Wild berries work wonders for Jharkot women

RUDRA PANGENI

JOMSOM, Dec 6 : Sea-buckthorn berries - locally known as Tora fruits - were not of much use for local women of Jharkot in Mustang district until 2008. Though they used to collect berries to produce massage oil, they were not aware of the benefits that the wild fruit could bring to them. 

But things changed when the local Gurung and Thakuri women underwent a training to prepare squash from sea-buckthorn berries that were going to waste. Today, the squash prepared from sea-buckthorn berries is supplied to department stores in capital and other urban centers. 

Sri Muktinath Tora Juice Udyog, which is operated by Muktinath Cooperatives, produced squash from sea-buckthorn berries, and supplies the product to market in different parts of the country. The product is retailed at Rs 160 per bottle (500 ml).

The cooperative has 58 women - all of whom are women.
Sea-buckthorn berries grow at an altitude of 3,500 meters or above and are believed to be rich in Vitamin C.

“The fruit has empowered us; we no longer depend on our husbands,” Maya Gurung, secretary of Muktinath Cooperatives, said. “Also, we are not limited to household chores.”
The cooperatives sold squash worth Rs 4.48 million this year. Bhat-bhateni Department Stores is among the leading buyers of the sea-buckthorn squash, according to the cooperatives.

Sri Muktinath Tora Juice Udyog currently employs 11 executive members of the cooperatives including Gurung. They pocket salary of Rs 2,500 per month. All 58 members of the cooperative collect wild berries from nearby forest and sell them to the factory. They get Rs 150 for a kilogram of berries. 
Harvest of sea-buckthorn berries start form mid-August.

“All our members get equal benefit,” said Gurung. Twelve liters of juice can be made by processing 15 kg of fresh berries. Local women prepare 200 bottles of squash by using 28 liters of sea-buckthorn juice, sugar and other ingredients.

Food technologist Prof Bhismananda Baidya provided consultant services to the local women in the squash preparation process.
Amar Bahadur Shah, chief of High Mountain Agribusiness and Livelihood Improvement (HIMALI) Project said Baidya played a key role in developing entrepreneurship among local women by encouraging them to undergo squash preparation training some five years ago.

The HIMALI project, which is funded by Asian Development Bank, is providing Muktinath Cooperatives a grant of Rs 4.2 million to purchase bottle blower machine, build a house for the industry, and arrange irrigation for berry bushes with sprinklers and pipes.

“The local women are good at team work. They are united and very much transparent in financial matters,” said Shah. Gurung said that they have targeted to produce 500,000 bottles of the squash worth Rs 20 million within the next five years. 

“We have also urged HIMALI to provide gas operated stoves to boil fresh juice so that we can reduce the use of firewood and be environment friendly,” Gurung told Republica.

Genevieve Cahill, agribusiness capacity development specialist of HIMALI, said local women can earn more amount of money by producing oil from sea-buckthorn seeds. “The oil is used in production of cosmetics. It costs Rs 20,000 per liter in the international market,” she added.

my choice

An article matters. It made me nearly a celebrity!

by  Rudra Pangeni

I wrote article 'The next PM' and published on Wednesday, 13, Nov, 2013, I started to get feedbacks from different sections, from my close friends, acquaintances, my colleagues in the office. For the person who rarely dips pen for opinion, writing opinion turned out to be a different experience for me. My news items may have flared wide range opinions, in some cases, I have met some people using the information of my news and making opinions, putting their views based on that. But this time my opinion itself drew much compliments, Mahavir Paudyal and Biswas Baral, the guys handling editorial pages complimented my opinions. I am really encouraged. I got a phone call from a friend Chiranjivi Baral, whom I met at The Himalayan Times, he was at the news desk, who was not in touch for long. I thought the article made cotacts. Dinesh Thapa, my close friend sent an SMS 'excellent piece' immediate after reading the newspaper in the morning.

Next day, my weekly off day, I became ready to listen a youth, in my loitering evening, the youth said, "You are the same guy having published an article at Republica daily." I wanted to be more hospitable and enquired about him, I became quite naïve forgot to ask his name, perhaps I may not know him as he hesitantly removed the mask he was wearing and again fit into his nose and mouth. He seemed not interested to tell me except, he lives nearby and a student at Koteshwor this much.

Though, this is not the first opinion piece I had written, but the photo printed along with article made a different. This is my first opinion article in Republica, where I joined some five months ago. The article made me a celebrity!  

Though I posted my article in facebook twice and once on twitter, I did not get any feedback except a retweet by Saroj Kafle in twenty four hours. Thanks to all my readers. One more friend Ashish Gajurel came in online to congrat me during my office hours.

