The Buchanan Report And The Monderman Thesis

The statement is false. This is a tricky question! Although the Buchanan Report and the Monderman thesis do offer visions of how to manage traffic they also offer us two competing visions of social order. The Buchanan Report is underpinned by a social order which privileges the segregation of humans and motors through an array of measures in urban design and the regulation of the conduct of both drivers and pedestrians. This social order emphasises the value of a social environment delivering the conditions for individual mobility and car acquisition as a valued mark of success. The Monderman thesis stresses a social order where involvement and cooperation emerges from an individual capable of negotiating with others a shared use of public space. In this shared space approach, people are not segregated from traffic. You're right. Although Goffman's view of the centrality of interaction is visible in Monderman's approach to negotiating ‘shared space', Chapter 7 argues that, as Foucault shows, social order tends to be specified by experts within particular historical discursive frameworks. Although both Buchanan and Monderman were important in their own right, their ideas were developed and taken up within particular contexts that ‘authorised' their development (made their ideas seems appropriate and fitting to the needs of the time). Foucault claims that expert discourses, established by those with power and authority, are often disputed by competing expert discourses. Buchanan's ideas have dominated for a long period. Monderman's are perhaps gathering force and challenging those of centralised planning and direction. Foucault's view of how the authority to order social life is bound up with scientific knowledge is demonstrated in the discourses and practices of both Buchanan and Monderman.

Occupied America Essay

The logic of â€Å"Not just pyramids, Explorers, and Heroes.† The main purpose of this chapter is to explain the evolution of the Mesoamerica civilizations through the Preclassical and Postclassical periods, explain the evolution and impact that agriculture had during the first stages of the civilization and how that fact was the main factor of the change from nomads to sedentary and also to describe the changes in the development of the classes and differences of gender and the creation of the â€Å"cities† and urban centers. Everything explained chronologically to a better understand of the topic, evaluating every aspect of the culture, as the author says â€Å"Time represents the knowledge a people have accumulate.† (2) What the author was question I think in this chapter was the main characteristics of the most important or more highlighted cultures in Mesoamerica, talking also briefly about the similarities whit other civilizations around the world but putting more attention that what the â€Å"evolution† or progress of people in Mesoamerica means because he talks from the Olmecas to the Aztecs and some other cultures that were an important part of the history of those civilizations and the generation of a new urban population as stated â€Å"Food surpluses made possible â€Å"specialization of labor† and the development of complex social institutions such as organized religion and education.† (2) I do believe that the most important information that we have to remember are not necessarily the exact time or the exact characteristics of each civilization but which one was first and which one appeared later chronologically, by an example knowing that the Olmeca’s are known as the mother culture because it is known as the oldest culture of all, and then the Mayas appeared with some similarities in their hieroglyphics and some traditions, or as how the religion and beliefs about Quetzalcoatl of the mother culture was expanded towards some other civilizations of Mesoamerica, and not stopping here but also remembering the importance of each of one and also their differences. Getting to understand their progress through the time, and how this civilizations developed a new urban system by creating centers and actual cities formed not only by pyramids but also homes and schools, how is that their progress created a society that advanced. And also the changes every culture ha d by how the hierarchies worked and how some people were more powerful than others by the â€Å"primogenitor† right.

Chinese Religion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Chinese Religion - Essay Example Islam is another religion that combines beliefs from various religions. With this characteristic, there would be no question that Islam could easily be syncreticized with Confucianism. Christianity might be difficult to syncretize because like Islam, it is also a monotheistic religion but unlike the other, Christianity evolved from only one major religion, Judaism. However, probably, when placed in juxtaposition with Confucianism, Christianity would be questioned as to the belief in Jesus, who was like Confucius, was a man considered to have a higher level of understanding than the common people. This places both men to the same level as to the question of their deity. Considering syncretizing Christianity with Confucianism, such argument might crack some space in the former for the latter to penetrate it and might just allow a small possibility. One religion that might have remained unadulterated by other religions is Judaism. So far, even Christianity which came from Judaism is greatly sneered and questioned by Judaism because they cannot comprehend how one man, Jesus, would be considered equal to God. Judaism started from the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, being chosen by God to become the father of a people He would call his own and live in accordance to His commandments. The Jews do not just trace their lineage to Abraham but also trace the model of faith to his life especially when it comes to the sacrifice of his son to God as a test of his faith. His life became a testimony of what God could do for the Israelites, providing for their needs as He provided for Abraham, making him rich during his time; protecting them from their enemies as He did to their forefather who won wars and was spared of diseases. However, in exchange for the favors, God asks the Jews to obey His commandments like not worshipping other gods, making images of

Sustainable Tourism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Sustainable Tourism - Essay Example However, the benefits accrued from the industry are often off-set by the negative impact it causes on the natural environment and the threats it poses to the bio-diversity. Hence incorporating sustainable measures and policies within this industry is highly crucial for the sustaining and developing of this industry. In order to establish this fact, this paper discusses the various definitions and key concepts of sustainable tourism; the impact of mass tourism; the values and ethics involved; and market failure. The paper concludes with the proposition that the various benefits of tourism can be successfully enjoyed if proper measures are implemented at the local, regional and national levels to ensure effective management of all tourism related activities. Definitions: The term sustainable tourism covers a broad area such as eco-tourism, green travel, culturally responsible tourism, environmentally friendly tourism etc and the likes. However, the basic / fundamental pillars of sustai nable tourism entails the effective management of all key local resources in a manner which ensures that the social, economic, cultural as well aesthetic fabric of the tourist destination are maintained and their cultural integrity is upheld. Furthermore, it also entails the preservation of the bio-diversity of the areas in and around the tourist site, as well as their support systems. There are various definitions of the term 'sustainable tourism' although none of them claim to be comprehensive in nature. Some of them are listed below: According to WTO (1996): "Sustainable tourism development meets the needs of the present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing the opportunity for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled, while maintaining cultural integrity essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems† According to Swarbrook e (1999): Sustainable tourism means "tourism which is economically viable but does not destroy the resources on which the future of tourism will depend, notably the physical environment and the social fabric of the host community" (Pp.13). However, according to a definition provided by a report funded by the European Union the term Sustainable tourism was referred to as: "tourism which develops as quickly as possible, taking account of current accommodation capacity, the local population and the environment .. The development of tourism and new investment in the tourism sector should not detract from tourism itself †¦. New tourism facilities should be integrated with the environment". (Swarbrooke, 1999, Pp.13) According to Butler (1993): "Tourism which is in a form which can maintain its viability in an area for an infinite period of time" (Pp. 29) According to Eber (1992): "if tourism is to be truly beneficial to all concerned . . . and sustainable in the long-term, it must be ensured that resources are not over-consumed, that natural and human environments are protected, that tourism is integrated with other activities, that it provides real benefits to the local communities . . .

