Exploring Nepalbhasa Teaching in School Setting :A Narrative Inquiry of Primary School Leaders, Teachers and Students in Lalitpur

Abstract

Nepalbhasa teaching has been given priority is school system through local curriculum development. In the context of Kathmandu Valley, Nepalbhasa has been very popular among Newa community. In this context, I set out the journey of research on Nepalbhasa teaching because it one of my interest areas and I also belong to the Newa community and working as an expert of Nepalbhasa. In this context this study, aims to explore the prospects and challenges of implementing the Nepalbhasa in Lalitpur. I formulated two research questions to accelerate this study. They were a) How do the school leaders, teachers and students in Lalitpur narrate their experiences of implementing Nepalbhasa in their schools? b) How have they been facing challenges while practicing Nepalbhasa teaching in their schools? This study adopts qualitative approach and interpretative paradigm was my worldview. I used narrative inquiry as a research method selecting eight participants, they were, two school leaders, two teachers and four students from two schools purposively. Likewise, I used interview guideline and observation as tool to collect the information from the participants. The collected information was grouped, organized and they were translated into English and different folder were created to archieve them. The information was coded, thematized and meaning were made linking literatures and theories. This study reveals that (a) Nepalbhasa was found to have been identity of Newa community, (b) Dominant language in the society found to have more power than Nepalbhasa, (c) Indigenous language like Nepalbhasa was found to be in a position of extinction because of not being used in day to day communication at home and school, (d) The community considered Nepalbhasa as the crutch hindering learner from excelling in national and global market, (e)Nepalbhasa acting as the catalyst for learning breaking barriers for the learning of other language too, (f) The community were aware of protecting and preserving of Nepalbhasa, yet had preferences towards English language (g) Huge scarcity for the trained teachers in the schools and (h) Dissatisfaction among the private school leaders for being excluded form language teachers training and policy dialogue. From the key insights above I concluded that the community is aware and very much into preserving and promoting Nepalbhasa as they associate their identity with it. There is a positive shift of the parents towards Nepalbhasa teaching. However, the overpowering if dominant language like Nepali and English drags their preference and they are drifting from side to side among the three languages. The role of a school is an Achor to harness the positive aspects of the Nepalbhasa teaching and drive the steering to overcome the challenges. This study implies that there is a gap between the policy and the ground reality. The policy towards translanguaging could address the compulsion to choosing among the language. Likewise, the inclusion of private school is necessary regarding the trainings as well as in policy dialogues for the visibility of the stakeholders.