language teachers there, one of the common areas of concern or need was the lack of or subpar proficiency in English speaking and it motivated me to develop a training program in English Pronunciation. There are many reasons for the poor English pronunciation in Nepal. According to Sharma (2020), learning English pronunciation receives the least attention in the curriculum in the Nepali academic sphere. Furthermore, the overuse of the mother tongue including the dominance of the Nepalese language (Chand, 2021) along with the interlanguage differences between English and the native languages spoken in Nepal (Khati, 2011) because of the difficulty with both fluency and pronunciation. Although, in Nepal,  English has a high prestige in the academic and social contexts, and while a lot is invested in English language teaching (ELT), the result is far from satisfactory. Koirala (2015) states that there is a clear distinction between government and private school students in relation to their English language proficiency levels resulting in the former students demonstrating poor  English language skills in relation to private school students. However, even private schools, at times, appear to have  insufficient language resources as well as qualified or trained ELT teachers and these have resulted in poor English language proficiency in Nepalese students (Bista, 2011) .

I extensively researched English phonemes and suprasegmental language features like stress and intonation and made them relevant in the context of Nepal. I also used the website that I built to help Nepali EFL speakers learn English pronunciation. The culmination of the six months of field visits, research work, and training material development enabled me to offer training sessions to 22 teachers from four different schools in Nepal. These teachers taught primary and secondary-level students.

The participating teachers were busy professionals, and they had to take their leave of absence from their respective schools. Hence, after consulting with the hosting school officials and programme facilitators, the training programme was adjusted to a two-day event on the 11th and 12th of June, 2022. It covered ten different sessions on English pronunciation. Initially, the desks and benches were arranged in a traditional way facing the whiteboard. However, the seating arrangement was reorganized into a number of  U-shape groups facing the whiteboard to increase the training participant interactions (see figure 1). The first day focused on English phonemes, IPA, silent letters, vowel and consonant alphabet combination sounds, and rules on breaking words into syllables. Ice-breaking games were included in between the sessions to help integrate the class participants. I used PowerPoint slides as primary instructional material. While teaching the 44 English phonemes, I first went through the consonant sounds individually. I explained how the sounds are articulated along with the place of articulation. I used pictures of the human vocal apparatus with tongue placement and proper labelling to help them emulate the correct sound reproduction. English phonemes that are not present in the Nepali language were introduced along with their correct pronunciation. Some signs of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) were easy and intuitive for the participants to learn as they looked similar to their English alphabet. This was followed by a session in which they practised pronouncing the combination of a consonant and a vowel, which was especially significant in showing how the letter ‘r’ did not follow the pronunciation convention followed by other consonant letters, or the vowel ‘g’ which could be pronounced as either /dʒ/ or /g/ depending on the adjacent vowel letter. Later, the training participants went over the rules for breaking words into syllables. This session was interactive and they received it enthusiastically.

On the second day, I intended on teaching word stress, sentence intonation, and commonly mispronounced English words in Nepal. Word stress and intonation were rather difficult for the training participants because of the lack of similar concepts in Nepali or other native languages in Nepal. Many of them had to repeat the examples several times to make sure that they were putting the stress on the right syllable or speaking with the right intonation tone depending on the sentence type. As a result, we spent about 30 minutes each for the practice session on word stress and sentence intonation. This was followed by a tutorial session on the English words that are commonly mispronounced in Nepal. Many English words are ‘Nepalicized’, meaning the words are pronounced distinctly which is peculiar to Nepali people. For example, the word ‘Film’ is pronounced as /fɪlɪm/, and the word ‘Tank’ is pronounced as /’tæŋkɪ/. The participants enjoyed going over the compilation of the English words that are pronounced differently in Nepal. Such variation in pronunciation can cause misunderstandings when speaking in English with foreigners.

Overall, the training programme on improving English pronunciation was well received by the participants and the school officials. I received a compliment from the hosting school principal that I was able to teach the course participants in two days what he learned in an entire semester as part of his bachelor’s degree in English. I feel that my objective in offering the training was achieved as I was able to help them understand or at least introduce different pronunciation aspects of the English language.   

References

• Bista, K. (2011). Teaching English as a Foreign/Second Language in Nepal: Past and Present. Online Submission, 11(32), 1-9.
• Chand, G. B. (2021). Challenges Faced by Bachelor-Level Students While Speaking English. Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 45-60.
• Khati, A. R. (2011). When and why of mother tongue use in English classrooms. Journal of NELTA, 16(1-2), 42-51.
• Koirala, A. (2015). Debate on public and private schools in Nepal. International Journal of Social Sciences and Management, 2(1), 3-8.
• Sharma, L. R. Discerning the Reasons for Difficulties in Teaching English Pronunciation to Nepalese Students. NELTA Bagmati Journal, 1.

About Rajendra Man Singh

Rajendra Man Singh is an ELT learner and practitioner from Nepal. He is about to complete his master’s degree in English Language Teaching from Kathmandu University School of Education. He teaches the English language to bachelor-level students at a college in Kathmandu. In addition to that, he is involved as an IELTS instructor to Nepali students. He has been in the ELT field in Nepal for the last four years. He is a published author and enjoys contributing as an editor to Nepali journals. Currently, he is writing short stories for a book publication. 