Hamlet Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 9

Hamlet - Essay Example The general male attitude towards women is well elucidated by Hamlet in Act II, Scene 2: â€Å"Frailty, thy name is woman† (Shakespeare, 29). Women were not considered able to think rationally and cleverly or worthy of being educated, take up employment, vote or hold public office. As a result, women lost their identity by meekly permitting themselves to be molded by the men in their lives (Brown). Gertrude and Ophelia, the two female characters in Elsinore, the Danish Royal Castle that is the epicenter of ‘Hamlet,’ are no exception. Although both are very beautiful, they are greatly disadvantaged due to the absence of female tradition and the absence of any significant female influence (like a mother or sister). They are dominated by the men in their lives. The hierarchy needed the presence of docile females so that they men could wield roles of power; Gertrude and Ophelia are such perfect docile foils to the dominant males in their lives (Brown). Both are depicted as weak and not self-reliant. They are both unable to think on their own and arrive at logical conclusions, but rely on the men in their lives to take decisions on their behalf (Angelfire.com). Gertrude tamely lets her life be molded by the three dominant males in her life – her first husband King Hamlet, her second husband Claudius and her son Hamlet. When King Hamlet dies, Gertrude is suddenly bereft of a major person who controlled her actions and identity. Acting by instinct, she makes haste to find a replacement as quickly as possible. In Act 1, Scene 2, she marries her brother-in-law Claudius just two months after King Hamlet’s death, well knowing that in those days a widow’s act of remarrying her husband’s brother was looked upon as incest (Melani). In an indication that shows Gertrude has never exercised the freedom or power of independent

Principles of Economics Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 4

Principles of Economics - Assignment Example The problem of alcohol abuse is not easily overcome because alcohol is highly addictive. In this case, if the alcohol abuser is an economist, he or she will consider many things that he or she would use to help him or her overcome the situation. They will look at the opportunity cost whereby they will consider buying those goods that are best for their health such as food other than alcohol that would cause a problem to his or her health (Mantzavinos 64). Additionally, they will use cost benefit analysis by viewing the benefits accrued from stopping the habit of alcohol consumption. In this case, the benefit of stopping consuming alcohol is higher than continuing with the habit (Porter 1998). For instance, there is wastage of money in purchasing alcohol. They would rather use the same money can be used to buy other important things. More so, they will consider rational behavior by assuming actions that are necessary when they stop consuming alcohol. Further, an economist would look at the market forces of demand and supply of alcohol in that they will analyze the level at which alcohol is supplied to the market and the price that alcohol come with. When the supply is not sufficient, they would prefer to stop drinking alcohol rather than continuing with the habit of looking for a commodity that is scarce and costly. More so, they will consider the level at which alcohol is demanded; therefore, they will analyze the possible outcomes o f many people drinking alcohol. The possible way to help alcohol abuser is to assist them to realize that they have alcohol consumption problem. Friends and family members can help make the abuser realize that alcohol drinking is affecting them in that they strained economically because the money that can be used to purchase basic commodity is used to buy alcohol. The abuser should be willing to look for assistance given that consumption of alcohol is dangerous to an individual’s health.

Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems Essay

Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems - Essay Example Implementation of Access control Internal Revenue Service (IRS) developed a documented access control policy that addressed the purpose, roles, responsibilities, management commitment, coordination among organizational entities, and compliance with all rules and regulations. We also developed and documented procedures to facilitate the implementation of the access control policy and associated access controls including risk management. These procedures and rules will be reviewed and updated at a specified period of time. Account management is a control within the Access control family. It is denoted by identifier AC-2: This control enables the organization to manage information systems accounts including identifying account types, establishing conditions or membership, identifying authorized users of the information system and specifying user privileges. The organization manages information system accounts, including: Identifying account types (examples: individual, group, system, application, guest and temporary); Establishing conditions for group membership; Identifying authorized users of the information system and specifying access privileges; Requiring appropriate approvals for requests to establish accounts; Establishing, activating, modifying, disabling, and removing accounts;

Proposal Argument Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Proposal Argument - Research Paper Example However, the war in Iraq has resulted into suffering and distraction of lives of the citizens. Furthermore, the incarceration of Saddam Hussein meant that terrorist threats from Iraq were no longer looming. Finally, no weapons of mass destruction were found in the country as earlier stated by the US. I propose the millennial solution in ending the war in Iraq. To start with, the millennials are the individuals that have grown up in the face of war in Iraq. They grew up experiencing their peers being shipped to fight in wars and also watching ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ on the various media platforms (Schwartz 65). Millenials have been known to put up vibrant battles against the war. By the time the war finally came to an end in 2011, the millennials that were middle school when the war began has come of age to watch the US soldiers set up the war operations and understand what was going on. Iraq is back in the news again as a militia organization referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq, ISIS, al-Sham among other names has spread across the southern and northern regions of the country. Unfortunately, with all the damage that has been going on, TV interviews and the debate on the internet has been missing the important contribution of millennials who are the individuals that grew up in the face of the war (Billitteri 34). The best solution that has been proposed is by getting the millenials more involved in the peace-keeping and finding a lasting solution for the war in Iraq. It has been observed that this generation did not vote for the war that started in 2003 or even plan for it. Nevertheless, they have paid a dear price for it. To start with, the war has taken the lives of approximately 4,500 millenials and cost the nation a figure estimated between $4 to $6 trillion (Billitteri 15). The war has also taken away the lives of more than 100,000 innocent civilians. Regrettably, there are global political leaders that have served as champions for the

Hiring a New Bartender Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hiring a New Bartender - Essay Example ch as determining the need for recruiting, conducting a job analysis, writing a job description and specification for the candidate, fixing the appropriate salary, deciding how and where to find the prospective employees and interviewing them ("The Interview Process: Selecting the right person† par. 2). Mr. Peter Luger has the task of hiring a new bartender. There are four applicants for consideration and as such, he will have to scrutinize every person’s skill and level of qualification before making his choice. John is twenty-five years of age; therefore, he is mature enough to handle the pressures of having to work with the presumably aged people who visit the bar. Since the bar has been in existence for ten years, Luger wouldn’t want to tamper with the reputation that he has already built. At twenty-five, John is neither too old to handle the job nor too youthful to mishandle the patrons of the bar. The fact that he is a college graduate implies that he has the required academic qualifications for the job at hand. John is also experienced in the restaurant business; therefore, there should be no problem on his side handling the clients’ food. Serving alcohol represents a new challenge for the man but since he is an adventurous person, selling alcohol would offer no difficulties for him. Mr. Luger’s sports bar and grill closes late in the night and as such, it is necessary for the bartender to be willing to comply with the owner’s wishes. John has his own means of transportation; therefore, Luger should have no problem convincing the bartender to leave the bar late at night. The only point of John’s undoing is his temper. High tempered individuals may not be the best persons to hire in a position that requires tolerance such as that of being a bartender. It is common knowledge that drunken people are bound to behave arrogantly and sometimes abusively, therefore, this might not bode well for John. Should John lose his temper while handling some of

