KATHMANDU: Kamal Kumari Bhandari, an English teacher and teacher trainer in Chitwan, has won the British Council ELTON Innovation Award, according to a statement released by the British Council here. Bandari and her Pakistani colleague, Athar Munir Siddiqui, were honoured at an Oscar style ceremony held in the UK last week.

Their winning project was to train English teachers in rural areas — who have few resources — to use easily available ‘authentic materials’ (newspapers and magazines) in their English classes. They showed teachers how motivating activities based on daily news stories can supplement academic course books and make English classes more alive and relevant to students. The judges noted that the project “won warm praise from its teacher trainees. As rural teachers, they mostly lack in-service training opportunities and access to new ideas. This project gave them confidence as well as inspiration.”

Bhandari accepting the award on behalf of all Nepali English language teachers.

Richard Cox, British Council’s ELT manager in Kathmandu, asserted “this is just one of the many initiatives that English language teachers are carrying out  with the assistance of NELTA (Nepali English Language Teachers’ Association).”