By 2 pm the article was at the hightest hit list with 317 hits in the online edition.

The NEXT PM, a voters manifesto

RUDRA PANGENI

In India, the world’s largest democracy, Congress (I) and Bharatiya Janata Party have put forth Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi respectively as their PM candidates for the general election to be held next year. Gandhi is the son of Congress (I) chair Sonia Gandhi, and Modi has a proven record of accomplishment, having been a successful chief minister of Gujarat.

The question is: Why do political parties here in Nepal hesitate to project candidates for the post of Prime Minister in parliamentary elections?


Republica

It is obvious that the fresh constituent Assembly election is more important for political parties in terms of power gain rather than constitution promulgation. In the political parties’ ongoing door to door campaign for votes, even voters gave little priority to statute writing, expressing their expectations of development and good governance instead.

Though we are going into a CA election, general people have little or no interest in forms of governance, federal structure, and delineation of federal units. Their concern is development, economic prosperity and stability.

Nepalis have voted in five parliamentary elections in 33 years of democratic practice since 1951. It’s unfortunate that they have been deprived of full-term governments in the long history of parliamentary practice. One of the major reasons for this is the practice of political parties not picking a leader beforehand, who will execute the commitments and pledges made before the election.

A projection of leadership can make more difference than mere commitments and pledges without a person to translate the same into action. But our political parties are hesitant to do so. Announcing a candidate for the next PM is sure to breed a culture of transparency. Our history is proof that a leader at Singhadurbar is more relevant to overall national progress than any particular leader voted in from a constituency. Our country needs a statesman to bail it out from protracted uncertainties and to meet peoples’ expectations for progress.

During the democratic practice in the country, people have felt a dearth of political stability, which is directly related to any particular party gaining a clear majority in the elections. This time, political cadres and leaders are busy trying to woo people for a clear majority, but people are not given any real statesman figure who can change their lives. It seems the parties are not confident enough about their leaders, which is the reason they have maintained their silence in this regard.

For the upcoming election, UCPN (Maoist) has placed a glamorous photo of Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on the back cover of a 53-page political manifesto, labeling him ‘leader of nation’. However, there is no clear statement on whether he is the party’s candidate for would-be PM. Other parties are completely silent in this regard.
Parties display double standards here. They do not declare their party’s prime ministerial candidate when they can, and later participate in shameful blame-game about foreign interference in choosing a PM. A prime ministerial candidate from each party can easily avert such foreign intervention.

Why don’t our parties consider choosing a leader to run the government? The disappointing revelation comes to fore that they are merely a loose alliance of political people, not an institution of unity and firm structure. Intra-party rifts and factionalism are common features of almost all parties.

Some major party leaders are of the view that it’s hard to project a single candidate with consensus. They agree that it has given aliens the opportunity to fish in murky waters.
In Nepal, it is an open secret that foreign intervention is a powerful kingmaker. If the parties announce their prime ministerial candidate, thereby allowing the people to directly cast a vote for the prime minister, the game of king-making would come to an end.

The tricky game of choosing a PM was in full swing after the first CA election. Influential forces were hesitant to hand over the post of the country’s executive head to the Maoist party, even though it had gained the biggest bloc of votes in the parliament. As a result, it took over three months for Pushpa Kamal Dahal to be the head of the government. To discourage the practice, which was repeated several times, parties should soul-search to find a candidate for prime minister before the election itself.

A declared candidate will directly go to Singhadurbar to lead the government, and CA members won’t have to linger on government formation. The CA hall will instead reverberate with the much-needed discussion on constitution drafting. It will ensure that there will be no malpractices of the kind evident in the first CA, and four-party meetings won’t shadow the performance of CA hall.

Otherwise, the fresh CA election may be no difference than the first one that gave birth to four prime ministers during its four year term, wasting much time and energy on changing governments.

In the history of Nepal, there is only one instance of the declaration of would-be PM before the election, and he too became a victim of foul play. In the general election of 1999, erstwhile President of Nepali Congress Girija Prasad Koirala projected the party’s founding member Krishna Prashad Bhattarai as a PM candidate. The party gained a clear majority in the election. Bhattarai became the prime minister, but Koirala himself acted to remove Bhattarai from the government less than a year later. Koirala’s move also resulted in a party spilt.

In Nepal, elections are not primary, the appointment of the PM takes a place of importance, and often renders people’s votes secondary. The parties must project their prime ministerial candidates to make the people’s votes primary, institutionalize democracy, and discourage foreign interference.

