How did NELTA come into being? Ganga Ram Gautam volunteered to scratch the memory of NELTA's birth in the following way:

Birth of NELTA

NELTA was born in the British Council Nepal in 1992 when its first meeting was held in the British Council Office. I remember the day when Mr. David Pottinger, then Assistant Director of the British Council wrote the minutes of the first meeting on a plain sheet of paper and all the members who attended the meeting promised to keep this association away from all the organisational ills including politics and favouritism. It was, thus, established as a non-government, non-political, non-profit making, professional association with the aims of improving ELT situation in Nepal The need to improve the teaching and learning of English language, thereby keeping abreast of new development in ELT, lay the foundation of NELTA. The other members present in the meeting were Mr. Jai Raj Awasthi (currently the professor of English Education), Dr. Tirtha Raj Khaniya (currently the professor of English Education), Mr. Ram Ashish Giri, Mr. Ratna Bahadur Bajracharya, Principal of Anandhakuti Vidyapith, Mrs. Meera Shrestha and myself. The meeting assigned Mr. Awasthi to draft NELTA constitution and an ad hoc committee was formed. This is the first milestone that NELTA set in its journey.

The justifications to its birth were many. To recall some of them are listed below:

• The majority of English teachers in Nepal were untrained and no EFL qualifications were/are required to become an English teachers. Thus, some kind of initiation to familiarise them with the ELT pedagogy was a must.
• All the teachers associations that exist in Nepal were affiliated to political parties and functioning as trade unions.
• Teachers could hardly participate in the professional development activities.
• The ever-increasing demand of English grew higher and higher due to the expansion of business and tourism sector with the restoration of democracy in the country.
• The Ministry of Education was in the verge of revising the ELT syllabus in school level. The shift from Structural teaching to Communicative teaching demanded massive teacher training orientation which the government could not do alone.

                                                                              (Mr. Gautam is one of the founding members of NELTA)

To go to other sections of the issue, follow the link below.

Research articles on English in classroom and alternative curriculum

Teacher's anecdote

Humour in an English classroom