इ चितवन खबर
April 08, 2025
Abstract
This article explores the difficulties and obstacles teachers face in teaching English as a foreign language in Nepal. The main goal is to highlight the challenges of teaching English in countries where it is not a native language.The multilingual nature of the country creates difficulties in learining English as a students often struggle with interference from their native languages.Additionally,lack of qualified English teachers,outdated teaching methodologies and insufficient teaching materialshinder effective learning.Primary data were gathered from threeEnglish teachers who instruct at the basic level in community schools in Bharatpur metropolitan city. Field observations and in-depth interviews were the key methods of data collection. From these interviews and existing literature, several challenges of teaching English as a foreign language in our context have been identified. The findings reveal that teachers face challenges inside the classroom related to their and their students' knowledge, and outside the classroom with parents and an unfavorable environment. Other challenges are linked to language issues, curriculum, textbooks, and government policies. The results of this study are beneficial to teachers, researchers, school administrators, policymakers, curriculum developers, and textbook writers for improving English teaching in Nepal.
Keywords: challenges, classroom interaction, foreign language, mother tongue, language teaching and learning
Introduction
Language is the primary means of communication for humans. It is a universal property through which individuals interact to meet their needs. Various languages are used globally, and English is one of them, widely used worldwide. English is essential for accessing scientific, technological, medical, engineering, trade, and international communication information. Consequently, it is taught and learned as a foreign language globally, even where it is not a mother tongue. "About 6% of the world’s population speaks English as a first language, but 80% of journal papers are written in English. The top 50 most prestigious scientific journals in the world are all published in English."
In Nepal, English is taught as a foreign language from basic school levels to higher education. It is included as both a compulsory and optional subject in educational institutions across Nepal. As a foreign language, English is perceived as difficult because students’ achievement in English is consistently low compared to other subjects. This suggests that teachers face problems in helping students achieve the objectives of the English course effectively. These challenges in teaching and learning English in Nepal led to this study on the difficulties faced by teachers in teaching English as a foreign language.
Teaching English as a foreign language is a challenging yet rewarding career. English teachers must continually adapt to their students’ needs, addressing various classroom issues because students have diverse problems. Effective teachers recognize common problems and work to find solutions, creating a more productive learning environment. Identifying the challenges of teaching English in Nepalese contexts is essential.
Nepalese students struggle with English because it is a foreign language for them. Administrators, educators, and teachers also have poor English skills, particularly in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. There is widespread concern among administrators, guardians, and policymakers that students, even at the campus level, struggle with English communication. English teachers often use Nepali in the classroom. Despite significant investment in English education through teaching, training, seminars, workshops, and conferences, the workforce still appears weak in the job .
While observing classes, I found that some English teachers often taught English by translating it into Nepali. When asked why they did this, some student teachers explained that they were advised by class teachers and school administration to use any effective methods to ensure students learned English. When modern communicative methods were used, some students remained silent or complained that they did not understand. They preferred the translation method, which led to better engagement. Some student teachers noted that many students in class seven could not write English alphabets correctly. Observations showed that when teachers used only English, students often created noise and demanded translation into Nepali.
Two permanent lower secondary level English teachers with over three years of experience stated that they primarily used the grammar translation method. They felt that teaching English solely in English was inappropriate in their context, and only traditional materials were used. Most students were very weak in English, and without translation into Nepali, they would complain, disrupting the class. The school administration emphasized that students should understand the subject matter, regardless of the teaching method. These teachers also faced numerous problems in teaching English as a foreign language.
As an English teacher, I did not openly support their views. However, I noticed that the students' performance in English at community schools was not satisfactory. Although teachers are trying to improve the students' conditions, their efforts are not entirely successful due to numerous challenges in teaching English as a foreign language. Given these circumstances, I was motivated to study the problems faced by teachers teaching English at the basic level in public schools in Nepal.
