Multi/Bilingualism in Pakistani Punjab

The motive was to highlight the bilingual attitude of local Pakistani especially Punjabi Urban Speakers regarding three languages they use in daily life i.e. English, Urdu, Punjabi. I was pre-mature at that time, but the effort was done to create quality content. Of course it was an assignment.

Bilingualism

Bilingual or multilingual is a person who can speak two or more than two languages with equal or less equal proficiency. A society is called bilingual or multilingual if the people there speak more than one language.

            Bilingualism and multilingualism are referred to same thing mostly. Bilingualism may mean that the users of language are using more than two languages and multilingualism may also mean that the speakers are using two languages in the community or society.

            About half of the world's population is multi/bilingual. It is, in fact, very hard to find a monolingual community or society like Japan etc. While talking about sub continent in general and specially Pakistan we come to know that we are a multilingual community. We use Urdu as a language of communication between different domestic language speakers, thus Urdu working as a lingua franka, we use domestic languages at local level such as Punjabi, Hindko, Barahwi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Saraiki, Kashmiri etc and we use English also as a foreign language. People of Pakistan are bilingual/trilingual or generally multilingual.

            Bilingualism is believed to be a gradeable system so we can distinguish among its various kinds. Here it will be tried to discuss some concepts relating to multilingualism and then it will be tried to relate them to the local context of Pakistan specially Punjab. As the assignee is a Punjabi, Urdu and English speaker so the examples will be related to these languages mostly, although they will be almost valid for other domestic languages also.

           

            First distinction can be made in bilingualism is that the speaker have equal proficiency in both or all the languages he can speak or write. Such a bilingual is called a balanced bilingual or equilingual. This is not the absolute criteria, there may be some situations where a bilingual's abilities in a given language suffer due to pressure of situation etc. There may also be a situation of more receptive knowledge of once language and more active knowledge of another i.e. he may understand a language but may not speak it and he may speak and understand other language very well. There are also some situations in which bilingual is familiar with the spoken system of one language and written system of another.

            If we compare this kind of bilingualism distinction with our situation we can find certain similarities. Punjabi and Urdu are two languages which are believed  to be known by a person living in Punjab. A Punjabi speaking child learns Urdu along with Punjabi at almost same age. Exposure of both languages at the same time enables him to be proficient in both languages almost equally. But here we come to the point of above para. The difference of reading and writing system hinders here.  A Punjabi speaking child is not necessarily believed to learn writing Punjabi also. He writes in Urdu and it is considered sufficient for him/her. In particular situations where the learner optionally learns Punjabi at school enable him/her to read and write it otherwise it is seen that young speakers of Punjabi avoid reading or writing Punjabi and they feel it convenient to do it in Urdu. So their proficiency suffers here in Punjabi in writing and reading while in Urdu they are proficient in all fields reading, writing, speaking and listening.

            Second kind of distinction in bilingualism can be drawn by the acquisition of language. There are two main processes to learn a language. Acquisition and learning are two methods to learn languages, former is natural and primary while the later is artificial and secondary. A language acquired by a person interacting with his parents, sisters, brothers and friends etc at home will be the native language. Another language he learns at some institute by formal education will be called a foreign or a 2^nd or 3^rd language. Former bilingual will be called primary and later will be called secondary bilingual.

           

            In case of Urdu and Punjabi we are primary bilinguals. We learn these languages at home, from our surroundings in typical natural situations. While in case of Urdu and English or Punjabi and English we are secondary bilinguals because we learn former from home and later from an institute usually a school.

            A third kind of bilingualism distinction is socio-psychological distinction. The people may feel it additive having another language which enrich their ideas and knowledge. And they may feel it subtractive or loss of their language and culture by another languages (usually a dominant language). In our context this thing is applied to Urdu and English connection in both ways. People feel it additive to their knowledge, considering English as a language of latest knowledge and information and thus enriching their knowledge. People also feel it subtractive in a sense that English is acquiring the place of Urdu in our local life, its words are used and those of Urdu are ignored. So it can be a cause of loss of our culture and identity and there are people who are against its usage.