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A teacher’s role in the classroom should not only be focused on teaching and passing knowledge on students. The more important roles are focused on motivating students and developing methods for fostering their critical thinking. Thus, a teacher is a motivator, facilitator, educator, psychologist, etc. Ours is a multifaceted role. If we observe our students in the classroom, we may identify four groups of students in heterogeneous classrooms. Somehow the majority of teachers first notice high achievers, the students who are usually leaders of the discussions, who know answers to all the questions and who do well in tests. On the other side, there are low achievers, students who are usually shy, they do listen in class but don’t raise their hands, perhaps being afraid of making mistakes. They are also low achievers in tests. Medium achievers are somewhere in between these two groups of students, seemingly passive in classes but doing well in tests. The fourth group of students is special needs students. They can belong to any of the previous three groups, and in the majority of cases they can be high achievers. Nevertheless, a lot depends on the role of the teacher in class.

Special needs education refers to the practice of educating students in order to accommodate  their individual differences, disabilities and special needs. When talking about disabilities, we refer to learning disabilities, emotional and behavioral disabilities, developmental and physical disabilities and many other disabilities. Today special needs education is integrated in the regular school system, but it used to be different. Thus, there are four periods of this kind of education. Initially, children with disabilities were excluded from schools and they attended specialized schools. Gradually, care for disabled children was established, but still they were segregated into homogeneous groups. After introducing the principle of normalization and integration, educational equality and equal educational services were established and inclusion became a part of the regular school system.

Speaking of disability, there are two definitions both relevant for special needs education. In medical terms, disability is regarded as the necessity of a person to adapt to the society and disabled people need to be made more normal. On the other hand, social definition emphasizes the necessity of the society to change the point of view and regard the disabled people almost as equal as the others. In social context, disability is mainly a consequence of discrimination, prejudice and exclusion. Inclusion is based on social definition. The right to a more inclusive education is covered in several significant international declarations:

1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
2. UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
3. World Declaration for Education for All (1990)
4. Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disability (1993)
5. UNESCO Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action (1994)
6. Dakar Framework for Action (2000)
7. UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) 

Did you know that the 3 December is celebrated as the International Day of persons with disabilities? There are many famous people with various disabilities who prove the theory that disability does not need to hold you back. Frieda Kahlo, Stephen Hawking, Helen Keller, Stevie Wonder and Chris Brooke all had (have) various disabilities, but they achieved great success in their fields.

Special needs education requires a process of adaptation. The first step is identifying a child with special needs. In order for the inclusion program to be successfully integrated, the social environment in the classroom must be involved. Successful implementation of the inclusion is dependent upon the modifications that should be based on the individual needs. Modifications are part of the instructional techniques besides accommodations. Modifications are changes or adaptations of materials to make it easier to students’ needs. It affects the change of what is learned according to the difficulty of the material and the way students are assessed or what they are expected to learn. There are numerous examples of how teachers can modify their teaching materials like skipping subjects, simplifying the assignments or shortening them. They could offer extra aids or extend time in flexible settings for taking tests. Speaking of accommodations, we sensibly adjust to teaching practices so that the student is able to learn from the same material but in a more accessible way. It can be achieved with response accommodations (instead of writing homework the student can be tested verbally), presentation accommodations (audiobooks, text to speech software, talking calculator), setting accommodations (changing setting for assessment) or scheduling accommodation (giving rest breaks or extending time during tests)

Judging by the fact that special needs education is based on a student’s individual needs, a teacher is expected to design an individual learning plan . There is no specific form; still there are patterns to be followed. The patterns are based on first selecting the topic out of which the activities are further developed. Each activity in the plan should contain the expected change with the objectives from the topic. Implementers are the teachers, who might be helped by a parent or assistant (if a special needs student needs an assistant). The teacher decides on the time or duration of the selected topic and the number of activities). Finally, models of accommodations are applied with various activities and according to the individual needs. Having designed and applied the individual learning plan, the teacher needs to evaluate it in three- or six-months’ time. When evaluating it, teachers should emphasize the expected changes and explain whether they were partially or completely accomplished and how effectively the accommodations were implemented. It is significant to note that when writing comments about students, teachers should write initials only, avoiding the student’s full name ,and emphasizing the positive achievement with suggestions for further improvement.

Special needs education is highly beneficial both for students and teachers for numerous reasons. Introducing students with disabilities into the classroom improves diversity and the classroom becomes strengthened. Special needs students can help create a healthy climate in the classroom where other students can learn how to be human. Students with disabilities can make far better progress in a regular class than in “specialized” groups. Finally, teachers are challenged to work with all kinds of students and develop various ways of teaching.

About Tamara Bradonjić

Tamara Bradonjić was born in 1981 in Kragujevac. She graduated in English language and literature from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade in 2005. Besides education as a teacher, she is also educated as a translator in the Association of Scientific and Technical Translators of Serbia. She has taught  for 16 years in a primary school “Milan Blagojević” in Natalinci. In her work she combines various techniques such as teaching with music and teaching with graphic novels. Translation is her hobby, especially translating legal and economic documents for university professors. Her other hobbies are listening to music, cooking, reading books and writing poetry.

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If you are a member of IATEFL and would like to contribute to the blog, we’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. We’re looking for stories from our members, news about projects you’ve been involved in, and anything else you think those connected to English language teaching would be interested in reading. We look forward to hearing from you! If you’re not a member, why not join us?

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