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Prior to starting the PhD, my personal experience and observations as an English language teacher in Nepal suggested that several issues and challenges impeded English language teaching (ELT) in Nepal. A preliminary exploration (PE) with my lecturers and colleagues in Nepal also raised similar issues and challenges. This research project explores Nepalese ELT. The research project was guided by the following research questions. a. What are the issues and challenges that have an impact on English language teaching in Nepal? b. How can English language teaching in Nepal be improved? Essentially, with a mixed-methods approach in its methodology, this research solicited the perceptions of Nepalese secondary English language teachers in order to investigate issues and challenges in ELT in Nepal. The qualitative data were drawn from sixteen semistructured interviews that were conducted in four different districts of Nepal: Kathmandu, Chitwan, Surkhet, and Dailekh. The participants shared their experiences of teaching English language and highlighted the issues and challenges. The interview data were thematically analysed to generate emergent themes. Counting frequency of the prevalence of thematic responses across participants was used to gain initial themes which assisted in developing the theme hierarchy. For quantitative data, 200 teachers from the same districts completed a questionnaire survey to determine their self-efficacy, motivation and self-reported English language proficiency.

This project aimed to ascertain the effect of training on speech rhythm of Nepalese non-native speakers of English. Six Nepalese and one native speaker of English participated in this research. A six-week training program was administrated and pre- and post-training guided speech samples were acoustically analysed. Acoustic measurement of the pre- and post-training speech samples showed that training played an important role in improving the rhythm of Nepalese non-native speakers of English. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/nelta.v19i1-2.12077 Journal of NELTA, Vol 19 No. 1-2, December 2014: 17-31