            A very useful way to describe the bilinguals is the domain specification. A domain is an empirically determined cluster of consisting a location, a set of role relationships and a set of topics. For each domain the bilingual has a pre-defined language to be used. We can see it in this table

Location	Role-relationships	Topics
Home	Mother, Father, Son, Daughter etc	Domestic, Personal etc
Neighborhood	Neighbour, Shop-keeper, street-cleaner	Weather, Shopping, social greetings
School	Teacher, student, principal	Social greetings, educational
Mosque and Religious Places	Imam, Muqtadee, Listener of Sermon etc	Sermons, Prayers, Social talks etc
Work	Boss, Subordinate, Peer	Professional Matters etc

           

            By comparing this theory with our practical use of language we can see what languages we use at each domain. Most likely we use Punjabi at home, talking with parents and other family members on different domestic and even non-domestic issues. With neighbours we also use Punjabi talking with them in different relations. At school the language changes to Urdu, when we talk to our teachers, co-teachers, principle or junior staff and peers etc. At mosque and religious gathering once again we use Urdu usually, sometimes local language is used for better interaction (specially in villages Punjabi is used). At work level or at higher education institutes our talks are a mixture of Urdu and English switching to English when talking in meetings and very formal sittings.

Code Mixing and Code Switching

            In a situation, community or a society where there are bilinguals and they interact with each other in more than one languages, due to the factor of language contact a situation arises which is called code mixing and code switching. This situation can lead towards the language interference in which a language is influenced by another language on the levels of semantics, grammar and phonology.

            A bilingual can talk to another bilingual in each language common between them. He can also use the words of one language into other, knowing that the listener  understands the other language as well. Such kind of mixing is called code mixing.

            Code mixing is also called conversational code switching. Code mixing takes place usually in spoken language as we are less conscious about our language and we have not much time to replace foreign words with native ones. We take it forgranted that other person is understanding us. Code mixing is not only the mixing of words but clauses are also included in it, a part of sentence from one language and other part from other language, and in similar syntactic structured languages such as English and Spanish the grammatical inflexions are also mixed.  It is very much related to domains and situations. At a very formal situation bilinguals can use a mixed code of formal and informal variety in their leisure time. The language in which education is received also influence the choice of words from another language and people tend to code mix who are high educated and specially in a foreign language. It is observed in many countries that teachers having degree from a foreign institute mix their code while delivering lecture.

            If we consider our situation we can find that domains related to education, media and profession are those where people use to mix the code. This code mixing is of two high level formal languages of the community i.e. Urdu and English. Teachers while talking in classroom use frequently the terms of the discipline from English. Media men and specially hosts at TV and radio etc mix the code frequently. They use a blend of Urdu with English and English with Urdu in talk shows and live programmes. An example of a female host from government tv channel PTV is quoted here.

اس وقت آپ کو لگ رہا ہوگا کہ میں بہت ہائپر ہورہی ہوں بڑی ایکسائٹڈ ہورہی ہوں ویسے تو میں ہر وقت ہورہی ہوتی ہوں  نہیں بھی ٹی وی کے سامنے ہوتی تو ہر وقت باتیں کررہی ہوتی ہوں لیکن ہمارے سٹوڈیوز میں بڑے سپیشل دو گیسٹس موجود ہیں انھیں میں سلیبریٹی کپل بھی کہوں  گی تو بالکل بھی غلط نہیں ہوگا۔

            She is mixing English noun, adjectives and verbs in Urdu frequently. We can see the plurals as well used as they are  in Urdu from English.

            Code switching is the umbrella term as compared to code mixing. It involves code mixing as well as the switching of language. Code switching is distinguished from code mixing as here people switch to other language for relatively large chunks of language.

            In our context, if we see, even in classrooms of heigher education levels, the teachers switch to and from the native to foreign language  during their lecture. Similarly media men, professionals also mix and switch their code highly while talking. Here is an example from Pakistani filmstar Javed Sheikh's interview. He is mixing the code and at the end totally shifts to English.

