Socio-cultural identity of Nepalese English language teachers

Abstract

This study entitled "Socio-cultural Identity of Nepalese English Language Teachers" was conducted to find out the perceptions of English language teachers towards their profession and to find out the perceptions of students, school administrators and parents towards the EFL teachers in relation to the socio-cultural environment. It is based on the survey research design. The population of this study consisted of all the English language teachers teaching in secondary and lower secondary level in different government aided schools in Gorkha and Dhading district. Moreover, it consisted of all the students studying in secondary level in the same districts, parents of these students and school administrators. 15 EFL teachers, 20 students, 5 school administrators and 10 parents were selected as sample by using purposive non-random sampling procedure. Both primary and secondary sources of data were utilized to collect required information. The primary data were collected from ELF teachers, students, school administrators and parents. The separate questionnaire for the participants were used as the tools for data collection. Open-ended questions were used to investigate the perception of the participants. Information obtained from these tools was discussed and analyzed descriptively. Results of the study revealed that the EFL teachers have positive attitude towards their profession and the students, the administrators and the parents also prefer them. The positive perceptions of teachers themselves and the preferences of others make the teachers easy to form their identity in the particular socio-cultural context. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introductory part which includes background of the study, statement of the problem, objective of the study, research questions, significance of the study, delimitation of the study and operational definitions of the key terms. Chapter two consists of review of related theoretical literature, review of empirical literature, implication of review for the study and conceptual framework. Similarly, chapter three is methods and procedure of the study which includes design of the study, population, sample and sampling strategy, research tools, sources of data, data collection procedure, data analysis procedure and ethical considerations. In the same way, chapter four incorporates analysis of data and interpretation of results on the basis of the perceptions of English language teachers, students, school administrators and parents. Finally, the last chapter deals with findings, conclusion and recommendations. The overall discussion is followed by references and appendices.