The author is a
correspondent at Republica’s Business Bureau

rudra.pangeni@gmail.com
@ http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=64445 

Educationist Khaniya in plagiarism row 

RUDRA PANGENI
KATHMANDU: A renowned educationist‚ Tirth Raj Khaniya‚ has made it to the top of his field and enjoyed political patronage. What people outside the education sector don't know is the case of plagiarism‚ which caused embarrassment to the Nepal English Language Teachers' Association and the editorial team of its journal‚ NELTA‚ in 2010.

Khaniya lifted part of an article‚ including its conclusion‚ from a work of Ferit Kilickaya‚ an English Teacher at the Middle East Technical University‚ Ankara‚ and published it as his article -- Use of authentic materials in EFL classrooms -- in 2006 without giving due credit to Kilickaya. Kilickaya's article -- Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classrooms -- was published in 2004.

Kilickaya discovered this in 2010‚ when Tribhuvan University’s online portal publishing journals posted NELTA’s journals‚ and complained to the NELTA in an email. "NELTA forwarded the mail to Khaniya seeking clarifications‚" sources quoted NELTA officials as saying. Asked about the article‚ however‚ chief editor of the journal‚ Jai Raj Awasthi‚ said he has no idea. “My editorial team is only responsible for the articles published in the NELTA journal after 2009 as we started peer review of the articles by two scholars thereafter.”He said authors themselves are accountable for the articles published before 2009.

NELTA‚ which started publishing the journal in 1996‚ not only removed the article from the online portal‚ but also withdrew the hard copies from its library and storage. NELTA officials told this daily on condition of anonymity that the edition was missing and said they were unaware of it. A copy of the journal obtained by THT from a personal collection‚ however‚ reveals whole paragraphs copied and pasted from Kilickaya's article without any change other than formatting.

Khaniya's article was published in the journal (Volume 11‚ Number 1-2) of Nepal English Language Teachers' Association (NELTA) in 2006.

Several academicians associated with the Tribhuvan University and other universities said they had no knowledge of the episode‚ while some spoke about it‚ only on condition of anonymity.

Khaniya is currently professor at the TU's Central Department of Education‚ Kirtipur. He was head of the department from 2004 to 2006.

Talking to this daily over the phone‚ Khaniya said he had forgotten to give reference to Kilickaya’s article. “I have included the ‘reference’ in the second edition of the book ‘Examination for Enhanced Learning’‚ which is coming within a week‚” added Khaniya. He was director of Basic and Primary Education Project under the Ministry of Education from 1992 to 1995 and was first vice-chairman of the Higher Secondary Education Board from 1995 to 2000. He was appointed member of the National Planning Commission for 2009-2011.

Besides‚ he was founding-president of the NELTA and founder-member of the Linguistics Society of Nepal. He has authored several series of school's reference materials of English Language Teaching and Learning.

Khaniya achieved master's degree from the TU in English Education and PhD in applied linguistics from the University of Edinburgh‚ UK.

He did post-doctoral research in Education under the Fulbright Programme at the George Washington University‚ Washington‚ DC.
published in the Himalayan Times on February 17, 2013
link
http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Educationist+Khaniya+in+plagiarism+row&NewsID=366209
Khaniya's article is in NELTA's journal 2006
and he copied majority of the articles

all the green part was copied 

Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classrooms

Ferit Kilickaya
kilickay [at] metu.edu.tr
http://www.metu.edu.tr/~kilickay
Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey)

This paper aims to answer the questions of when and how authentic materials should be used in EFL classrooms, and how cultural content may be included in the curriculum. To address these questions, the paper is organized in two parts. In the first part, the definition of authentic materials is given. Then advantages and disadvantages of the use of authentic materials are discussed. In the second part, the definition of culture is given and then, why and how cultural content should be used is discussed.

Introduction

The use of authentic materials in an EFL classroom is what many teachers involved in foreign language teaching have discussed in recent years. We have heard persuasive voices insisting that the English presented in the classroom should be authentic, not produced for instructional purposes. Generally, what this means is materials which involve language naturally occurring as communication in native-speaker contexts of use, or rather those selected contexts where standard English is the norm: real newspaper reports, for example, real magazine articles, real advertisements, cooking recipes, horoscopes, etc. Most of the teachers throughout the world agree that authentic texts or materials are beneficial to the language learning process, but what is less agreed is when authentic materials should be introduced and how they should be used in an EFL classroom.