Despite the general nature of the problem, I found limited literature on this topic. Very few studies have been conducted in this area in Nepal, which prompted me to investigate it further. The primary goal of my study was to describe the challenges faced by teachers in teaching English as a foreign language and to derive some pedagogical implications based on data analysis and interpretation. The specific questions I aimed to explore were:
- What are the major challenges faced by teachers in teaching English as a foreign language in Nepal?
- How can we minimize these challenges in teaching?
By implementing these strategies, the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language in Nepal can be significantly improved.
Materials and Method usedI employed a phenomenological research design within qualitative research. The phenomenological approach is considered suitable for researching human experiences, where meaning emerges from the interaction between the researcher and the participants (Wimpanny& Gass 2000, as cited in Whitehead). In my study, I described the lived experiences of individual teachers regarding the challenges of teaching English as a foreign language. This design, supported by strong philosophical foundations, typically involves conducting interviews (Giorgi, 2009; Moustakas, 1994, as cited in Creswell 2014). I followed the interpretive research paradigm because my study's ontology was based on multiple realities, depending on the essence of teachers' understanding and practices of teaching English as a foreign language. The epistemological assumption was that teachers' experiences, obtained through in-depth interviews, interaction, and my own observations and involvement, constructed the required knowledge. This knowledge was built through shared information, constant communication, and engagement between myself and the English teachers, highlighting multiple interpretations. The collected information from participants, their dialogues, narratives, and my critical self-reflection provided insights into the subject matter.
To gather the necessary data, I visited three community schools in Bharatpur metropolitan city . I conducted in-depth interviews with one English teacher from each school, all of whom had been teaching English for more than five years. The interviews covered topics such as the condition of the schools, challenges faced by the teachers, and potential activities to minimize these challenges. The teachers were informed that the interviews were for research purposes and their information would remain confidential. Initially, they were hesitant to participate, but after reassurances about confidentiality, they agreed. The interviews were conducted in Nepali, recorded, transcribed into Roman script, and translated into English before data coding. The data was analyzed using a general inductive approach and thematic network analysis. According to Thomas (2006), the general inductive approach systematically analyzes qualitative data, guided by specific evaluation objectives. Thematic network analysis helps derive basic themes, which are grouped into organizing themes to form global themes (Attride-Stirling, 2001). This method helped me understand the phenomenon of the study.
Result and Discussion
In our country, the English teachers are teaching English as a foreign language from the lower grade. The evidences show that they cannot create a good English environment and present the lessons effectively. They try to motivate and encourage the students to take part in every classroom activities so that every student achieves the prescribed objectives mentioned in the curriculum. But in reality, it is not an easy task and English language teaching in Nepal is not like an ordinary joke. The teachers are teaching English, but they are not able to make the students learn it effectively. In other words, English teachers cannot create a proper environment that is appropriate for the students to achieve the intended goals. It is the main challenge of English teachers in Nepal. Other challenges are sub-ordinate to it. In my study I have analyzed different kinds of challenges which are described into the following the four main criteria.
Challenges inside the Classroom
In our country, English teachers cannot teach English subject effectively
because of unfavorable situations inside the classroom. They encounter with many challenges there. Such challenges are created either by the teachers themselves or by their students or the environment which does not support to teach English effectively in Nepalese context.
Some challenges inside the classroom are created due to insufficient knowledge of the students for their academic level. Some students have very low level achievement from their lower classes and cannot perform the minimum requirements of their knowledge for the grade in which they are studying. According to the first teacher participant, “Some students who are studying in class six and seven cannot write English alphabets correctly. Such students do not show much interest in classroom activities. They cannot work independently and show over dependence on their teachers”. On the other hand, some students can have some ideas and knowledge to take part in the classroom activities but they hesitate to be involved in the classroom interaction. These students show indifference, apathy and their laziness to speak and write English in the presence of teacher and other students. They do not enjoy taking part in the classroom activities. These negative attitudes of the students towards English subject create the challenges for the teachers to teach it as a foreign language effectively.