جن کو مجھ پہ کانفیڈنس ہے میرے لیے یہ بہت ضروری تھا کہ ان کا یہ کانفیڈنس برقرار رہے۔ اللہ تعالٰی کا کرم ہے کہ میں نے جو بھی کام کیا ہے “کھلے آسمان کے نیچے” میں   انشاءاللہ Every Pakistani will be proud of it

Borrowing

            Borrowing is very closely related to code mixing and switching. A single person using a foreign word is code mixing while lots of people doing this is called borrowing. Borrowing is to get a foreign language word into native language. In this process its pronunciation may be changed or it can be kept as in Urdu we use English word Policy as palicy. Borrowing can be at semantic level translating certain concepts from foreign to native language. It can be at syntactic level or morphological level to adopt certain language systems in native language.

            Borrowing has a very interesting problem. The meanings of words are changed some times from native meanings and word is used in local language in a different sense. An EFL teacher at Korea reports such problem on his blog. He says that people are using English words in Korean in different sense, these words are when spoken to native speakers of English in local meaning create problems of understanding. In Urdu we have some examples of change in meaning of a borrowed word. Committee is an English noun used in Urdu also as a noun but it is used as a verb also. کمیٹی ڈالنا is a verb which has totally different meanings as compared to the native meaning.

            Code mixing, switching and borrowing is also taking place in domestic languages but it is relatively rare as compared to Urdu. But we can find such examples while traveling in a local bus or standing at a stop.

            اینہوں کنٹرول چ کر

            This is utterance of an old man, who is using an English borrowed verb in Punjabi as a verb and applying the grammar of Punjabi very unconsciously.

            Inter language mixing of Urdu and domestic languages is also taking place. People in cities are tending to use Urdu words to purify  their domestic language. Specially in cities like Karachi it is reported that words of Urdu are frequently spoken in domestic languages like Pashto. The young Pakhtoons are marked by their Urdu-mixed Pushto when they visit Peshawar or the domestic areas of their parents. 

           

            Considering our language situations a diglossic community we can make a continuum of languages according to their formality level.

Bibliography

 Sociolinguistics by R.A. Hudson

 Sociolinguistics by Bernard Spolsky

 The Linguistics Encyclopedia edited by Kristen Malmkjer

 Introducing Language and Society by Peter Trudgill

 http://eflgeek.com/index.php/eflgeek/comments/time-to-clean-up-cunning-konglish/

Validity in Assessment

Definition

            While designing a test, it is essential for it to be valid. Validity can be defined in different ways.

“It is the extent to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure”.

“Validity is the subjective judgment made on the basis of experience and empirical indicators”.

Validity is “the agreement between test score or measure and the quality it is believed to measure”. (Kaplan and Saccuzzo 2001)

            In simple words we can say that validity refers to the meaningfulness of the test. This meaningfulness can work at two levels. At the level of the design, the design of the test should be according to the requirements. At the level of context, the test should be used for the specific purpose for which it is designed. We cannot use a mathematics test to test the writing skills of the learner, it is against the context, the test is used other than its context and will not be valid.

            There are various kinds and aspects of validity. Here they are tried to discuss according to their relevancy and importance.

1. Face Validity

            In fact it is not a kind of scientific aspect of validity. Face Validity refers to the face of the test among general public, test-takers and other lay people/non-related persons etc. Face validity means the test should have certain characteristics. These characteristics are those which the people expect about the test. They include proper printing, a governing body, an appropriate manner of test taking, subjective/essay type of questions etc. Thus a mathematics test will not be considered valid according to face if it has not numerical questions. Numerical Question is the expectation of the lay people from a mathematics test.

            A test that does not have such evidences may be rejected by the test takers and the governing body may bear criticism. Face Validity is nothing in the opinion of the expert but a test should look like a test a common man thinks. So face validity becomes an issue for the test designer and paper setter.

2. Predictive Validity

            Predictive Validity refers to the future performance and success of the learner. This aspect of validity ensures that the test is providing valid information about the future performance of the learner. So it includes all those situations or skills for testing which the learner encounter or perform in his future. The example of the tests must have predictive validity are entry tests and selection tests.

