Teaching Profession Head and Tail free essay sample

Teaching Profession: Head and Tail B. R. PARMAR ‘HANSAMUKH’ Head In present education system teacher has play an important role in transaction of curriculum. In the twenty first century, teacher has become the main focus of discussion, because teacher is the pivotal of all kind of knowledge transmission. It has been said beautifully that teacher is entitled to enter heaven. Not even this, those who accompany the teacher will also enter the heaven. The place where teacher and student meet is heaven. On the eve of the Teacher’s Day, President Smt. Pratibha Patil called on teachers to expand their role in keeping with the changing times and the advent of technology. She said that â€Å"The question may arise that in an age where there is so much information available in books, on television and myriads of vehicles of electronic transmission, what is the role of a teacher? In this environment their role has only expanded. We will write a custom essay sample on Teaching Profession: Head and Tail or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page They have to interpret the vast information, often guiding children in distinguishing between what is relevant and what is not†¦. Moreover, teachers must inculcate in their students the approaches and principles that constitute civilized human behaviour. Even the best of technology of today cannot do this. † It is said that teaching profession is the best profession among all. The respect and regard of teaching profession is very high. Teacher elsewhere have always commanded great respect and regard from the society, because teacher is rescuer of humanity. He prepares citizen and creates manpower for every sector of human activity. The quality of people, and their level of thinking, largely depends on the contribution made by the teacher. This view is also supported by the father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi. He says – â€Å"I have always felt that the true text book for the pupil is his teacher. I remember very little that my teachers taught me from books, but I have even now a clear recollection of thing they taught me independently of books. † Two factors distinguish a profession once it has really evolved into one. One is the pursuit of excellence and the second is a code of ethics which the profession gradually adopts for itself. In regard to both these features, the situation in teaching is far from satisfactory. Even though the teachers have accepted the changes, responsibilities and task to create a complete individual who will be able to lead a contented, fearless, happy and peaceful life. Throughout the country and at different stages of development, teacher’s role in shaping the present and future of nation have been clearly emphasized by men of eminence in every walk of life. It is universally recognized that the most powerful influence of a teacher’s personality lies in the hidden curriculum of his personality and behaviour and the silent message which the students can, and do, get through his thinking, discipline of mind and refinement of taste. Education commission (1964-66) rightly pointed out that â€Å"The destiny of India is now being shaped in her classroom. This, we believe, is not mere rhetoric. † The teaching profession has been also extolled by Sri Sathya Sai Baba and compares a teacher with the sculptor and observes that, â€Å"the sculptor by subjecting a useless stone to different processes through careful chiseling, transforms it into a beautiful idol which becomes worthy of worship when it is installed in a temple. Whose is the hand that has transmitted a useless stone into a scared statue worshipped by many? It is the noble hand of the sculptor that has turned it into a statue and has lent an immense value to it. Similarly, it is the teacher alone just like the deft sculptor, who removes always, with deft handling, the drawbacks and weakness in students and lifts him to sublime heights. † Human Resource Development Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal also said that â€Å"symbolize the fact that the country looks to its teachers as our nation’s driving force on our journey ahead. † Tail But on the other side it is said that knowledge is not transferable. Nothing can be taught. Teacher is only a facilitator. Teacher can not change set of mind of the child. In the existing teaching practice, knowledge is considered as accumulation of facts, laws theories. Role f teacher is to transmit the authoritarian information to the students, who are considered as passive receivers of information. Teaching- Learning achievement is evaluated with the help of complicacies tests of three hours. Students’ response is judged based on the answer fixed and decided by the examination board. The exi sting examination systems categorize the students into the classes and categories with grades marks. In this critical situation what should be done then? Be a coach or a sage. In the present age, to be a sage is very difficult. Teacher does not have any power. Psychological tools have failed before new generation. Teacher- pupil relation deaden day by day. Hence, humble submission is that better to be a coach, because the coach knows the way, shows the way and goes the way. The coach knows how to teach how much to teach. Which pedagogy of teaching is suitable for a particular age group? The coach knows the way to achieve the goal. He also knows the alternative path of success. The coach also enables to understand the consequences upon the way. During my long association with teaching profession, I realized that one cannot gather the beauty of a flower only by plucking its petals. Society has to grow flowers which are full of fragrance. In my perception teaching profession is not