Freud and the Unconscious Essay Example for Free

Freud and the Unconscious Essay Few theories hold more intrigue than that of human psychology. Throughout history, many have sought to decode the structure of the mind. Amongst those who were determined to investigate the nature of psychic material, one of the most prominent remains Sigmund Freud (also known as â€Å"the archaeologist of the mind†). Freud had very pronounced views on the innate components of human psychology, within which one idea remained central the ‘unconscious’ mind; he uses this concept to make sense of phenomenons such as that of parapraxes. In his essay, â€Å"The Unconscious†, Freud introduces a unique perception of human thought, action, interaction and experience. He details a state of dualism that exists in our psychical life in stating, â€Å"consciousness includes only a small content, so that the greater part of what we call conscious knowledge must in any case be for very considerable periods of time in a state of latency, that is to say, of being psychically unconscious† (2). He argues that although we are blind to our unconscious mind, it determines a greater part of our behavioural being and participates just as much as psychical activity as our conscious mind. Freud also adds, â€Å"In every instance where repression has succeeded in inhibiting the development of affects, we term those affects ‘unconscious’† (7). He states that the unconscious is where repressed desires are stored, ideas that are suppressed from surfacing into the realm of our awareness e. g. we recognise our emotions we ‘feel’ because they have moved from amongst the elements of the unconscious mind to the conscious mind. The notion of â€Å"what you see is not all there is†, of the uncertainty of appearance or self-knowledge is a message that identifies very well with Freud’s theory of the unconscious. Freud’s arguments entail that a significant reality (and â€Å"most importantly† he would most likely say) exists in that which is intangible. He claimed that the unconscious could not be realized by the individual themselves through introspection, but is potentially made possible during psychoanalysis. In â€Å"The Unconscious†, Freud states, â€Å"[it transforms] into a qualitatively different quota of affect, above all into anxiety; or it is suppressed† (7), alluding that the unconscious mind, or rather a conflict between conscious and the unconscious intentions is the root of neurotic or histrionic behaviour. Thus, not only did he perceive psychoanalysis as a useful tool for uprooting unconscious ideas, but the very understanding of the concept played a central role to the successful treatment of his patients (that is to say, that Freud believed that he could lead his patient to recovery by making aware the unconscious idea that is conflicting with the individual’s consciousness). Freud believed that naturalized phenomenons such as innocent ‘mistakes’ (â€Å"parapraxes†) or the state of dreaming were in fact meaningful and were indications of the active unconscious, an idea which echoes to the notion of conscious and unconscious communications which we discussed in the second week of class that in both forms there were â€Å"logical relations†. This is the essence of Freud’s belief that there is psychical process in every movement or act (whether in a state of wakefulness or asleep/acts that are intended of ‘unintended’), which is to say that order exists in every action including the seemingly ‘disconnected’. With reference to this notion, he famously claimed that parapraxes (slip of the tongue, mishearing, forgetting, memory loss) were significant phenomenons worthy of interpretation, because they were evidence that the unconscious mind exists. In â€Å"Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis†, Freud explains his view in which the unconscious plays a significant role in the phenomenon of parapraxes. Though parapraxes are often disregarded as â€Å"small failures of functioning, imperfections in mental activity† (28), he explains, â€Å"They are not chance events but serious mental acts; they have a sense† (44). Before moving on interpret what Freud meant by this, it seems useful to first introduce an idea which Louis Althusser presents in â€Å"Lacan and Freud† (which was also touched upon in class), in which he states: â€Å"the ‘effects’, prolonged in the surviving adult, of the extraordinary adventure that, from birth to the liquidation of the Oedipus complex, transforms a small animal engendered by a man and a woman into a little human child† (22). The transformation that Althusser describes resonates with a sense of ‘humanization’ whereby a feral being is tamed by society and progresses into a ‘human’ existence; it alludes to the ultimate sacrifice that is made by the primitive soul in order to survive amongst civilization [the desire for instinctual satisfaction]. Keeping Althusser’s portrayal in mind, perhaps it could be said, then, that the unconscious manifests impulses whose intentions are deemed ‘too disturbing’ or unfitting with civil behaviour. This conforms to Freud’s argument that a ‘spontaneous’ or unexplainable error is an indication of a compromise between two conflicting aims of the ‘disturbed’ and the ‘disturbing’ consciousness (44). By means of distortion or substitution, the irrational impulse disguises its intentions under an appearance of rationality. He communicates, essentially, that parapraxes should be interpreted less as â€Å"faulty acts†, but instead, should be considered as faulty achievements of our unconscious desires. He indicates this when he states, â€Å"the disturbing purpose only distorts the original one without itself achieving complete expression† (35). Freud theorizes that an inaccessible part of our mind the unconscious does exist and evidence of its reality is apparent, such as in the very happening of everyday pathologies, or â€Å"parapraxes†. He maintains the significance of the unconscious mind as a meaningful, valid psychical force that pursues its own intentions (its presence undeniable in its ability to elicit bodily responses). In the discovery of this, Freud stresses the idea that individuals should place more value in what we so often dismiss as ‘mistakes’, ‘accidental’ or ‘random’ behaviour, because there may be significant meaning to the obscured intentions they convey. On a different note, the underlying notion that there is no such thing as ‘involuntary’ acts or ideas, reinforces more than ever a disparate sociological thought: that we, as individuals, are truly and solely responsible for our own actions.