            Language aptitude tests should have predictive validity because they test present skills for future performance. Proficiency tests also use predictive validity. In diagnostic and achievement tests although there are other types of validity involved but they should also have predictive validity. As they are also liked with the future performance of the learner.

            Predictive Validity is calculated by statistical co-relations. The validity coefficient is calculated usually by comparing success in the test with the success in job. Thus the validity of the test is checked and improved for future tests. A 0.6 value of the coefficient is considered high which indicates that all tests do not have predictive validity.

3. Concurrent Validity

            There is  no major difference between the two validity types i.e. Predictive Validity and Concurrent Validity except time. Predictive Validity is related to futures while concurrent validity is related to present. When the future becomes present the predictive validity becomes the concurrent validity. We compare two tests instead of a test with future or job performance.  This comparison is of two test taken usually simultaneously, one written and other oral or spoken usually. It is used to limit the criterion related errors. Most suitable situation is the comparison of a new test with already established test/criterion to find its validity and meaningfulness.

            So a test having concurrent validity will show its validity in a given field. Concurrent validity is  a statistical measure which requires a quantifiable criterion. Although all the criterion are not quantifiable but statistical approach assumes that they are quantifiable. Co-efficient of validity is used to compare the two tests.

4. Content Validity

            It is the appealing aspect for the expert. It seeks the extent upto which the test represents the content from which it is constructed. 

            It is required in achievement tests. They represent a content/syllabus and they should be constituted from the given syllabus and content. Similarly diagnostic tests should also have content validity because they seek certain deficiencies of the learner from a given set of skills or syllabus. The chief examiner, advisor etc. can check that the test is representing the content which it is going to test.

            Teaching materials should have their own validation i.e. predictive and construct validity. Otherwise the content validity of the test will not be fruitful. So the teaching of speaking skills should involve such materials and the examples from native speakers which teach the student appropriate speaking/spoken skills.

            In proficiency tests the content validity can also be employed. Learners will have to perform in certain situations so the test can be a representative of those skills testing. Those areas can be specified before the exam just like the syllabus of the achievement tests. This is a guesswork as compared to other tests where we have syllabuses.

5. Construct Validity

             A construct is a theory, usually a psychological one, which explains certain mental process say learning. It will thus say how the learner learns the language and what are the factors involved and what is the nature of language etc.

            On the base of such theory the test is constructed to evaluate certain factors/indicators of the learner language to measure his ability. Thus the test will have the construct validity if it represents the aspects of that particular theory on which it is based.

            Here a point should be kept in mind that a construct may be wrong. So a test having construct validity will become meaningless due to the false theory on the basis of which it is constituted. Here the problem will be with that construct not with the test. Materials and syllabuses should also be evaluated on the basis of construct validity to know if they represent and teach the language according to the theory of language and language learning. 

Different questions relating each validity evidence are presented in this table.

Content 1.     Do the evaluation criteria address any extraneous content? 2.     Do the evaluation criteria of the test address all aspects of the intended content? 3.     Is there any content addressed in the task that should be evaluated through the test, but is not?

Construct 1.     Are all of the important facets of the intended construct evaluated through the scoring criteria? 2.     Is any of the evaluation criteria irrelevant to the construct of interest?

Criterion (Predictive + Concurrent) 1.     How do the scoring criteria reflect competencies that would suggest success on future or related performances? 2.     What are the important components of the future or related performance that may be evaluated through the use of the assessment instrument? 3.     How do the scoring criteria measure the important components of the future or related performance? 4.     Are there any facets of the future or related performance that are not reflected in the scoring criteria?

Validity is a pre-test concern. We should develop tests in such manner that they have the validity and meaningfulness. In this regard a three step approach can be helpful. 

1. First, clearly state the purpose and objectives of the assessment.

2. Next, develop scoring criteria that address each objective.

3. If one of the objectives is not represented in the score categories, then the rubric is unlikely to provide the evidence necessary to examine the given objective. If some of the scoring criteria are not related to the objectives, then, once again, the appropriateness of the assessment and the test is in question.