as it looks. Let me code the observation of Prof. J. S. Rajput on the rights of a teacher. He said that â€Å"Every teacher deserves a reasonable and comparable emolument as a matter of right. They also deserve adequate opportunities for upward mobility. Their good works deserve some words of appreciation. In addition and rather more importantly, they deserve opportunities for professional growth which may include higher qualifications, innovations, experimentation and research. They have a right to express their views on school matter of immediate relevance to teacher and learner. Teacher should be motivated to undertake innovative programme, practices and experiment. They should have the right to get necessary support in their efforts. † The responsibilities and task of a teacher include creating a complete individual who will be able to lead a contented, fearless, happy and peaceful life and allow and help other to lead the same kind of life. The scope of this task is wide, complex and heavy. When one looks at the way professions have evolved in modern Indian society, one is struck by one peculiarity in regard to the profession of teaching. It is true that most of the people are drifted into teaching and it is very few who really opt for it. In terms of emoluments, it is not attractive. In terms of social prestige, it has very little to command itself. Let me code the famous saying. There can be muddy teaching in marble halls and marvelous teaching in muddy walls. Think of education where we have good infrastructure and bad teacher and compare it to the situation where we have good teacher and a bad infrastructure. Think of their salary in twenty first century where they are gating merely handful amount. In some states teacher is called Sikshakarmi, Sanvida Sikshak and education worker. No promotion, no pension. No security of job. What hell creating for them? Of course; many proverbs are there for teaching profession. But teacher can not walk and fulfill the obligations with the help of these good saying. Hence, it is the need of the hour to think over their eco-socio status with the changing times. In my opinion teacher need to be part of domain. At the same time teacher has try level best to regain his old status and be panacea for the social ills. Best reward to a teacher is that his taught have take mastery over the subject.

Modals in Different Varieties of English

Modals in Different Varieties of English Introduction The modern use of some words can be considered wrong though the changes that are natural for the language take place and should be treated as the transitional period in formation of new grammar and vocabulary. In this respect, I would like to analyse the use of modal words and modal verbs in different varieties of English by contemporary speakers comparing those with the results received a few decades earlier.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Modals in Different Varieties of English specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More So, I would like to trace the relation between the origin of speakers and their ability to use modals correctly taking into account the current situation in the language environment and the one that occurred a few decades earlier with regard to the varieties of British and American English in different age groups. Aim and Scope The main purpose of this paper consists in investigating t he use of modal verbs and expressions in different varieties of English language including mostly the difference between American and British English. Besides, it is necessary to analyse the peculiarities of use of modals by teenagers and children with the help of examples from different corpora of English language. These corpora include examples of speech from different settings and origins including different age groups, namely children and teenagers, various sources of information such as documents and newspaper articles. One of the major peculiarities of these corpora is the variety of genres including press reportage, editorials, reviews of books and music, letters, periodicals, catalogues and reports as well as fiction, science fiction, adventure, humour, and romance. Every source will be analysed with regard to the frequency of use of modals in different functions and shifts in the meaning conveyed with the help of modals that can be observed in terms of the period to which t he examples refer. Besides, it is also necessary to investigate how children and teenagers were affected by changes in the meaning and the frequency of use of modals by adults and teenagers/children. Previous Work As a rule, linguists investigate the most interesting aspects of the language usage in terms of results of the researches to be used in practice. In this respect, the changes that occurred in the use of modals can be related to the shifts in preferences of using modals and quasi-modals. Besides, population of different continents uses modals and quasi-modals with different frequency as well as representatives of different generations. Moreover, the results of the research can be influenced by the origin of the example taking into account the oral speech and written language because the genre to which the example is referred characterises the formality.Advertising Looking for research paper on linguistics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Thus, formal language is supposed to contain more modals whereas informal language is sure to contain more quasi-modals and fewer modals. As reported by Collins, the shift in the use of modals can be seen while comparing the results from British and American English-speaking population in the early 1960s and in the early 1990s respectively (7). These findings analyse the figures presented in studies by Leech (2003), smith (2003), and Mair and Leech (2006) who investigated the changes that took place in the use of modals taking into account American and British varieties of English language. Every member of the society has a right to express his/her thoughts in different ways. The variety of ways can be seen from the COLT corpus that includes Bergen Corpus of London Teenage English being a vivid representation of variety of nonverbal means of communication among teenagers and communication of teenagers with members of their families including other sibl ings and parents, teachers, and strangers. As a rule, teenagers use more informal language when they communicate with peers; this variant of communication differs greatly from the language used by teenagers with parents and teachers. However, the main aim of the current research is to investigate the frequency of use of different modals and quasi-modals and the percentage of use taking into account modals and quasi-modals ratio in the American corpus primarily. As suggested by Krug, the attention to quasi-modals is not sufficient in terms of scholarly articles and researches conducted on this issue (1). The researcher analyses the modals and quasi-modals with regard to their grammaticalization and categories typical for modals: â€Å"the most salient determinants in the present case are almost certainly phonological form, morphosyntactic properties and discourse frequency of potential category members† (Krug 3). Though many researchers have compared and contrasted the frequen cy of using different parts of speech and various phrases and word combinations by native speakers of English with regard to different dialects and genres, it is still necessary to investigate the number of modal used in different periods with regard to information from the Corpus of historical American English, contemporary situation with regard to the information from the Corpus of contemporary American English, and contrast the number of modals used by Americans with the one used by users of the British variety of English with regard to the information from the British national corpus. In other words, the current research is focused on the analysis of data from these three corpora using the theoretical background about the use of modals from researches conducted by other scholars. Material The nature of the primary research consists in choosing modals for analysis and comparing the frequency of use of modals in sources of different genres and in spoken language taking into accoun t the situation in American variety of English a hundred years earlier and contemporary situation. I have used the corpora of English language to investigate the frequency of use of modals in different varieties of English though the primary purpose of the research was to compare and contrast the findings from the British variant of English and American variant of English with regard to the historical development of the latter.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Modals in Different Varieties of English specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In this respect, the most influential limitation was the lack of information on the historical development of the British variant of English over a long period of time. As the changes in the American variant of English could be explored from 1810 to 2000, the changes in the British variant of English could be explored only regarding the results from two last decades dating from 1 990 till 2010. Though I used the modals and quasi-modals that are typical of the English language with regard to all varieties of the language, I faced the difficulties concerning the variety of combinations that were typical of the modals and quasi-modals. In other words, further research could focus on the combinations of other parts of speech with modals and the nature of expressions in terms of mood (imperative or subjunctive) and the attitude of the author of the utterance. So, the main sources of data include the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the Corpus of Historical American English, and the British National Corpus. I used the Corpus of Contemporary American English to see the frequency of occurrence of different modals in spoken language, fiction, articles from magazines, newspaper articles, and academic sources with regard to the period (1990-2010) to which the use refers. The Corpus of Historical American English provides researchers with a richer variety of res ults as it includes the examples of speech dating from 1810 till 2000. In this respect, I was able to analyse the frequency of use of modals in different periods of time with regard to the sources they appeared in, including fiction, non-fiction, magazines, and news. This information enabled me to conduct a research on a great variety of issues concerning the use of word and the peculiarities of word choice for different sources such as fiction and non-fiction. Besides, it is possible to analyse the percentage of the appearance of modals in fiction and non-fiction. One of the limitations, in this regard, concerns the historical approach that, if used, could explain the frequency of use of certain words due to changes in the country and the world including economical factors, social and cultural development, and shift in lifestyle and values of the population. The British National Corpus provides researchers with the information on the variety of different word combinations. In this respect, I was able to investigate the frequency of using modals in different setting in terms of the genre and parts of speech with which the modal occurred. The queries could be limited in terms of written and spoken language inserted into examples. In other words, the research turned out to be full of