Online Politeness Strategies Used By Malaysians Cultural Studies Essay

Online Politeness Strategies Used By Malaysians Cultural Studies Essay This study aims to investigate the politeness and the related strategies used by Malaysian chatters in the conversations of online setting. Chat room messages are spontaneous and instantly visible, making it similar to the daily natural-occurring discourse. For this study, Yahoo chat rooms have been chosen to evaluate the pattern of politeness strategies used by most Malaysians. This study examines 20 written conversations or messages in Yahoo chat rooms. The data were collected by logging in into Yahoo Messenger, and into one of the many chat rooms that has been featured. The conversation or messages written by the Malaysian chatters in the chat rooms were then copied and saved. The data were then analyzed by referring to Brown and Levinsons theory of politeness strategy (1987). Based on Brown and Levinsons model of politeness strategy (1987), the politeness strategies used in daily conversations to reduce Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) are grouped into four main strategies which are Bald on Record, Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness, and Off-the-Record. The results of the analysis show that positive politeness strategy is most widely used by Malaysian chatters in the Yahoo chat rooms. It may happen because the conversation is in the form of sharing where chatters reveal stories about themselves or state their opinion about something. Most chatter interacts with each other to share their experiences or stories among themselves. In this case, S satisfies Hs positive face by giving gift, not only in the form of thing, but human-relation that wants to be liked, admired, care about, understood, listened to, etc. Therefore, it is proved that even in this faceless community, people still want to be liked and admired. They also want to share and be able to understand each others feelings and thoughts even when they are not communicating face-to-face. 1.0. Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A chat room is part of a Web site, or part of the online services such as the Yahoo chat rooms, that provides a venue for communities of users around the world with a common interest to communicate in real time. It is indeed a common fact that each human has the need to communicate with others. Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meanings in an attempt to create shared understanding, considering that both the speaker and hearer should hold to general rules or principles and thereby use certain strategies. An often used strategy to achieve this is known as politeness (Renkema, 1993).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Leech (1983) defines politeness as a form of behavior that establishes and maintains comity, that is, the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony. Brown and Levinson (1987) suggest politeness as a compensation action taken to counter-balance the disruptive effect of face-threatening acts (FTAs). In addition, they also describe Face Threatening Acts as acts that infringe on the hearers need to maintain his/her self-esteem and be respected (Brown and Levinson, 1987).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   According to Brown and Levinson, politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers face. Face refers to a speakers sense of linguistic and social identity, which is defined as the public self-image that every member (of the society) wants to claim for himself (Brown and Levinson, 1987).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     However, this linguistic aspect occurs in the verbal communication of the real conversation not only in the real world but also in the cyber world. Nowadays, since technology has developed rapidly, people can communicate with others using many kinds of media. One of the technologies used widely by the society of the world is the internet. The internet is a system that has revolutionized visual, oral, written communications and methods of commerce by allowing various computer networks around the world to interconnect. Therefore, it is now possible for people to communicate visually, orally, and in written form by using their Personal Computer and Internet modem.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   To communicate in the written form via the internet, people can use the facilities which are called e-mail and chat. Chat or chatting via the internet is a real-time communication between two or more users via computer and the users are popularly-known as chatters. Most networks and online services offer a chat feature. One of the common and popular internet facilities for chatting is the Yahoo Messenger chat room. Yahoo Messenger is one of the internet free facilities which can be accessed by many internet users that have a Yahoo account. On-line chat-channels or rooms in Yahoo Messenger have become a popular environment for meeting new people and for general conversations. These chat-channels are comparable to real-life situations where participants interact at the same time spontaneously and often in the same spatial environment. The same conversational rules are adhered to both in chat-channel conversations and in face-to-face interaction. However, some specific features of chat-channel conversation, such as the politeness strategies, might be different from those we meet outside the cyberspace, where a face-to-face interaction would occur. Thus, this study aims to explain the politeness strategies used by Malaysian chatters in Yahoo Messenger chat rooms through observation and analysis. 2.0. Literature Review. At the same time as supporting renewed interest in Grices Cooperative Principles (1975), the issue of politeness has become one of the most active areas of research in language use (Chen, 2001). Studies from Brown Levinson (1978, 1987) and Scollon and Scollon (1995) have aroused increased attention in the study of politeness. The face theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) serves as the most influential theory on politeness. It plays a leading role in the study of speech acts (Ji, 2000; Hobbs, 2003). Brown Levinsons face theory contains three basic notions: face, face threatening acts (FTAs) and politeness strategies. 2.1. Politeness Politeness is an aspect of pragmatics in that its use in language is determined by an external context. This external context is the context of communication, which is determined by the social status of the participants. Politeness is a system used by the speaker in order to keep up to the addressees expectations. According to Grundy (1995: 135) the determiners of the need to use politeness strategies are distance, power and imposition. Imposition covers every action (including speech acts) which threatens the addressees autonomy and freedom of action and usually is conveyed in the form of an order. On the other hand, power is evaluated in terms of numerous factors such as position in society and age whereas distance implies the evaluation of the others place in the world, degree of familiarity and/or solidarity towards the addressee. The politeness systems theory advocated by Scollon and Scollon (1995) is also noteworthy in this field. They observe three politeness systems which are the deference politeness system, the solidarity politeness system and the hierarchical politeness system. The distinction of the three systems is mainly based on whether there exists power difference (+P or -P) and on the social distance between the interlocutors (+D or -D). The deference politeness system is one in which participants are considered to be equals or near equals but treat each other at a distance (e.g. classmates). In a solidarity politeness system, the speakers may feel neither power difference (-P) nor social distance (-D) between them (e.g. friends). The hierarchical politeness system may be widely recognized among companies, government and educational organizations, in which the speakers resort to different politeness strategies. 2.3. Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) Every utterance is potentially a face threatening act (FTA), either to the negative face or to the positive face. Therefore, people need to employ politeness strategies to redress the FTA. According to Brown and Levinson, Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) are acts that infringe on the hearers need to maintain his/her self esteem. If we do or are about to threaten someones positive or negative face, but do not mean it, we need to minimize it by applying politeness strategies. There are four polite strategies; Bald on Record, Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness, and Off-the-Record (as suggested by Brown and Levinson, 1987). 2.4. Politeness Strategy According to Brown and Levinson (1987), politeness strategies are developed to save the hearers face. Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that self-esteem in public or in private situations. Their notions of face is derived from that of Goffman (1967, as cited in Brown and Levinson 1987) and from the English folk term, which is related to notions of being embarrassed or humiliated, or losing face. Brown and Levinson stated that there are two types of face in an interaction which are positive and negative face. A persons positive face is the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated by members of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others. Whereas a persons negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action and not to be imposed on by others (Yule, 1996).  