I attended two events related to English language education on February 17, 2023. Both events happened in the Kathmandu metropolis. The first was the 27th Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association International Conference 2023; the second, the launch of a Routledge book titled Literary Theory and Criticism, edited with a long introduction by Arun Gupto, Professor of English, my erstwhile student and colleague. English education, pedagogy and scholarship were evoked on both scores. I was invited as one of the speakers to present my ideas at the opening of the NELTA conference in the morning by this organisation's president, a proactive and creative leader Motikala Subba Dewan, also my erstwhile student. She spoke about the resilience of the organisation. In this article, I want to briefly allude to the issues related to English teaching in Nepal and this region. I also want to show how the praxis of English language teaching and the positions of the English departments are related both in broad and specific terms. Both factors address the same problems.

We belong to the department of English that teaches English including literature written in that language. Being a very senior member of the fraternity mentioned here, I should allude to my experience, which will be heuristically helpful in evocating the different modes and methods of English language teaching. As the head of the Central Department of English at Tribhuvan University at one time, I was directly involved in the structuring of the English curricula. My learned colleagues and I changed the course structures of English teaching at the tertiary or what was called the college level. But the concept of English studies and the role of the departments remained a prominent issue in all these activities. Here I have mentioned just my personal experience because all the heads of the Central Department of English have been doing that for many decades. Except for certain methodological changes, the very spirit of teaching English has been guided by a sense of engagement and the passion with which English teachers have been working from secondary to tertiary levels.

NELTA was started 27 years ago under the auspices of some English teachers, most of whom were teaching at colleges after doing a Master in 'English Literature'. All the teachers of English needed that degree to teach at the colleges. Therefore, we should not miss this important point when we talk about the methodology. Several English teachers at the college level got exposure to the English language teaching methodologies that developed after the linguistic orientation of English studies, which became known under various rubrics like ELT, TESOL and so on. In Nepal, the Masters of English availed themselves of these orientations at home and abroad and introduced several changes in the English teaching methodologies. Though I never held any position in the NELTA, I always remained close to their activities that one can gauge through my writings about this organisation. In one article, for instance, I have written about my experience of teaching English in the following words.

"We started teaching with two most recognised tools—chalk and 'duster', a handy item that was used to erase the chalk marks on the blackboard. They had almost become iconic in quality, and also metonymic when instead of saying 'I am teaching' teachers said 'I am using chalk and duster'. That became our being; philosophically speaking, our ontology. I understood that karma more when I read Martin Heidegger's philosophy, which shows the power of ordinary tools and their power in use." (‘Guru karma in virtual times’, The Kathmandu Post, December 10, 2020).

But NELTA postulates language teaching-oriented methodologies that become evident from the titles of the papers presented during the busy sessions attended by many teachers from different levels from Nepal and abroad. But I felt a little disappointed after browsing through its three-day programme and the keynote speakers for different sessions. There is no significant representation of Nepali English teachers and scholars, not least from this organisation, and none from outside. Some of the topics covered in the keynote sessions show a broad range of topics. Some of these titles drew my attention for their broader perceptions. To take a few examples, they were: 'Intercultural Communication and Pragmatic Competence'; 'Nurturing the Mind through Imagination in Poetry Writing'; 'Interplay between Multilingualism and Hegemony of English'; 'Reflections on Multilingualism'; and 'Translanguaging and Professional Development in TESOL'. Nepali academic participation regarding innovative topics does not appear to be encouraging. But I was told that the performative side of the Nepali English language teachers was excellent.

I was asked to speak on Professor Arun Gupto's book Nepali Literary Theory and Criticism in the afternoon on the same day. The book was launched amid a very important gathering at the Institute of Advanced Communication, Education and Research. A young scholar and writer, Ujjwal Prasain, spoke cogently at the beginning. As I had attended the opening of the NELTA conference that morning, this book by Arun, who has spent the important years of his life teaching English, struck me as an important landmark for the following reasons. Arun has broadly divided this book under the rubrics 'Theory' and 'Criticism'. He has included twelve articles, six in each section, by Indian scholars based either in India or America mainly. Ujjwal's caveat about the obvious absence of Nepali scholars in the anthology could be a subject of further discussion. This may have been part of the publisher’s policy. But Arun's long introduction brings one subject to the fore, which is that the English departments have remained as the loci of all these discussions that emanate from theory to methodologies. Arun himself has been playing an important role in this process through a continuum marked by teaching and publication.

In the introduction, Arun shows that categories such as politics and the commitments of theories and humanism, sociology, geography, ecology and literature coalesce under the syllabuses being productively used by the English departments. Arun's use of the mobility of Buddhism under the rubric of South Asian travel is pretty eloquent. His claim that the compiled essays have projected an innovative sense of pedagogy of the two broad categories opens productive discussions–inside the classroom by solving the exercises given after the writings, and outside.

My journey of that day metaphorically covered a distance between English teaching modes and methods represented by NELTA and the ideas and perceptions ingeniously used by theorists as represented by the essays in the book Literary Theory and Criticism. The binding agencies are the English departments.