unexpected limitations. To be more exact, the limitations should have been imposed into the research mode so that I could get the clear data for analysis at the end of the investigation. However, this was not doe at the beginning of the research; so, I had to limit the number of queries and choose more objective and universal samples from all three corpora. In other words, the choice of data was likely to affect the results in an important way if the number of queries is not restricted.Advertising Looking for research paper on linguistics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Method Though the comparative analysis of the use of modals and quasi-modals was conducted by Mair and Leech (2006), it is necessary to view the frequency of use of certain modals and quasi-modals that were reported to have the lowest difference in American and British variants of English. In other words, the study is based on the findings by Mair and Leech (2006) who managed to identify the use of modals and quasi-modals in examples provided by American and British English language corpora. In this respect, the issue of primary importance is the decline of use of modals and increase in the number of quasi-modals used in the late twentieth – early twenty-first century. Though modals were used more frequently at the beginning of the reported period and the frequency of their use declined toward the end of the reported period, the frequency of use of quasi-modals was just the opposite and it increased toward the end of the same period. I searched for the frequency of use of the modals shall and should and quasi-modals be supposed to and need to. First, I entered the modal should into the entry boxes of all three corpora mentioned above including the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the Corpus of Historical American English, and the British National Corpus. This enabled me to see the changes in the use of the modal in a short period of time in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus; also, I could trace more obvious changes in the frequency of use of the modal with the help of queries made through the Corpus of Historical American English. The next step I took was the same procedure with the modal shall, and quasi-modals be supposed to and need to. The final stage of the research presupposed analysis of data and relevant conclusion made on the basis of the findings. In this respect, I was able to see the changes that took place in the use of modals that were previously reported to have similar changes in both var ieties of English including British and American variants and quasi-modals that were previously reported to have a greater difference in changes in these two variants of English language. As reported by Mair and Leech, the modal shall was used less frequently by people who used the British variant of English (-43.7% compared to the data received in 1960s) and by people who used the American variant of English language (-43.8%). Similar changes can be observed with regard to the frequency of use of the modal should (-11.8% of British and -13.5% of American). The quasi-modals were used more frequently compared to the period of 1960s when the first set of data was received. Thus, the quasi-modal be supposed to was used more frequently in the British variant (+113.6%) and in the American variant (+6.3%) which shows a great difference in the variants. The quasi-modal need to was used more often as well (+249% in British and +123% in American). Results and Analysis The first set of data c omes from the comparison of styles and genres used by the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. The following figure suggests the data received from the British National Corpus. Figure 1: Frequency of use of the modal should represented by the results from the British National Corpus. Section/use per million spoken fiction magazine newspaper non-acad academic miscellaneous 9,724.94 7,015.77 8,241.27 7,571.64 8,142.98 10,221.98 11,257.89 Key: non-acad – is the set of non-academic sources whereas written and spoken are not clearly differentiated. Thus, the British National Corpus provided the information concerning the genres and styles typical for the use of modal should. I turned out that the modal should is used more frequently in spoken language, in academic sources and in sources considered miscellaneous. These results enabled me to conclude that the frequency of the use of the modal should is still very high with regard to the r eported decline of the use. The next step concerned the use of the same modal traced with the help of the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Figure 2: Frequency of use of the modal should represented by the results from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Section/use per million spoken fiction magazine newspaper academic 930.65 622.75 721.51 657.63 897.18 Though the non-academic and miscellaneous sources are not identified as separate subgenres, it is necessary to show that the difference between the British and the American variants is still very high as 9,724.94 words per million in the British variant is much larger than 930.65 words per million in the American variant of English. In this respect, the difference is already obvious though it is necessary to see the situation that occurred in the frequency of use of the modal should with the help of the results from the Corpus of Historical American English. This corpus enables me to claim that the frequency of use of the modal should declined greatly while comparing the results from different decades during the entire nineteenth century and the entire twentieth century. In this respect, the most frequently the modal should was used in the period of 1820s though even then the use of