Authentic Materials: Definition

The definitions of authentic materials are slightly different in literature. What is common in these definitions is 'exposure to real language and its use in its own community'. Rogers (1988) defines it as 'appropriate' and 'quality' in terms of goals, objectives, learner needs and interest and 'natural' in terms of real life and meaningful communication (p. 467). Harmer (1991), cited in Matsuta (n.d., para. 1) defines authentic texts as materials which are designed for native speakers; they are real text; designed not for language students, but for the speakers of the language. Jordan (1997, p. 113) refers to authentic texts as texts that are not written for language teaching purposes. Authentic materials is significant since it increases students' motivation for learning, makes the learner be exposed to the 'real' language as discussed by Guariento & Morley (2001, p. 347). The main advantages of using authentic materials are (Philips and Shettlesworth 1978; Clarke 1989; Peacock 1997, cited in Richards, 2001):

• They have a positive effect on learner motivation.
• They provide authentic cultural information.
• They provide exposure to real language.
• They relate more closely to learners ' needs.
• They support a more creative approach to teaching.

We can claim that learners are being exposed to real language and they feel that they are learning the 'real' language. These are what make us excited and willing to use authentic materials in our classrooms, but while using them, it is inevitable that we face some problems.

Disadvantages of Using Authentic Materials

Richards (2001, p. 253) points out that alongside with these advantages, authentic materials often contain difficult language, unneeded vocabulary items and complex language structures, which causes a burden for the teacher in lower-level classes. Martinez (2002) mentions that authentic materials may be too culturally biased and too many structures are mixed, causing lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts. There comes the question of when authentic materials should be introduced and used in a classroom; in other words, can we use authentic materials regardless of our students' level?

Using Authentic Materials: At Which Level?

Guariento & Morley (2001) claim that at post-intermediate level, the use of authentic materials is available for use in classroom. This might be attributed to the fact that at this level, most students master a wide range of vocabulary in the target language and all of the structures. They also note that at lower levels, the use of authentic materials may cause students to feel de-motivated and frustrated since they lack many lexical items and structures used in the target language. Matsuata (n.d.) states that the use of authentic materials is a burden for the instructors teaching beginning students as they have to spend a lot of time to prepare for authentic materials regarding the ability level of the students.

Do all these mean we are not able to use authentic materials in lower-level classes apart from post-intermediate and advanced levels? According to the findings of the survey carried out by Chavez (1998), learners enjoy dealing with authentic materials since they enable them to interact with the real language and its use. Also they do not consider authentic situations or materials innately difficult. However, learners state that they need pedagogical support especially in listening situations and when reading literary texts such as the provision of a full range of cues (auditory and visual including written language).

What Can be Done to Overcome Difficulties We Face?

We may conclude that learners feel better with authentic materials helping them involve in the 'real' language as long as we, as teachers, provide them with pedagogical support. In order to achieve this, we have a wide range of choices.

Martinez (2002) suggests that teachers may use authentic materials for the learners to listen for the gist of the information presented and also he adds that by using authentic materials teachers will have the opportunity to encourage students to read for pleasure especially certain topics of their interest. Matsuta (n.d.) claims that using audio-visual materials aiding students' comprehension is beneficial since it will prevent students especially beginning ones from being frustrated about authentic materials. Materials such as popular and traditional songs will help us to create a non-threatening environment.

Guariento & Moley (2001) suggest that authentic materials should be used in accordance with students' ability and adds that suitable tasks can be given to learners in which total understanding is not important. According to Jordan (1997), in the earlier stages, non-authentic materials can be used, but stresses that upon students' dealing with materials from their own subject area, authentic materials should be introduced.

Cultural Content

Westerhuis (as cited in Cheung, 2001, p.56) defines 'culture' as the customs, values, laws, technology, artifacts and art of a particular time or people. Culture in English language teaching materials has been subject to discussion for many years. The reason for the use of cultural content in classroom is for the supposition that it will foster learner motivation (McKay, 2000, p.7).

Changes in linguistic and learning theory suggest that culture can be used as an important element in language classrooms, but many students say that they do not want to learn about the culture of the target language. This might be because of the fear of assimilation into what they perceived as something strange to them. Also, misrepresenting cultures by reinforcing popular stereotypes and constructing these cultures as monolithic, static 'Others', rather than as dynamic, fluid entities might result in failure in making cultural content an effective element in language learning and teaching (Guest, 2002).

I believe that cultural content is a key to effective teaching and learning a language provided that problems arising from introducing culture into EFL classroom are dealt with effectively and teaching strategies and learning materials are chosen appropriately.

Why Should We Use Cultural Content?