Sources of Invalidity

            Validity can suffer due to various factors some of which are discussed.

1.      Lack of reliability indicates that the test is not valid. Although the contrary may also be true, that is, a test is reliable and consistent in its results but it may be meaningless in certain context and irrelevant. Reliability should be seen to prevent invalidity.

2.        Content and Construct under-representation is a situation in which important aspects of the content and construct are not included in the test. Thus the results are unlikely to reveal the true abilities of the student's abilities within that construct or content which were indicated and having been measured by the test.

3.      Content and Construct over-representation is a situation in which the aspects of the content and construct are represented in the test in excess, that is, irrelevant part are also included in the test.  This can further be divided in two situations:

1.      One where the over-representation leads the test to easiness and the learner or test-taker can get some clues from the test to solve some problems, thus guessing increases invalidity.

2.      Other situation can lead the test to difficulty and it becomes difficult for the student to score appropriately. It is not the fault of the student but the construction of the test affects him and he cannot perform well.

Mono Touch and Mono for Android

I am supposed to write something on Linguistics now, but my plans fail every time when I come to a topic which love somehow. Mono is a one of the topics I always love to explore and talk about. It is the only thing which links me to programming on Linux because I can use my limited C# programming skills in MonoDevelop using Mono. It is a great application, and despite criticism from certain open source 'lovers', the merger of original company to Novell and now separation as Xamarin, this project kept on going. I am in love of this project and C#.

Once upon a time Mono was considered a rival of Java and other Virtual Machine based programming languages in the open source world. It was debated, re-debated and criticized. I remember the time when Ubuntu was even criticized on including mono packages in default installation CD. But those were simpler times. There were no 'intruders' in Adam's Heaven, there were no Tablets and so called touch devices. There was no Android. There was no hype to buy iPads, ThinkPads, TouchPads and like. So, all that people talked about was how much C# has been implemented by Mono, how much is there chance of Microsoft suing Novell over its patents regarding C#, how MoonLight is gonna fail, what kind of new applications are built on Mono lately, and whether Linux distros should adopt F-Spot, Banshee etc etc. The life was simpler at that time.

And now, when market is flooded by touch devices and people are mad to have one. There are new platforms and new software development kits. iOS is providing and promoting Objective C on its own SDK, Android is promoting its own SDK. Although Windows Phone is out there, but its only on 1% devices still in US (as I was reading somewhere today). Its true as far as Windows Phone is alive C# is alive (somehow). The libraries may change, names may vary whether it is Windows Presentation Foundation or SilverLight but the underlying language syntax would remain same. But this is about Windows world. What about Mono and Linux? As far as I know, Mono could never be a main stream application development framework in Linux world. It was appreciated by many, it was used by many, it produced very good and popular applications e.g. Banshee (I really liked this elegant media player), but the fact is that (for desktop users at least) applications written in Python or other such languages keep on appearing more often as compared to Mono and C# based applications. So it was natural to move towards touch devices for Mono to create its existence in a wider space.

There were other reasons as well. Mono always tried to target those developers who had C# skills and now wanted to create enterprise or other applications on other platforms e.g. Mac, Linux. Mono promised to provide support for porting existing .Net applications, to develop new ones, and to provide commercial support for Suse Linux Enterprise. The same theme was carried forward when Mono moved to Mono Touch. The idea is fairly simple, as the website also states that "use existing skills to create native iOS applications". They had good experience in joining C code of GTK with C# code of Mono to create GTK#, and joining other Gnome APIs to C# Mono framework. They've used the expertise to link Objective-C to existing Mono framework. You write in C# but the code generation would be in Objective-C. That's very cool idea, you do not have to re-learn Objective-C and a hell lot of APIs specific to iOS platform. Simply use Monodevelop to create an App and deploy it on the App Store.

Same is the case with Mono for Android. A few years back there were efforts to convert Java code to C#, and vice versa using IKVM and this was used on Mono also. Developers might be still using this technology to call Java APIs through Mono on a C# application. But the point here to mention was that Mono is trying to do something similar regarding Mono for Android. Most of the code for Android is in Java, so the Apps require Java and Google's platform specific APIs for Android. Mono for Android provides same thing here as well, as it does for iOS. It translates the code written in C# to one that is acceptable by Android.