Ã‚   In the bald on record strategy, the speaker provides no effort to minimize threats to the other persons face. The prime reason for its usage is that whenever a speaker (S) wants to do the FTA with maximum efficiency more than he wants to satisfy the hearers (Hs) face, even to any degree, he will chose bald on record strategy (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 95). There are, however, different kinds of bald on record usage in different circumstances, because S can have different motives for his or her wanting to do the FTA with maximum efficiency. It is divided into two classes which are cases of non-minimization of FTA and cases of FTA-oriented bald on record usage. On the other hand, in cases of FTA-oriented bald on record, the use of this strategy is more oriented to the face. In other words, it is used where face involves mutual orientation, so that each participant attempts to predict what the other participant is attempting to foresee. For in certain circumstances it is reasonable for S to assume that H will be especially worried with Hs potential violation or Ss maintaining. There are three functional categories or areas where we expect the pre-emptive invitations to occur in all languages (which are potential to FTA): The positive politeness strategy is usually seen in groups of friends, or where people in the given social situation know each other fairly well. It usually tries to minimize the distance between them by expressing friendliness and solid interest in the hearers need to be respected. The only feature that distinguishes positive politeness compensation from normal everyday intimate language behavior is an element of exaggeration. There are fifteen sub-strategies that are used in positive politeness strategies: Negative politeness is defined as a redressive action addressed to the addressees negative face: his want to have his freedom of action unobstructed and his attention unrestricted (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Negative politeness strategy recognizes the hearers face, but it also recognizes that the speaker is in some way forcing on them. Some of the sub-strategies of negative politeness are: According to Brown and Levinson (1987), a communicative act is done off-record if it is done in such a way that it is not possible to attribute only one clear communicative intention to the act. Thus, if a speaker wants to do an FTA, but wants to avoid the responsibility for doing it, he can do it off-record and leave it up the addressee to decide how to interpret it. Some sub-strategies of off-record: The research design of this study was descriptive qualitative. The data or the information were reported and described as the way they were, therefore any content of the information were not changed for the sake of the originality of the data required. The technique used, as in most descriptive research, was the observation technique, since it could exactly describe how the chatters responded directly to other chatters in the chat room. After being connected to the internet, a yahoo messenger window was opened. After approximately two hours of chatting with friends and strangers, all the written conversations were then copied and saved. Next, the data were printed out and analyzed. A document analysis was used because the data were in the form of written or visual material. While collecting the data, interpreting and analyzing them also took place. The data were classified according to the FTA contained in it. In this case, it was about what kind of politeness strategy used by the chatters, whether they were bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, or off-record based on Brown and Levinsons theory. After that, the data were described more specifically according to the chosen strategy. From table 2, it can be seen that in the chatting conversation, Malaysian chatters used many variations of Positive Politeness strategy. Based on the results of this study, it is clear that Give gifts to H is frequently used by the chatters (23.6%). It may happen because the conversation is in the form of sharing where chatters reveal stories about themselves or state their opinion about something. Most chatter interacts with each other to share their experiences or stories among themselves. In this case, S satisfies Hs positive face by giving gift, not only in the form of thing, but human-relation that wants to be liked, admired, care about, understood, listened to, etc. Therefore, it is proved that even in this faceless community, people still want to be liked and admired. They also want to share and be able to understand each others feelings and thoughts even when they are not communicating face-to-face. As shown in Table 1, Bald on Record politeness strategy is the second most applied strategy by Malaysian chatters in Yahoo chat room. Malaysian chatters used this strategy mostly by giving sympathetic advice or warning (48.3%) (Table 3). In line with Positive Politeness strategy, it may happen due to the form of the conversation that is sharing problems and ideas. It is common fact that chatters logged into the cyberworld to release their tense whilst sharing what they felt about certain things with others. Bald on record strategy also is usually used among speakers that have close/intimate relation with each other (i.e. siblings, friends). Apart from this result, the current study also has found that among two group of people (strangers and friends), friends tend to use more bald on record when communicating among themselves (among all 40 chatters,26 friends used bald on record compared to only 3 strangers using bald on record). This is because they do not feel the need to minimize the threat to the Hs face believing that both S and H understand that they do not mean to embarrass each other purposely. According to the result by the current study, it is clear that the negative politeness strategy is not much used by the Malaysian chatters in their interaction with each other. The negative politeness strategy is only been used for a total 13 times by the chatters. The negative strategy mostly used by Malaysian chatters is by impersonalizing S and H (38.4%). It is rather common to impersonalize when the social distance between S and H is vast. In Malaysian it is considered polite when we use the negative politeness strategy, which explains why we apologize a dozen times to our lecturer before asking them a question. We Malaysian tend to address our superior with their title (i.e. maam, Dr, Professor, etc). In the chat room context, when we are communicating with a stranger or someone who is at a higher level in the social hierarchy (or a higher level status, language proficiency) we will mostly resort to this strategy in order to be polite because it is the norm in Malaysia. A speaker uses off-record strategy when he/she wants to avoid the responsibility of doing an FTA. When a speaker uses off-record strategy, he/she leaves the FTA up to the addressee to decide how to interpret it since here the speaker must say something in general (less information) or different from what he means (Brown and Levinson 1987: 211) Off the Record Frequency Percentage (%) Give Association Clues 1 50 Be vague 1 50 Over -generalize Use saying total 2 100 Table 5: distribution of the variation of Off the Record Strategy No. Chatters and dialogues Chosen strategy 1. YT: Im about to explode. All this whle I tot shes comin!!!! Wtff HF: ooooooà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Someones really mad. KP: I noeeee,,,y did she canceled her concert? =( Off the Record (be vague) Examples of Off the record strategy in a conversation As shown in Table 5, off-record strategy is very rarely used by Malaysian chatters. Based on the results of the current study, Malaysian chatters only used off the record strategy for a total of 2 times only. Malaysian used this strategy by giving association clues and being vague towards the topic of conversation. 5.0. Conclusions From the findings, it is discovered that politeness strategies are also applied in computer-mediated communication, as presented by Malaysian chatters in Yahoo chat room. Politeness is used to maintain the social value of the community, including in virtual-community. The chatters used the strategy of politeness when they communicate in the computer-mediated communication (CMC) to reduce the FTA in saying something. The findings show that positive politeness strategy is the most frequently used strategy by Malaysian chatters in Yahoo chat room. Most chatters use this strategy while considering other chatters feeling or face. It is also used to gain and show respect towards each other. It may happen due to the setting of the conversation and the social distance between the chatters which clearly is very close. Thus, this result is parallel with if the chatters were to have a face-to-face conversation with each other. Because of their closeness with each other, they tend to use polite strategy in order to be liked, understand and accepted among themselves. Thus, this result supports Brown and Levinsons theory which says that polite strategy contains statements of friendship, compliments and etc.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bald on record is also quite widely used by Malaysian chatters in the CMC because most of the chatters know each other mutually; hence they have a very close relation with each other. According to Brown and Levinsons theory, people that used this strategy are likely to be friends or having any intimate relation with one another. This explains the phenomena where mutual friends interact through chat rooms in order to share their thoughts and feelings when they are not able to meet each other in person (due to time and other constraints). It also the belief that people sound less polite in CMC can be attributed to production costs: It takes more time to type hedges and indirect requests in fast-paced CMC, and so people use balder, shorter forms (Brennan and Ohaeri, 1999).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Negative politeness strategy is generally used by Malaysian chatters when they want to ask other chatters to do something and to show that the interlocutor recognizes the addressees want to have his freedom of action unobstructed. A rather different phenomenon from what happen in the real world is that sometimes Malaysian chatters minimize the imposition of the FTA by writing smiley sign (e.g. 🙂 or =), 😉 etc.) or grinning expression (e.g. hehehe). It happens since the chatters in the CMC cannot see each others face.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Off-the-record strategy of politeness is the least used by Malaysian chatters in Yahoo chat room. This might happen considering the social distance between the chatters. As explained earlier, Malaysians tend to vague when communicating with strangers or those who are of a higher ranking in social hierarchy. This is because the speaker wants to remove the potential to be imposing. 5.1. Limitations of study This study shows its limitations in several ways. Firstly, the study only investigates the chat room discourse between interlocutors of college-going ages. Thus the language used by chatters might be influenced by their age. Therefore, this finding may not apply to situations where interlocutors are of different (older) age and unequal social status (lecturers, parents, etc). Furthermore, the subjects are limited to a relatively small group of college students (the chat room was joined by only 40 people). So the result can only reflect the speech of a small group of people in a limited region. More research can be conducted on more subjects to test and complement the findings of this present study. 5.2. Future study It may be very interesting to investigate the politeness phenomenon of the subjects having different ages, unequal social status and different social relationships A future research can be done to analyze the politeness strategy used by people in e-mails. Furthermore, a study of the politeness strategy used by men and women can be compared in terms of the writing styles for both men and women and relate it with the effect of the strategy used. This is possible since gender difference is also one of the factors in the politeness applied.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Future research can also be done by conducting a similar research studying the private messages in Yahoo chat rooms. Here, the politeness strategies used by the chatters can be observed when they communicate privately (e.g. what kind of politeness strategy will they choose to answer a personal question). A cross-cultural study which compares the politeness strategy used by Malaysian and English chatters in the private messages may also be done in the future. It is since in each culture, people have different values in communicating; thus it will influence the politeness employed in the same context.

