Our main reason for conducting this part of the research in Kathmandu was to study a group of children who are bilingual between a language that has a preference for the geocentric FoR (Nepali) and one that usually favors the egocentric frame (English – at least in the way it is used in the UK and USA). From chapter 5, it will be remembered that such a comparison occurred without our prior planning in Bali between monolingual Balinese speakers and those who preferred to speak Indonesian (a language which also favors an egocentric FoR), or spoke it to some extent at home. The results in Bali were quite striking, so we can expect to find a similarly strong effect of English.

Since the Nepali vs. English school contrast is the basic design of the project in Kathmandu, some details about these schools, and the socio-cultural background in which they occur have been provided in chapter 3 in addition to the general background description for this location. It will be recalled that in the city of Kathmandu, the geocentric orientation system that is current is the use of cardinal directions (NSEW). Even though mountains are visible on the northern horizon, the “up/down” reference we found in Dolakha (see chapter 4) is not used.

Since English is the compulsory language in English schools, our testing was also performed in English, except that Nepali was used for additional explanations if that seemed necessary, or if the pupils themselves preferred Nepali.