This way, Mono is being alive and going forward. I have my best wishes that this platform should keep going on this way on new platforms. Thus the original i.e. Mono for PCs can be guaranteed, because no one will develop Mono if there is no money. So best of luck Mono. I love you ;-)

Making Money Online in Pakistan

In this post I am not concerned with how they do things in other countries to make money online. I want to discuss a few trends of online money making in Pakistan. And most of them I would rather avoid to use personally (or simple words I don't much like them).

The first way of making money is the so-called online money making companies one can see in every city. I've never worked for them, but from the rumors and second third source opinions I've made a picture. They provide several kind of jobs e.g. Form Filling, Typing, Article Writing (wrote to build links for SEO, in other words creating meaningless junk to promote your website), Adsense Click. First two ones can be justified somehow, but they require a lot of time and effort for very little money. Article writing for SEO as I mentioned, its just creating junk to promote a website on internet. The intention is not to promote knowledge, but to create formula articles, so people do it very efficiently. The last one is that you make a website, place adds on it and ask your users to click on adds once or twice per day. The clicks yield money for your website and you in turn pay them in rupees. I hate this method of earning. This is unlawful.

People start websites. They are link building directories, article submission sites etc. That's a good idea to promote websites, because link building is a significant part of SEO. But frankly speaking, I always have a stingy and smelly feeling of these websites. They have nothing but links, and copy pasted introductions of websites. And upon all this junk you've placed the adds from Google. It reminds me of a trash yard which is fully decorated with multicolour banners as if it were a cricket stadium before a match. Forgive my imagination, I just wrote how do I feel about these so-called link building directories. And let me explain one thing, some of them are doing great job, the older ones actually. They are descent and have a simple, clean, elegant GUI to categories websites. My 'negative' feelings were evoked by a recent such 'creation', clearly in the wake of making money online, but with least experience. The site seemed to say I AM CREATED TO MAKE MONEY. I am not providing site link, you may find such site around you while walking on facebook, google+ etc, just keep your eyes open.

People start article submitting directories in hope to make money. As you can see the effort is from Pakistan, they try to target Pakistani writers/ bloggers to write articles for them. And again they place adds on it. They have no guidelines or rules, just write something and dump into the hell yard they've created to make money. Sometimes these 'directories' look like an empty showcase with just banners of adds and nothing to view upon. I hate such newly and inefficiently created money making machine sites which are created because there are 'other' out there making money same way. I know there are some good examples of article submitting directories, but my experience have been quite unpleasant with them. Sometime back google could be easily deceived by such formula articles and they appeared on first page. I do not feel good about such things since then. Although search engines have now got the ability to bypass such material and provide quality material. But me is me... me still feels taste of a bitter almond whenever comes across an article directory, and it worsens when a newly created article directory is seen from Pakistan screaming with its full strength of lungs CLICK HERE SUBMIT HERE WE SELL LINK BACKS WE SELL LINKS BACKS.

Hopefully you are not bored with my jealous talk, because I cannot create such things so I prefer to 'hate' them. :-D Well there is an other thing, and that's to start writing on technology, and keep on writing, citing everything that appears on internet, writing about anything and managing to create relevance out of anything irrelevant. I have an eye to recognize such 'formula' blogs which are solely created for money making. And I (sorry again) feel rather unsatisfied from such 'things'. I cannot write on technology alone (perhaps cannot write on anything consistently, built in fault ;-) ), I cannot start a blog which announces on first arrival that its made for money making (forgive me, perhaps its my perception that there is a difference between money making and non money making blog, but that's how I feel). For me, blogging is to write your own feelings, blog is personal expression and you can add a touch of technology, your own professional experiences and tales, thus making your blog more live. On this blog, I try to to the same. I do not (actually cannot) write solely on linguistics. Because there are lots of topics at a given time T (lets make it a bit mathematical), which keep on dancing in upper portion of my body in the number N. So I select from the total of T*N to write on my blog each day. ;-)