Johns Battle with the Sea :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It was a cold, dark morning on the northwestern coast of the United States. A family was curiously standing on the beach, cold and wet from their ordeal at sea the day before. They slowly began to review what had happened that night. Soon, they would make their way to a nearby town for shelter, so that their story might be known to all who traversed the town near the coast.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The story of the family started when they had rented a small ship to sail for the evening. The father, John, had known how to sail since he was a boy, and he continued sailing on a small ship of his own until he married Rebecca, his current wife. The weather forecast for the evening was overcast, with no storms expected. They left the dock promptly at six o’clock, and sailed west for an evening on the sea west of San Francisco. What is known about the Pacific Ocean is a case in itself; the Pacific is totally unpredictable. John, however, considering himself seasoned from a childhood of sailing with his father, thought that he knew the ocean like the back of his hand. He did, however, commit a sin of the sea; he thought that he knew what the ocean was going to do. As for the Pacific’s unpredictability, a hidden pocket of cooler air had risen from the South Pole and had struck a warm front, causing very heavy rains in this region of the Pacific that be gan to move south.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  John sighed to himself as he thought of the beauty of the night and how the sky was barely overcast. Even if it rained a little, he thought, there was a rain cover that came with the ship so they could be dry. He was disappointed when he looked at the sky to the south, and realized that he might have to use it. It might be an inconvenience, he reflected, although they could still eat the dinner they had packed and stay inside of the ship.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now it is known that there are treacherous reefs and sandbars off of the coast of northern California, and this night was no different. As the storm came from the south, and swirled towards the east, the ship was drifting east at an alarming rate, unnoticed by John or any of the family. At 8 o’clock, after the family had finished eating their dinner, the family was sitting in the ship talking about what they had been doing recently and discussing the possibility of another sailing outing such as this one.