The teachers themselves can create challenges in teaching English as a foreign language in our schools. Some teachers do not show much interest in teaching and go to the classroom late and leave the classes earlier because of their insufficient knowledge and skills in teaching English. In primary level, there is no provision of appointing subject-wise teachers. They can be failure to create English environment for classroom interaction in English. And do not collect, prepare and use appropriate teaching materials in their classroom activities. To escape from these difficulties, the English teachers use translation method which they feel easy to apply. The second participant of my study states, “My students feel comfortable when I use Nepali in presenting English lessons and are motivated to ask questions”. These challenges are created and faced by themselves in teaching English as a foreign language in our context.
For minimizing such challenges, the teachers must prepare their plans for
teaching, before they enter the classroom. If the plan is good, effective and appropriate or the subject matter and level of the students, half of the teaching activities will be successful. Some of the teachers who teach at primary level do not have proper knowledge of the subject matter in English subjects; for them acquiring sufficient knowledge and preparing effective lesson plans are the major challenges. If they possess these qualities, the teachers face other challenges related to the activities and behaviors of other teachers, students and parents. They have to work collaboratively with other teachers so that they can jointly face the common challenges to minimize educational, administrative, and personal problems in schools. To improve the educational achievements of the students, the teachers have to encourage them to attend
school, take the classes and be active in classroom activities regularly. They must work effectively to minimize the apathy and laziness of the students to maintain the level of the subject matter and do the different types of tasks and home works for their educational improvement. It is another challenge to be faced by the teachers in teaching English as a foreign language in the Nepalese context. To minimize these challenges, the government’s support is not sufficient, so the achievement of the students is poor in English subject. Bista (2011) tried to clarify it by stating, “Lack of audio and visual aids, poor physical facilities, no resources and materials of modern technology pushes the instructors to adopt ineffective translation method in English language teaching (page 5)”. In the process of teaching, the teachers present the lesson in English but the majority of the students cannot capture the exact
information and ask for the translated version of the text either in Nepali or in their own mother tongue. It is the main reason of using grammar-translation method in teaching English in Nepal. If the teacher tries to conduct the classroom activities by using the
communicative method, the students do not show enough interests to take part in the classroom activities. Without active interaction between teachers and students, the teaching and learning process cannot take place as it is expected. To justify it, one of my participant teacher in the interview stated that if the students feel comfortable in expressing their views, they can learn easily but some students and teachers take English subject as a burden and cannot create enjoyable environment in the class, they never teach and learn English effectively. To support this view, Joshi (2017) had drawn the similar result from his study and stated, “Lack of motivation, less exposure of
English from teachers and students, problems in the active participation of the students in classroom activities and difficulties in making students understand the subject matter are the major challenges of teaching faced by English teachers”. Sometimes the teachers themselves can also be the problems for students. One of the participants who was also the former head teacher of that school stated, “Both more knowledgeable and less knowledgeable teachers can be the problem of students because more knowledgeable teachers do not get the exact problem of the students and less knowledgeable teachers do not deliver enough information about the subject matter”.
According to his experience, the teachers with medium level Knowledge but laborious ones are successful in their profession.
While learning some information new in the classroom, the students show over dependence on teachers which can be the main interference in acquiring knowledge of target language. In the process of teaching, minimizing the students’ laziness and promoting their active participation in the classroom are other challenges of the teachers inside the classroom. Some teachers enter the classroom without enough preparation and the students do not possess basic knowledge for the lesson and the interaction between the teacher and the students cannot take place as effectively as it is
expected. According to Karranjit (2017), “Treating the heterogeneous students, mainly focus on deductive method, insufficient preparation of the language teachers and exposure of Nepali language in English classes are the main problems seen in Nepalese schools”. These ideas present that English teachers have to face many problems inside the classroom while they teach English as a foreign language. Challenges outside the Classroom
Outside the classroom, English teachers encounter to be faced many challenges which can be created from different elements. The main problems are created by the students and their parents. The students do not practice the English course outside the classroom and the activities conducted in schools are not sufficient to develop the knowledge and skills in English language properly. Some students often miss the classes and do not show much interest in learning new things. If the students do not attend the classes regularly, only the efforts made by the teachers will be fruitless in
teaching learning process. Therefore, lack of practice and being irregularities are the main challenges created by the students outside the classroom.