Ok, expressed my hatred for every professional who is trying to make money, what's next? Well there is nothing more. I just wanted to say that make money but don't label on your website that you are here to make money only. Make it a bit descent, or become a high level professional e.g. start writing a blog on Ubuntu or any other very specialised area. This way the content wouldn't be available readily on internet, you'll have to create e.g. tutorials, analyses. Simply mentioning news reports from primary sources is not a challenging thing, at least for me, to earn money (I've a subscription of top technology magazines online as well in my google reader, and I usually know what has happened today on internet because I happen to check it several times a day). My apologies if you think my words are inappropriate, that's what I thought about it and I wrote. Perhaps a very big reason of this, is my background, when it comes to writing I like to sit down, take a while to think on the topic, add my feelings to it, try to make it lively and then write it down. Its not just reporting something from a primary source. That's why I could not continue this formula blog. Even if I see it today, it was a good effort and if I had continued since then, it could have yielded me lots of dollars from Google. But I couldn't, there were other reasons obviously, time, interest etc but one of the reasons was that I couldn't simply report from other sources, I couldn't add content for the sake of content to make money.

So folks, make money but do not write for money making only, write for both i.e. your personal pleasure and expression of thought and money would be there as well. After all this is English, the elite language, you can make money even by coughing in English :-D.

Sho Sweet Ooo Google Goochi Gooochi Goooo

I don't know whether my parents had a similar joy when I had first step of my life. ;-)
But I really love this moment. As if there is an unexpected rain in a desert, or a cool breeze in mid June. I wasn't expecting this, so soon.

I can't express how happy I am :-D. Perhaps someone just clicked, as a buck up :-/. But I like it, really like it.
What do you think how does it feels when you start yielding something from your Adsense?

Happy (Previous) Eid

Thanks to Almighty, this bruised nation was rewarded with Eid once again. Thanks to His blessing that He rewarded us with Ramadan and provided us opportunity to ask for forgiveness, to cure our souls and eliminate our sins. Thanks to Almighty that he granted the precious moments of Ramadan and Shawal 1st.

Happy almost previous Eid to the readers of this blog. Hopefully you enjoyed yourselves, met friends and relatives and had a good time. Or perhaps you enjoyed the time in my way, lying down on the bed in front of laptop staring at facebook, watching for technology news, downloading and watching new episodes of Star Trek Deep Space 9 and Stargate SG1 :-).

Well that's what I did today for the whole day, except 1 case when I left home to say Eid Mubarak to my teacher. I ate, drank, watched movies, read struggle of new technologies (just the skirmishes of HMTL5 with Silverlight, Flash etc and developers worrying about the future of proprietary technologies, pretty much cool topic :-D ;-)), and experimented my new laptop stand. Wanna have a look? See for yourself.

Well as you may have figured out. It is an old portrait (not a portrait it was an add from a medicine company pasted on a portrait like frame, I removed the add and used the frame). I attached a Rs 5 foota (wooden scale 1 foot long) with nail at one side of the frame to prevent laptop from sliding down (picture 3 for an unclear glimpse). And to make it look like a stand, I raise it using a box or a piece of wood (whatever is readily available) :-D. So here is what I've done on Eid.

Planning Your Career

As I've seen in short period of my life, there are two types of people in the world: the lucky and the not-so-lucky. The lucky ones are those who get an early breakthrough in their career. This boosts their career and they can fly on new horizons. The not-so-lucky ones are those who do not get an early breakthrough, or any breakthrough. So either they can become pessimist and stay where they are, or they can become hard workers and start to build up their career bit by bit and step by step.

I've seen the live examples during my MSc Applied Linguistics. Two lucky people were among my teachers. Sir Hafiz Fazl-e-Haq always fascinated me, so does Madam Rabia Yasmeen. Both were just MSc Applied Linguistics at the time when they got University job. So I considered them best examples as people who get breakthrough, and specially an early breakthrough in their career. Another example from the same university, GCUF, is my friend Sir Noor-ul-Qamar. He is a lecturer in English Department. He got his job when he just was completing his M Phil. And now he is a well settled person. I am also fascinated by him when I see my own career. Well, when I talk about my career, perhaps I was not able to get a breakthrough. For me, the maximum one can get as a MSc Applied Linguistics degree holder, is to get university job, specially public sector university. The teachers were required actually, but I couldn't apply for the job because of my incomplete thesis.