The Other Nature Essay -- Writing Writer Literature Papers

The Other Nature Early in her exploration of man's soul, Joyce Carol Oates discovers a fundamental truth while writing about the character of Stavrogin in Dostoyevsky's The Possessed-that as part of his inevitable fall, man violates "nature" in so complete a way as to separate himself from the only forces that can save him. This theme dealing with the Fall of man is a constant thread that weaves itself through most of Oates' essays, the corruption by various internal and external forces and the tragedy that results from man's blindness to his own nature and to what would provide him salvation. Oates' power lies in her ability to delve deep within the personalities of the writers, the characters they create, and the powerful themes buried deep in the work's soul. She applies psychological concepts and archetypes in order to explore the implications brought about by the similarities and differences in the characters' thoughts and actions. She reaches her most thought-provoking insights by connecting parallel motifs across a wide spectrum of literature and constantly leaps from one generalization to the next causing the reader to wonder how she has come to the fascinating and brilliant conclusions presented in Contraries. By examining the Fall of man, she discovers how self-awareness and material preoccupations lead to a corruption of the "natural" self. Later, the discussion of tragedy and transcendence in essays about King Lear and Nostromo reveals the fundamental importance of women-as saviors of the natural world and representatives of salvation for men. Women are the und erlying focus of her essays; the archetypes and roles they adhere to and defy as literary characters shape the way she perceives the female. Ultimat... ... subjection is presented as grisly and mean. Perhaps this shift of focus from the sublime to the obscene is necessary to bring more clearly into focus the longstanding female archetype and provide us with the strength to intervene in such deep-running cultural patterns. Oates certainly does not preach at us, and she never tells us exactly what to do. But reading Connie's story, and reading over Oates's shoulder as she sees the archetype that created it, we are pushed, at least, to read the stories we encounter to find and reflect on the conflicts of human nature they reveal. Works Cited Oates, Joyce Carol. Contraries: Essays. New York: Oxford UP, 1981. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" 1966. Celestial Timepiece: Joyce Carol Oates Archive. Ed. Randy Souther. Dec. 1996. San Francisco. 10 Dec. 2000. <http://storm.usfca.edu/ ~southerr/wgoing.html>

Indian Frontier :: essays research papers

The Indian Frontier of the American West tells a story of the different Indian tribes and whites from 1846 to 1890. This period of time is very famous in American history. It produced some of the most widely heard of names in the battles between Indians and whites. These names include Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe, Sitting Bull of the Oglala Sioux, Cochise, Geronimo, and Mangas Coloradas, and John Ross of the Cherokee Nation. These names are still very respected among historians and are seen throughout history books used in schools across the nation. These names were involved in many battles with whites in the middle of the nineteenth century. In this book, Robert Utley describes how many different Indian cultures survived between 1846 and 1890. Utley also spent some time in discussing how Americans felt about Indians. This book also talked about how the American government was run, and how they dealt with the different Indian cultures. This book had a couple of interesting sto ries in it also. The dozens of cultures depicted in this book really made it somewhat interesting to read.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One story that I truly liked in the book was that of Yellow Wolf. Yellow Wolf was an extremely strong and wise Cheyenne Indian. He was a man that was known for his leadership in battles with the Utes, Pawnees, Kiowas, and Comanches. Yellow Wolf also played an important role in helping William Bent, also known as â€Å"Little White Man†, as to where to set up his trading post along the river. After Bent had set up his fort, Yellow Wolf traveled there in the summer. He watched as tens of thousands of white men move in and through the Indian country. This made him worry about the future of his people, something no other Cheyenne leader would even consider for years. In discussing his fears with an army officer he talks of how his people and the buffalo are disappearing. He also says that his people will become extinct unless they change and adopt the habits of white people. Yellow Wolf lived for eighteen years amongst the white man. In his final year of his li fe, Yellow Wolf watched his worst fears come true. Through all of this, he continued to believe that the only hope his people had was if they learned from the white man. On November 29, 1864, a white man from General Stephen Watts Kearney’s army gunned down Yellow Wolf.

