19 According to my own initial research
12
on MT-based adult literacy initiatives in Nepal, programs have been conducted by individual national andor expatriate literacy
practitioners, in cooperation with INGOsNGOs, in eleven different ethnic languages: Eastern Gurung, Khaling, Limbu, Lowa, Magar, Rajbanshi, Sampang, Tamang Eastern
and Western, Tharu, and Thulung see Appendix C. In terms of material production in ethnic mother tongues other than Nepali, many
MT
Pipal Pustak
MTPP series
13
have been produced since 2005, through the yearly MT Story Writing Workshop, in 20 different languages: Awadi, Bahing, Bantawa, Darai,
Dhimal, Dumi, Gurung, Jirel, Khaling, Kham Magar, Limbu, Magar, Maithili, Newari, Sherpa, Tamang Eastern and Western, Tharu, Thami, and Thulung. The MT Story
Writing workshop is held every January by Noriko Matsuura, a Japanese literacy practitioner with the MT Center Nepal. The workshop provides a structured framework
for people in Nepal to write narratives in their own mother tongues rather than merely translating stories from Nepali Digital Himalaya
14
, January, 2011.
1.3.3 The MT-based adult literacy project of the Eastern Tamang Language Team
The Eastern Tamang Language Team ETLT [Purbi Tamang Bhasha Samuh] is an officially registered local NGO which was founded in 2000. It has been contributing to
12
This was done through personal email exchanges with some Nepalese and SIL literacy practitioners: Buddha Ghising, Chhing Chhippa Lhomi, Karna Bahadur Tamang, Andrea Csepe, Ingrid Toba, Jessie
Glover, Kyoung-rye Park, Lori Marcuson, Mary Morgan, May Wong, Milan Tamang, and Reg Naylor.
13
Pipal Pustak series is a Nepal-based publications series which was originally developed by NFE Support Office of the United Mission to Nepal UMN to support literacy in Nepali. The MT Pipal Pustak series
has evolved out of the Nepali Pipal Pustak initiative, with support from SIL-Nepal and UMN.
14
This information is retrieved [January 11, 2011] from http:www.digitalhimalaya.comcollectionsjournalsmtpp.
20 various aspects of language development in the Eastern Tamang language. ETLT has
produced various kinds of written materials in their own language ETLT Quarterly Progress Report January-June, 2010:
• a palm-size booklet of ―Jesus has power to save us‖ summarized version of the Gospel Mark;
• various portions of the New Testament in seven booklets; • an Eastern Tamang Gospel songs cassette tape and CD
15
; •
Bhitte Patro 2060-2061 Lhochar
Calendar 2004-2005 New Year; •
Bhitte Patro 2067-2068
Wall Calendar 2011; •
Eastern Tamang Primer Book 1 and 2
; •
Bridging Course Primer
in Nepali; • the advanced Arithmetic workbook in Nepali which includes how to read
a calendar, time on a clock, and problem-solving questions; • Milan Tamang and Ram Bahadur Thing have participated in the yearly
MT Story Writing Workshops run by the MT Center Nepal, and produced more than 40 story booklets in their own mother tongue.
• The most recent productions in 2010 are four tracts: Yesu keba dhin Chrismas, Tiga hragse What to weave, Daha Jealousy, Pap metab
Redemption. Before the adult literacy project was launched as a formal program by ETLT, the
first literacy baseline survey of felt needs in Eastern Tamang communities was conducted in 2005 by Milan Tamang, a national literacy practitioner with ETLT. A second baseline
survey was conducted more recently between July and September, 2010 by Milan Tamang and Madan Tamang. They visited twenty one Tamang villages to ask the
following questions: 1 What are some reasons for having a literacy class in Tamang language? 2 What are the advantages of the class? 3 What would its impact be among
Tamang society? Data from the respondents can be summarized as follows:
15
It contains seven different Tamang songs produced by the ETLT, especially sung by Buddha Ghising. Except for one or two songs, all are gospel songs or worship songs based on email communication with
B. Ghising on May 23, 2010.
21 • Tamang literacy class would help the Tamang people identify letters.
• The program would help Tamang people preserve the Tamang language and would make it easy for them to understand the subjects taught in the
language. • Once the Tamang people can read and write in their own mother tongue,
they will be able to learn the national language more easily. When Tamang villages recognize the necessity of running a literacy program in
their communities, the ETLT helps them form a class management committee and train facilitators whom the committee selects. The committee provides facilities for running a
literacy class in their village and raises at least fifty rupees equivalent to 0.68 US dollars from each participant of the class to send to the ETLT office in Kathmandu ETLT
Progress Report July-September, 2010. Since November, 2008, the ETLT has been running three different kinds of MT-
based adult literacy courses: basic, advanced, and transitional courses. The basic course is run for seven months, using the ET Primer 1 and 2 which uses the Key Word approach.
The advanced course teaches functional skills for five weeks using the advanced
Arithmetic workbook
. The transitionalbridging course is run for three months to teach Nepali literacy to the finishers of the basic course.
By 2010, ETLT had run seventeen literacy classes in the villages of five different districts in Nepal and produced 397 graduates in total ETLT progress report April-June,
2010. Based on the result of the second baseline survey, ETLT plans to run another twenty literacy classes in 2011 ETLT progress report July-September, 2010.
1.4 The Problem