So we get that sometimes we are not so lucky, or we miss some chances to get something. How to rectify any such error? Well, in my limited experience and knowledge I've seen that you've to build your career step by step. It is a 10 years plan actually which starts after you get your graduation/ masters degree. This plan, as I see it, can be build considering following points.

• As a first step you look for a job. At this time your priority is not to get a handsome salary, but you look for 'a job', which can give you the right to be called a professional. In language teaching field, you will get the kinds of jobs as I mentioned earlier. As a trainee teacher, a school teacher, a private college teacher, you do not seek for handsome salary, but here your purpose is to seek knowledge to survive in market. You seek the ways to move in a professional environment. This experience gaining helps you in your future work.
• As second step you seek for a better job. Here the questions come what is the better job and WHEN? The choice of 'what' is totally person dependent because some people are comfortable with teaching, others are not so they may pursue for other fields and start from zero again. 'When' is a crucial thing to answer. Because your first job is very important for you to teach youself professionalism. But at the same time not all first jobs are so generous to offer you good income. So you've to move along. This move along can be tricky and context dependent (see for pragmatics here folks ;-) ). A few things should be kept in mind in this regard:
• You are being offered by a more prestigious organisation with a more suitable salary package.
• You think that you've gained as much as you could from your current institute.
• You think that you've spent reasonable time in the institution.
• You think that you wouldn't be able to survive in this institution any more (this can be due to some unfortunate reason)
• You think that you should concentrate on further studies instead of the job.
• Today's professional world offers you no generosity but 'cut throat' competition. If you are best, you'll survive otherwise you'll be left behind by the natural selection process. So you need to improve yourself constantly. In teaching you should be aware of latest techniques of teaching, use of technology and other gadgets which keep on emerging every day. Along with it, you need to improve intellectually as well. Being a teacher does not mean you've stopped learning yourself. You learn even when you are teaching in class. But that's 'learn to teach', what I want to focus here is to continue your regular studies. Masters degree is nothing today. Hundreds of universities across this country produce thousands of masters degree holders every year. So you are no exception. For improvement, to be exceptional, to be better, you will have to pursue for higher studies. When I see for myself, I have a plan for PhD and Post Doctorate (if possible) in next 5 to 10 years. You should also plan for yourself that what you want to get more along with your masters/ graduation degree.
• Reflection and Hope are two elements which are crucial for career advancement. You should, after a reasonable period of time e.g. 1 year, reflect on your previous time, sit and think about it. What have you gained, what have you lost and where did you overestimate about yourself. Hope is something which keeps you alive, and urges you to move forward. Never let the hope die. Because time is meant to change. Today if something is unfavourable, it wouldn't be so for long. In past 1 year, I always hoped for the best, that I would be no longer in that miserable school. (That's a different story how 1 year teaching in school benefited me and on what cost). But I never let the hope die. I had an urge that after some time I'll move forward. And to remind myself of this, I thought myself as water in a pond, which if stays long in the pond will grow algae in it. So I constantly reminded myself that if I stayed there for long, I'll rot and corrupt myself, because I've never seen myself as a school teacher. At least what I can bear for myself is a university lecturer. But to get this goal, I've to struggle and work hard, measure each and every step, move forward bit by bit, be patient, and keep on getting expertise in terms of education and experience of the field. Then with the Grace of Almighty, soon enough I'll see myself on the desired goal. And perhaps I wouldn't stop there as well, and will set new goals for myself.

So folks keep on moving, never stop and never let the hope die, plan well, be positive and patient, and keep my company ;-). You'll keep hearing such babbling from me in future as well. And your comments are absolutely desired. Correct me if I am wrong at some point, suggest a better way and add in, if I forgot something. What I said was just my experience, maybe you've something better to share.