207. Two Places, One Pursuit_ English Teaching in Nepal and Afghanistan ppsx

Two Places, One Pursuit: English Teaching in Nepal and Afghanistan
30 May 2006
AA: I'm Avi Arditti and this week on Wordmaster: interviews with two English teachers,
one from Nepal, the other from Afghanistan. I met them recently at the international
convention of TESOL. TESOL is the professional organization Teachers of English to
Speakers of Other Languages.
GOVINDA RAJ BHATTARAI: "I am Govinda from Nepal. We
have altogether ninety-four living languages spoken in Nepal.
Out of those languages, English has sixty-fourth position. And
the native speakers of English, the number of the native speakers
of English is something two thousand thirty or like that
[laughs]."
AA: "Not very many."
GOVINDA RAJ BHATTARAI: "Not many at all. The
government is very anxious and very eager to improve the situation of English. There are
three [examples of that] I think these examples are not found in other parts of the
world. Earlier, we had English from grade four to ten, now from grade one. Secondly all
textbooks are translated into English from grades one to ten. And thirdly government is
trying to give training to the teachers who do not have good proficiency level in English.
"And other organizers like NELTA which I represent Nepal English Language
Teachers Association. We have some four hundred members who are English teachers
from primary to university levels in our kingdom. And we hold conferences, publish
materials, give workshops and trainings for English language teachers to promote their
quality."
YAR MOHAMMAD BAHRAMI: "My name is Yar Mohammad Bahrami and I am from
Kabul, Afghanistan."
AA: "How much demand is there in Afghanistan for learning
English right now?"
YAR MOHAMMAD BAHRAMI: "Very much, and very much
as you know that is clear to everyone that Afghanistan is now
changing and is being changed. And we have international

community with us, and Afghanistan intends not to be alone, but
intends to have relations with the world, international
community.
"So very high demand is for English because we have a lot of international staff, both
civilians and military in our country, and they need people to speak English, especially
Govinda Raj Bhattarai
Yar Mohammad
Bahrami
those who want to have a high salary and work with them as translators and interpreters.
Especially nowadays, people try to English, even aged people are trying to learn English
and find good salary in our country."
AA: "At what age do you start teaching English?"
YAR MOHAMMAD BAHRAMI: "Very long ago, English was taught only as a subject
in schools from seventh grade. But according to the changes and new connections, the
system has been changed and now the English is going to be taught from grade four."
AA: "What are some of the challenges now in implementing these English teaching
programs?"
YAR MOHAMMAD BAHRAMI: "The big challenges we have in our country is lack of
professionals, because we were not used to or we were not familiar much more with the
English long ago, and people were not entrusted to learn English. That's one. Or people
were entrusted but they were afraid, especially when our country was invaded by the
former Soviet Union and people were afraid to learn English and the Russian language
took the place of the English language. And even sometimes people were forced to live
and not learn English and instead learn Russian. But the big challenge we have is lack of
professionals.
"But I hope it will be solved because the international community and especially the
Fulbright programs we have in Afghanistan, the British Chevening scholarships we have.
And a good example is that four of my colleagues are now abroad and do their studies
and doing M.E.s [earning Masters of Education degrees]. Two of them are in the U.K.
and two of them are in the U.S.A. through Chevening scholarships and Fulbright."

AA: "And they'll come home with masters in education."
YAR MOHAMMAD BAHRAMI: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. The good news for us is when I
left Kabul a week ago, two of them arrived back to the country with master's degrees, one
from the U.S.A. and one from the U.K.
AA: Yar Mohammad Bahrami is a lecturer in the English Department at Kabul
University. And earlier you heard Govinda Raj Bhattarai, an English professor and
assistant dean of the Faculty of Education at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal.
They were among the visitors to the VOA Special English booth at the 40th annual
convention of the group TESOL, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
The convention took place in March in Tampa, Florida.
And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is , and our
segments are all posted at voanews.com/wordmaster. I'm Avi Arditti.