As all we know, knowing a language goes beyond the knowledge of grammatical rules, vocabulary items and pronunciation of these items. Successful language learning requires language users to know that culture underlying language in order to get the meaning across. Also, Tseng (2002) suggests that culture effects changes in individual perception and is vital for expanding an individual's perspective of the world. According to Stuart and Nocon (1996),

Learning about the lived culture of actual target language speakers as well as about one's own culture requires tools that assist language learners in negotiating meaning and understanding the communicative and cultural texts in which linguistic codes are used" (p. 432).

Also, Shanahan (1997, p. 168) states that cultural content provides exposure to living language that a foreign language student lacks. So, culture is not something consisting of facts to be learnt, but a helpful tool to make learners feel the need to speak and use the target language.

How Can We Deal with Problems?

Today, English teachers have a lot of choices in terms of textbooks, and it is surprising that many of them rely on uninteresting textbooks that focus students' attention on grammatical structures, and on practice in isolation. Also, the activities chosen are based on teacher-talk and student-listen routines as suggested by Cheung (2001). These practices are unlikely to lead students to develop a genuine interest in learning English. Students lacking motivation to learn a language need variety and excitement. We should help them to notice that learning a language is not just learning its grammatical rules, vocabulary items and so on.

The reason for the use of cultural content in classroom is that it will foster learner motivation (McKay, 2000, p. 7). She, like many other experts, believes that there should be a variety of culture in the materials and not only an overload of western culture in ELT classrooms. Besides, learning about a culture does not mean accepting that culture. If the role of the culture in the materials is just to create learner interest towards contents and thus towards language, that is highly desirable. But overuse of cultural material in the language classrooms will constitute problems not for students but also for the teachers and decrease the motivation.

McKay identifies three types of cultural materials: target culture materials, learners' own culture materials and international target culture materials. For her, the best one is international target language materials, which supposedly covers a variety of knowledge from different cultures all over the world using the target language (McKay, pp. 9-10). That will most probably increase the learners' interest rather than imposing only one culture all the time and prevent learners from having the fear of assimilation into a specific culture, and help them respect other people's cultures. Students' own culture should be discussed together with target culture. In other words, home and target culture should be integrated. Robinson (as cited in Stuart and Nocon, 1996, p. 435) refers to this integration as 'Color Purple'. According to Stuart and Nocon, this synthesis is created when one becomes aware of one's own cultural lens (e.g. blue) through the recognition that a person from another culture has a different lens (e.g. red). Neither person can escape his or her own cultural lens, but each can choose to overlap lenses (e.g. purple) in order to understand better the other's perspectives and arrive at shared meaning. While using cultural content in classrooms, teachers should keep in mind that English is an international language, and culture is an aid to motivate our students rather than something to be taught.

How Can We Introduce Cultural Content in Our Classrooms?

There are a lot of activities we can use in our classrooms in order to create interest towards the target language by using cultural content. The key point is that we should create a relaxing environment where our students can discuss their own culture together with the target culture in meaningful and communicative tasks and activities. This will ensure that students are doing something with a purpose in their mind.

Sources and Techniques for Cultural Content

Today, with the help of technological developments, we have access to many sources easily and quickly. Almost all the printed materials are on the Internet in electronic forms and we can easily search anything anytime. As a result, we do not lack cultural content to use in our classrooms. Cullen and Sato (2000) suggest practical techniques and a wide range of sources for teaching culture in the EFL classroom using three different parameters, namely, information sources, activity-types and selling-points and also Kodotchigova (2002) discusses the role of role-play in teaching culture for classroom suggesting quick steps for classroom implementation. Jordan (1997, p. 105) lists sources of cultural information:

• Newspapers: these are a good source of cultural information: local papers will give more of a flavour of everyday life in towns.
• Video: a number of published ELT video tapes are a good visual source of cultural information. (Today, we have CD/DVD versions of these video tapes, which provide us with better quality.)
• Talks/discussions: some topics may be suitable for giving information to students in a plenary session.
• Role play/dramatizations: these can be used to initiate discussion and introspection.
• Culture quizzes/tests.

Conclusion

Authentic materials enable learners to interact with the real language and content rather than the form. Learners feel that they are learning a target language as it is used outside the classroom. Considering this, it may not be wrong to say that at any level authentic materials should be used to complete the gap between the competency and performance of the language learners, which is a common problem among the nonnative speakers. This requires the language patterns being put into practice in real life situations. Since learning about a culture is not accepting it and the role of the culture in the materials is just to create learner interest towards the target language, there should be a variety of culture in the materials, not a specific one.

And the article here contains some more subtopics. I think they can be found at :

http://www.esp-world.info/Articles_31/Authenticity_Effectiveness.pdf 

My computer did not open it. Could you open it and send me the word version