Sometimes parents do not take care of the activities of their children outside the school premises. It creates the gap between the parents and the school teachers about the activities and the progress of the students. At that situation, both school administration and teachers must face the challenges created by the parents.
Knowingly or unknowingly, some parents can complain the activities of the
schools and the poor achievements of their children. About it, one of my research participants had a bitter experience in which some of the parents can complain about the low achievement of their children. He expressed one situation as, “One day I was teaching in a class, one of the parents (mother of a student) came to my class and complained that her son had very low achievement in English. She added that it was the negligence of the teachers and the school and scolded us bitterly. And I assured her politely that we would take care of her son and inspect his activities minutely in the days to come. She showed her anger at not only the bad activities of her child, but also the behavior of the teaching staffs and school administration; then she left the school. I was serious to know much about the activities of that boy and later I found that the student was irregular in school and cheated his mother by saying he had been to school and attended classes regularly. In reality, he used to leave home and instead of going to school, he used to roam outside either to the cinema hall or other public places for enjoyment. When we found the reason for his poor educational achievement, we convinced him to come to the school and take part in class room activities regularly and informed the reality to his mother. Then later, the student came to the school, attended
the classes regularly and improved his educational achievement”. It shows that appropriate counseling to the parents and students is an important source of students’ success. Every teacher and school administration should convince them to solve their problems and encourage the students to learn English effectively. Such activities of the students and their parents are other challenges to be faced by the teachers especially in teaching English as a foreign language in the Nepalese context because students cannot get chance to practice English outside the classroom..
Some parents show negligence in their children’s education. Because of their
financial problems or unawareness about the value of education or any other reasons, they do not provide sufficient materials like text books, exercise books and any other materials which are the minimum requirements for any students. Some parents do not care whether their children do the homework provided by the teachers or not, they do practice at home or not; it creates other challenges to achieve the goal prescribed by the curriculum. These problems can raise the question about the qualities of the teachers to
be faced by them directly or indirectly. This is a prominent challenge for the teachers who teach English as a foreign language in Nepal. In the same way, the student’s family status affects the quality of their education. According to Anderson and Lindkvist (2000), “The pupils’ different family background hinders the teachers’ way of teaching; various levels of attainment among the students make it hard for the teachers to individualize their teaching (page 50)”. They also added that the students’ different level of knowledge is the main problem of teaching because the teachers give all pupils the basic knowledge. Frdem and Tukum (2016), the scholars from Turkey
had noted that because of parents’ occupation, family income, and sociological context the majority of students did not work hard for the preparation of the lesson. This information mentioned above presents that the teachers must face many challenges related to both students and themselves about their educational qualities, knowledge and skills of teaching and learning in and outside of the classroom.
Challenges Related to Language (English and Local Languages)
In Nepal, teaching English involves numerous challenges related to both English and Nepali languages, which are the target language and mother tongue respectively. Effective teaching requires meaningful interaction between teachers and students, ideally in the target language. However, in Nepal, neither teachers nor students use English as the medium of instruction, even when teaching English, which hampers the effectiveness of language instruction. The socio-linguistic context makes using Nepali for teaching English inefficient, and interaction in English is particularly difficult. Thus, both the mother tongue and the target language present challenges in English education.
A teacher interviewed mentioned that English itself is problematic due to its global spread and the various dialects it encompasses, such as British, American, Australian, African, and South Asian varieties. These dialects differ in pronunciation, grammar, and spelling, and within the same dialect, there is often no direct correlation between spelling and pronunciation. For instance, the letter 'c' represents different sounds in 'cat', 'come', and 'city'. This lack of consistency creates difficulties not only for students but also for teachers who are not native English speakers. A study by Wosti ( 2017) that pronunciation of English vocabulary is a major challenge for Nepali teachers. Additionally, understanding and presenting English culture to Nepali students adds another layer of difficulty. Joshi (2017) found that cultural and social differences complicate teaching English literature, making it hard to establish the right context.