this modal was not as large as the current situation in the British variant of English as there was an average number of 1,649.88 words per million whereas the use of the same modal in the contemporary British variant of English equals an average figure of 7,423.46 words per million. The next modal that was analysed is shall. The first corpus that should be discussed in this section is the Corpus of Historical American English which provides us with the picture showing changes in the frequency of use of the modal shall comparing the nineteenth and twentieth century. In this respect, we can see that the decline is great, especially while comparing the results on the frequency of use of the modal shall in the early nineteenth century and the ones from the late twentieth century. Thus the results from the 1810s equal 1,924.31 words per million whereas the same figure is much smaller for the period of 1990-2000 (53.27 words per million). It is also notable that the most frequently the modal shall was used in fiction and in academic sources whereas spoken language, examples from magazines and newspapers show smaller frequency of the use of the modal shall. Figure 3: Frequency of use of the modal shall represented by the results from the British National Corpus. Section/use per million spoken fiction magazine newspaper non-acad academic miscellaneous 2,195.98 2,310.60 315.07 330.20 1,160.58 2,139.88 2,024.27 This figure shows that the results differ greatly with regard to the use of the modal shall in the American and in British variants of English. At the same time, the results concerning the genre of use partially coincide for two variants of English language though the British s poken language as well as examples from miscellaneous sources demonstrates the same or similar frequency as the ones from fiction and academic sources as well as in the American variant of English. Figure 4: Frequency of use of the modal should represented by the results from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Section/use per million spoken fiction magazine newspaper academic 22.59 70.29 21.88 14.03 63.93 The results received from the Corpus of Contemporary American English are similar to those reported concerning the use of the Corpus of Historical American English where the use of the modal shall prevailed in fiction and academic sources while it was the least frequent in examples from newspapers (14.03 words per million). This figure can be compared to the results from the same genres for the British variant of English language where the frequency of use of the modal shall equals 2,310.60 words per million and 2,139.88 words per million for the academic sources . The next unit for analysis was the frequency of use of the quasi-modal be supposed to in British and American variants of English. It is necessary to note that this quasi-modal was analysed in terms of pure entries (supposed to was analysed in queries in order to ensure that all variants are included be supposed to, is supposed to, are supposed to, am supposed to, ‘m supposed to, ‘re supposed to, etc.) In this respect, the results for entry supposed to differed greatly for the initial entry be supposed to. As this imposed some limitation on the analysis, I decided to restrict results to the absolute queries that were supposed to include all potentially relevant results. The results from the Corpus of Historical American English enable us to see that the obvious changes started in the 1930s when the frequency of use of the quasi-modal supposed to was characterised with the 43.21 words per million whereas every coming decade showed increased frequency of use of this qua si-modal leading to the results of 98.32 words per million for the period of 2000s. One of the most notable features of the frequency of use of the quasi-modal supposed to concerns the sources of examples as in all periods reported in the Corpus of Historical American English, spoken language provided us with the most frequent use of this quasi-modal. The results received from the Corpus of Contemporary American English differ slightly from the ones in the Corpus of Historical American English. Thus, we can see the difference from the figure: Figure 5: Frequency of use of the quasi-modal supposed to represented by the results from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Section/use per million spoken fiction magazine newspaper academic 103.92 121.42 53.12 60.82 24.80 This figure shows that the main sources where the frequency of the use of the quasi-modal supposed to was higher than in the spoken language is the fiction. The results from the British National Corpus are similar to the situation presented in the Corpus of Historical American English where spoken language shows the highest frequency of use of the quasi-modal supposed to. The final unit for analysis is the quasi-modal need to; as reported by Mair and Leech, the use of this quasi-modal increased dramatically with regard to the results from 1960s compared to the contemporary situation. We can clearly see the frequency of use of the quasi-modal need to with the help of results from the Corpus of Historical American English where the lowest frequency can be observed in the period of 1810s (2.54 words per million) while the highest frequency of use is typical of the period of 2000s (211.14 words per million). Figure 6: Frequency of use of the quasi-modal need to represented by the results from the British National Corpus. Section/use per million spoken fiction magazine newspaper non-acad academic miscellaneous 2,555.89 1,028.71 1,589.51 873.46 1,438.18 1,840.44 1,882.11 This figu re shows that the use of the quasi-modal need to was the most frequent in the spoken variant of the British English whereas the average frequency is