36 KMC Journal, Volume 4, Issue 2, August 2022, KMC Journal [A Peer-Reviewed, Open-Access Multidisciplinary Journal] ISSN 2961-1709 (Print) Published by the Research Management Cell Kailali Multiple Campus, Dhangadhi Far Western University, Nepal EFL Teachers’ Lived Experiences on Using Grading System Asmita Basaula Meridian International School, Baluwatar, Kathmandu Uma Nath Sharma Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tahachal, Tribhuvan University, Nepal Corresponding Author: Uma Nath Sharma, Email: unsharma24@gmail.com DOI: https://doi.org/10.3126/kmcj.v4i2.47729 Abstract The Grading System, frst used by Yale University in the 18th century for the purpose of descriptive evaluation of the students’ achievement, has now become popular worldwide. This paper explores and analyzes the Grade nine and ten English teachers’ lived experiences of using Grading System (GS) in English language teaching and testing in the institutional schools of Kathmandu. For this, we collected the required information taking phenomenological interview with the fve purposively selected teachers of English from fve respective institutional schools of Nagarjun Municipality in Kathmandu. The collected information was thematically analyzed using ATLAS.ti 9. The lived experiences of the concerned teachers showed the praxis of arbitrary and systematic use of GS in the researched context. The results reveal that the arbitrary use of GS has negative impact on the students’ classroom participation and teaching learning environment while the systematic use of GS has motivated the students towards learning, and thereby enhanced the teachers’ professional development. The study concludes that there is need for using systematic GS making it even more appropriate and scientifc for the betterment of overall teaching and learning of English in particular, and thereby the system of secondary level education as a whole. Keywords: professional development, systematic grading system, arbitrary grading system, students’ motivation, learning environment Copyright 2022 Author(s) This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. 36-52