When students do not understand English instructions, they often demand translations into their mother tongue, which can disrupt the class. Over-reliance on local languages can undermine English teaching, especially in areas with multiple local languages. In the Kathmandu Valley, for example, a significant number of students speak Newari, which many teachers do not understand, complicating the choice of instructional language. The influence of local languages also interferes with English pronunciation, highlighting that both English and local languages pose challenges in teaching English as a foreign language.
Challenges Related to Government and Policy Level
Nepal's educational policies are theoretically sound but often ineffective in practice due to a lack of coordination among teachers, students, parents, and school administrators. Head teachers do not support teachers' professional development, and there is little cooperation among teachers. School management is inefficient, and stakeholders do not prioritize English as a challenging subject requiring special attention.
Although the roles of educational stakeholders are clearly defined in policy documents, they are not strictly adhered to. There is minimal support from school management, resource centers, district education offices, and local and central governments. Supervision mechanisms are inadequate; one teacher reported not having met any school supervisors for several years. When supervisors do visit, they focus on administrative matters rather than classroom supervision and teacher feedback. This lack of effective government oversight is a significant challenge for English teachers, impeding improvements in the instructional conditions of schools.
English is challenging to teach and learn as a foreign language, yet it lacks adequate emphasis. Authorities fail to regularly provide essential refresher training for English teachers, and schools are insufficiently equipped with audiovisual materials. Observations revealed that many schools have poor physical conditions, including buildings, furniture, toilets, and other equipment. Government investment in promoting English from the lower levels is minimal; only teacher salaries are covered, with no funds allocated for modern facilities and teaching materials, especially for English and science subjects. One head teacher noted that the government doesn't even supply basic stationery, impacting all teachers, including those teaching English. Anderson and Lindkvist (2000) similarly identified a lack of facilities, scarce teaching materials, and low salaries as reasons for inadequate teaching. There is also a disconnect between curriculum designers and classroom teachers, with experts lacking real classroom experience and teachers not involved in curriculum development. This mismatch leads to curricula and textbooks that are not universally applicable across different regions of the country, resulting in varying student achievements. Localized curricula based on need analysis are necessary to address these disparities, as urban students generally perform better than their rural counterparts. Managing and developing the necessary teaching materials is crucial, but the students' achievement levels are unsatisfactory. English teachers face significant challenges because it is a foreign language influenced by different cultures and traditions. These challenges vary by location. In Nepal, Giri (2011) noted that poor English proficiency and insufficient resources hinder teachers' performance, compounded by inadequate institutional planning and socio-cultural/economic issues. Similarly, Mutar (2019) identified six challenges in Iraq, including the lack of professional development, scarce resources, poor teacher collaboration, supervision issues, and problematic textbooks and curriculam.
Conclusion and Recommendation
To address these issues in Nepal, collective efforts from teachers, students, parents, and school administration are needed. Teachers interviewed suggested that collaboration among all stakeholders is essential. Students should attend classes regularly, participate actively, complete homework, and strive to meet academic standards. Teachers need to deepen their subject knowledge, enhance their teaching skills, and engage with students and colleagues effectively. The school administration should support students, teachers, and parents while addressing local problems. The government must provide the necessary resources and support.They should
invest sufficient funds in educational sectors. Refresher trainings should be provided for the teachers.They should be organized occasionally so that the teachers can get a chance to develop their knowledge and skills on modern methodologies and technologies that are essential for teaching English meaningfully. The experts who involve in the development of curriculum, syllabus and course books should consider the need of the students in local contexts. The school supervisors and subject experts should visit and supervise the teachers’ classroom delivery of the subject matter and then provide effective feedback to improve the educational condition. In my personal view, these steps are very useful to minimize the problems of teaching English as a foreign language which are very useful to scale down the challenges faced by the teachers in Nepal.
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