about 1,601.19 words per million which is twice as high as the frequency of use of this quasi-modal in newspapers and is almost 1.5 as low as the frequency of use of the quasi-modal need to in spoken language. The results received from the Corpus of Contemporary American English provide us with the information similar to the one from the British National corpus which enables us to conclude that the frequency of use of the quasi-modal need to increased compared to the beginning of the early nineteenth century. Conclusion The use of modal words and combinations has changed over the last hundred years with regard to the data from the British national corpus (BNC), Corpus of Contemporary American English, and Corpus of Historical American English as the sources of primary research materials. Besides, it is necessary to note that the use of the modals shall and should differs from the changes in the frequency of use of quasi-modals supposed to and need to. In other words, the data from the corpora demonstrates certain tendencies when the frequency of use of modals declines contrasted to the frequency of use of quasi-modals which increases. The most obvious changes concern the spoken language where the use of quasi-modals supposed to and need to is higher than in all other genres and sources of data. However, the quasi-modal supposed to is reported to be frequently used in fiction rather than in spoken language according to the results received from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. At the same time, the frequency of use of the modals shall and should tends to decline compared to the results received in the early nineteenth century. Collins, Peter. Modals and Quasi-Modals in English. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. Print. Facchinetti, Roberta, Manfred G. Krug, and Frank Robert Palmer (Eds.). Modality in Contemporar y English. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. Krug, Manfred G. Emerging English modals: a corpus-based study of grammaticalization. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. Mair, Christian, and Geoffrey Leech. â€Å"Current Changes in English Syntax.† 2006. Accessed from https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/doc_library/linguistics/leechg/mai_and_leech_2006.pdf.

Summary of Article on Current Business Issue Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Summary of on Current Business Issue - Article Example Each year thousands of new college graduates enter the job market in America. During the summer of 2012 the U.S. economy lost 8.8 million jobs and only added 3.8 million which results in a net job loss of 5 million jobs (Corona, 2012). It is estimated that if the U.S wants to cut down the unemployment rate to 6%, which would be near the natural unemployment rate of 5%, for it to happen the U.S would have to create 361,000 jobs a month for the next three years (Corona, 2012). One of the reasons that the official economic unemployment rate the government promotes is not accurate is because it does not account for the 88 million Americans that have given up in finding a job due to the poor job marketplace in America. The unemployment dilemma in our country is about to get worse because as reputable sources such as the Wall Street Journal predict a slowdown in the second half of the year and high unemployment for years to come (Corona, 2012). The current employment crisis in America is t he government fault. The current economic policies the government is implementing are not creating sufficient jobs to reduce unemployment in America. President Obama has been heavily criticized for maintaining Bush tax cuts for the middle class for another year. The policy Obama implement has been viewed as a strategy to earn votes during the upcoming elections. These fiscal policies are outdated since they are aligned with the strategies that the government has used during the last ten years. There is some speculation that the current government is going to impose tax hikes if the Democratic government is reelected. The Unites States economy has a great effect on the economies of many countries around the world. â€Å"There is some truth that our problems are a reflection of troubles in the European Union and a softening of the Chinese economy† (Corona, 2012). The Unites States is the largest trading partner with China and it is not in the best interest of China for the U.S economy to be suffering. Most economists agree that when the U.S economy is booming it has ripple effect that positively impacts the global economy. The TARP legislation has been viewed as a negative variable that has not served its purpose of helping the economic system. These governmental policies were focused on saving the banking industry rather than the general business community. A major reason for the bad state of the U.S economy is the lack of trust of American in what the government if doing. People are getting frustrated at the slow reaction of governmental official at tacking the issues and problems in the economy. A major drawback of the new governmental policies is that they are increasing the taxes for business entities. This is causing a lot of multinational companies to move their operations oversee where they can obtain cheaper labor costs and preferential tax treatments. A lot of companies in the U.S are riding tough economic times and the government is not doing a nything to gain their confidence that they can continue to operate in America in a profitable manner. When businesses face tough economic times the inevitable result is a lack of job creation and a movement of multinational operations to downsizing their operations in America in search for cost savings by moving operations oversee. It is sad that in the United States small companies