Importance of Motivation in Rention Essay

Employees are the most important factor in the success and failure of any organization. In service industry, employees are in direct contact with the customer, hence they should be motivated. Firstly, this paper focuses on importance of employee motivation on Staff retention, by studying the concepts of staff retention, employee turnover and employee motivation. Further discussing about the major motivational theories, followed by the factors which help to increase motivation and backed up with some latest examples. Secondly, it takes a case study of Heathrow Windsor Marriott, a leading 4 star Airport Hotel, it reflects my observations about the good and bad practises followed by the management of hotel. And at the end, this paper tries to give some recommendations for future practice. 1. Introduction Managing Human Resource has become an inescapable and prominent approach to the management in service industries (Watson 2003).In simple terms, Human means labour/employee, Resource points out employees are valued assets and Management refers to managing personnel of an organization. The objective of Human resources is short term and it mainly focuses on employee relations. However, due to globalization, this approach was fruitless, hence its focus adopted the aspect of strategy. Strategic Human Resource Management means combing Human resources with strategic goals and objectives to improve and develop organization (Regis 2008). According to Banfield and Kay (2012), Human resource management is the ‘glue’ which ensures business success through consistent practises and adapting local conditions. In an organization, employees are the primal force, whose never ending efforts converts the organization’s decision into action with the aim of achieving common goal. Hence, employees should be motivated (Hossain and Hossain 2012). The fast changing competitive business environment has presented challenges for Human Resource professionals for adopting new methods of production and organizing of work. This situation has accelerated the rate of employee turnover. Employee resourcing, employee development, employee relations, productivity are the emerging issues faced by management (Banfield and Kay 2012).The problem of Employee Motivation has become inseparable from Human Resource Management because, employees acts as a major source of organization. This paper is divided into two major parts, literature and reflection. The aim of this paper is on how employee motivation contributes to staff retention. The first part on literature covers topics like Staff retention, turnover & motivation and demonstrate a relationship between employee motivation and staff retention. The second part reflects the practises carried out Heathrow Windsor Marriott Hotel, followed by recommendations for future. 2. Staff Retention Staff retention refers to the techniques employed by the management to help the employees stay with the organization for a longer period of time (Management Study Guide 2013). Every organization puts efforts to transform a raw material to corporate ready material by giving necessary trainings at regular interval to achieve the common goal. Job satisfaction is a vital component of staff retention which can be achieved by making the employee feel comfortable physically and psychologically. Staff retention is crucial for many reasons such as, longer time spent by the employees have an opportunity to perform better, it increases their loyalty towards organization, on the other hand, recruiting the right candidate for the right position is not easy, when an employee leaves an organization, he may join competitors and may share some confidential information. When a trained employee leaves their job, the organization is at a complete loss, as a loyal, efficient and stable staff is one of the keys to competitive success (Taylor and Walsh 2005). This loss of staff has to be replaced which is termed as Employee turnover. This is one of the greatest challenges faced by management. Retention is not only important to reduce the turnover costs but to retain talented employees. According to Ramlall (2004), when every 10 managerial level employee leaves an organization, a company experiences approximately loss of $ 1 million. 2.1. Employee Turnover Rotation of workers around the labour market between the status of employment and unemployment is called as Employee turnover (Abassi and Hollman 2000). Labour turnover has become a critical problem for service industries as it depends on human factor. Employees do not leave the organization without any significant reason. Taris et al. (2004), divided two motives for turnover i.e. the push and pull factors. The pull factors include inequity in compensation, availability of opportunities for future development over the external market and the employees who would resign to go into private business. The push factors have relationship with the dissatisfaction of work situation, lack of democratic managerial pattern and job stress. On the other hand, Griffieth (2000), viewed remuneration and remuneration related variables have intense effect on turnover. Griffieth demonstrated a relationship between remuneration, employee’s performance and turnover and concluded that when an employee performs extremely well expects a high pay and when they are paid low they quit. There are various costs associated with turnover, according to Society for Human Resource Management, it costs 30-50% of the annual salary of entry level employees, 150% of middle level employees and up to 400% costs of the high level employees (Blake 2004). The various costs includes, exist costs, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, orientation, benefits while training, lost productivity, administrative costs, customer dissatisfaction etc (Susan 2011). Considering the case of Oberoi Hotels. The Oberoi group is one of Asia’s leading multinational companies, the Oberoi hotel named Windsor Hotel in Melbourne, had witnessed an average annual employee turnover rate of approximately 40 percent. The Human resource professionals were under pressure due to increasing costs, hence they decided to an employee attitude survey for three consecutive years and analysed the issues faced by the staff. The most common reasons for attrition were job profile and personal profile does not match, least growth opportunities, lack of appreciation, lack of trust, lack of co-ordination between the colleagues, stress from work, imbalance between personal and professional life. The Hotel executive group and the managers improved the retention programmes and motivated their employees by engagement which helped them to reduce their turnover rate to 20 per cent (Watson et al. 2002). Hence it can be said that, employee turnover can be controlled by proper employee motivation which would help the companies to reduce costs associated with turnover. 3. Employee Motivation According to Butkus and Green, ‘motivation is derived from the word ‘motivate’ which means to move, push or influence to proceed for fulfilling a want’ (Kamalian et al. 2010). One of the important functions of management is to create willingness among the employees to perform. Motivation can be termed as a process in which a person stimulates an individual to full fill some want or expectation (Mullins 2007). Motivation is complex because of human behaviour as it changes from an individual to individual, resulting different motives for motivation (Kressler 2003). Employee motivation influences productivity, because company’s performance depends on employee performance. Hence it is very important for managers to realize what propels employees to reach the peak performance. Through employee motivation, the employer can encourage the employees by enhancing their skills and by improving their morale. Motivation is important for both individual and business. In case of individual, motivation helps to achieve personal goals, job satisfaction, self development and in case of business, motivation helps to achieve the organizational goals, to build a friendly relationship and the most important it bring stability in workforce. Overall, it cans help to achieve competitive advantage in competition by retaining talented employees (Hiltrop 1996). 3.1. Motivation Theories Motivation theories are based upon the understanding of employees and work. There are two main approaches to motivation theories, i.e. Content Theory and Process Theory. Content Theories of motivation explains what causes individuals to act in a definite way based on the general agreement that all human beings have needs, which engage them to satisfy these needs lead to motivation. Process Theories of motivation explains on how employee’s needs influence their own behaviour (Hossain and Hossain 2012). 3.1.1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs In 1943, Abraham Maslow presented need based theory. His theory was based upon the assumption of hierarchy of needs. He categoriesed needs into five types, i.e. Physiological needs ( basic needs of life, example, air water, food etc.), Safety needs (physical and environmental safety), Social needs (need for love, affection), Esteem needs (needs for self-respect or recognition and Self-actualization (based on grwoth and self-contentment). Maslow assumed that motivation decreases as one level of need is met and motivation increases as another need comes in. He potraid that lower level of needs should met before the higher level needs. Maslow felt that if these needs were not met then a person would fail to develop into a heathly individual (Hellreigel 2004). Implications by Britannic Assurance Britannic Assurance is a financial services company, facing issues of employee motivation and retention. Hence, their management adopted the Maslow’s theory to overcome their issue. The management motivated their employees by considering each level of needs: Physiological Needs – Management gave their employees suitable salary, in odrer to meet the basic needs of life and at workplace they gave proper meal breaks, so that phsciological needs are meet. Safety Needs – Management provided clean and hygienic workplace, safety, job security and beniftis program with a purpose of retention. Social Needs – Management supported their employees by encouraing team work, and developing a friendly relationship. Esteem Needs – In order to acheive esteem needs, management put extra efforts by rewarding and recognizing employees at every level. Self-Actualization Needs – Management gave their employees challenging jobs so that they can use and develo their knowledge and skills, and grow big, by benefiting the company (The Time 100 Business Case Studies, 2013). Criticisms According to Lazarus (1971), the hieraracy suggested by Maslow not valid if cross-cultural differences are taken into consideration. McLeod (2012) said, it is difficult to predcit when a need will arise, as ther is no relationship between needs and behaviour and different individual may be pushed by differnet needs at same time. He also states that maslow’s theory lacks empirical support. While Rilley (2012) came with a view that this model aviod the usual behaviour of employees who tolerate low wages for future benefits and mentioned that maslow research was based on middle class workers in UK and USA. Inspite of having some critics, Maslow’s thinking remains inflential to management deliberations in respect of job design, pay and reward structres and helps to motivate employees and retain them (Huczynski and Buchanan 2001). 3.1.2. Expectancy Theory Victor Vroom in 1964, came up with expectancy theory which was based upon Valence, Instrumentality and Expectancy. The Individual perfrence for a precise end result is termed as Valence (V), Instrumentality (I), is the anticipation of good performance will lead to valued benfit and Expectancy (E), is the anticipation of effort will lead to good performance. The Force (F) or want of your motivation to take action will result the product of three variables through multiplication. If any one of the variable is zero the final product will be zero, as it is co-related (Fudge and Schlacter 1999). F = Vx I x E In orther words, Efforts, Performance and Rewards have a direct relationship. Vroom said that employee’s deliberately decide whether to perform or not, their decision is entirely depended on level of motivation. This theory expalins individual differences in motivation and behaviour, it measures the force of the motivation to behave, it assumes that behaviour is rational and emphasis on rewards and pay offs (Sanders and Pritchard 1973). Implications by Management The management should try to link effort, performance and rewards through their support. Suport in terms of adequate trainings, availability of resources and clear rewards to have desired motivational effect (Fudge and Schlacter 1999). Clear rewards should have value in the eyes of emloyees so that they can be influenced. Performance standards should be clearly instructed. Finally, the motivation level should be continousuly assessed which results can inidicate problems and changes required. This will help to retain employees (Virgil et al. 2008) Criticisms The application of this theory is limited as reward is not direclty related to performance, it has ignored the parameters such as education, position etc. It concentrated majorly on financial rewards and ignore other intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. According to Latham (2007), it also lacked the principle of equality with relation to rewards. This theory predicts the choice of efffort, it does not give specific meaning of efforts, it also lacks to specify the outcomes relevent to a particular individual (Management Study Guide 2013). 3.2. Types of Motivation There are two types of Motivation, developed by Herzberg, i.e. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. The factors which are intrinsic to the job such as recognition, work itself, growth is called as Intrinsic Motivation and the factors which are extrinsic to the job such as pay, company policy, security etc. are called as Extrinsic Motivation (Armstrong 2007). Intrinsic factors create satisfaction and extrinsic factors do not create satisfaction but if preventive action is not taken then it may lead to dissatisfaction(Ryan and Deci 2000). Intrinsic factors are likely to have deeper and long term effect while extrinsic factors are likely to have immediate and powerful effect but it won’t last long. Both Intrinsic and Extrinsic factors concentrate more on satisfaction and not on productivity (ibid). 3.3. Motivation Factors All employees are motivated when their needs or desire are satisfied, these needs vary from person to person, situation, experiences, etc. These factors affects the motivation level in employees. Let us understand the practical implications of various factors: 3.3.1. Motivation through Rewards Employees who work hard to achieve the business goals, expect to receive rewards for their contribution. According to Perry (2009), rewards play a crucial role in motivating employees to work harder. He categorised rewards into two types: Extrinsic and Intrinsic. Extrinsic rewards are provided by the organisation group such as money, benefits, promotions etc. while Intrinsic rewards come from individual such as self-esteem, personal development and feeling of competency. The most critical thing for this approach that rewards must be equal, it should be partial (ibid). Let us take a case study of Royal Bank of Scotland, The employees at RBS are not only motivated through money but also through Total reward benefits. Total reward benefits includes not just money, but it includes motivational motives such as personal choice in working hours, security, health and benefits package, shopping vouchers personal loans at special price etc., This kind of extra benefits will help a company to retain an employee (The Time 100 Business Case Studies 2013). 3.3.2. Motivation through Job Deign When a potential employee looks for job, he has basic two attractions, i.e. money and feeling of pursuing a challenging and interesting job. Job Design is an internal approach of motivating employees. There are two ways in which a manager motivates its employees i.e. fitting people to jobs and fitting jobs to people (Hackman and Oldham 1975). Considering the first aspect of fitting people to jobs, managers can strengthen motivation by Job Rotation, Job Rotation helps to bring a change in daily routine, it helps to increase the area of expertise at work by moving from one specialization to another, this would not only lead to personal development but also will develop a team with wide range of skills (Perry 2009). Considering the second aspect of fitting jobs to people, managers can energise motivation by Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment. Job Enlargement is a process in which an employees are indulged with more challenging task, this will reduce the humdrum of work and increase the skills of employees. However, Job Enlargement has one criticism, if an employee is working on two or more challenging tasks and paid for only one task, then there will be a barrier of not being paid well (Saleem et al. 2012). Job Enrichment is a process in which an employees is given more control over the work by giving more authority and responsibility, which would increase the productivity. However, this was also criticised with a point of that an employee should possess certain skill in order to perform at high level, if the employee lacks necessary skill, then it would decrease productivity (Janson et al. 1975) 3.3.3. Motivation through Work Environment Work environment nearly cause 27% of job satisfaction (Tyilana 2005), Management should create a type of work environment in which the employees are respected and treated equally. Management should provide job security and proper logistic support and create a friendly environment. If any one of them is lacking, then the motivation level would not stand still. However, Lin (2007) said that good working conditions can determine employees performance and productivity but cannot motivate them directly. Considering case of An Enterprise Rent-A- Car, management accented on creating an affirmative work environment. In which they concentrated on six points, i.e. good relationship between all the employees, follow clear communication so that each individual can understand and act as per their role, provision of adequate resources to perform the necessary tasks, encourage employees to get things right, if any frustration is experienced then acknowledged and try to keep their focus on achieving goals and last but not the least, try to recognise the effort of individual and reward the good performance. Along with the points discussed above Enterprise Rent-A-Car used Herzberg theory of motivation to motivate and retain their employees (The Time 100 Business Case Studies 2013). 3.3.4. Motivation through Training and Development Training and Development is one of the most effectual factor of motivation (Lai 2009). Training can be termed as a process in which an individual get a chance to develop their knowledge, qualities, skills and personality (Khan 2012). Training and development helps to increase morale of employees, better interpersonal relationships, better position to adapt changes and finally improved productivity and efficiency (Seward 2011). As rightly said by Marcus Tait, the Director of Human Resources of IHG Australia, training and nurturing talent shares an equal weight age along operational performance, guest experience and corporate responsibility. He trained his employees to be multi-focused, empathetic and preventive of guest needs (Eime). Whenever, an employee is recruited, he should empowered with all kinds of basic training, his performance has to be measured and accordingly he should be trained by considering his skills and ability. Concentrating Training at McDonald’s Restaurant Limited, The success of McDonald’s business is high standards of quality and service delivered to customers, Well-trained staff and line managers are the first step towards achieving these standards. Welcome Meeting, was the first step taken by the company to inform the standards and expectations, followed by structured development programme which provides training in all areas of business. McDonald’s concentrated on floor based training and expected that their employee would perform any task with relation to operations. After the practical training, McDonald’s used to do classroom-based training where they can concentrate on quality, service and cleanliness. After this training, employees are marked as per the check list and if they qualify then they can get promotion by clearing an entrance exam. In this way McDonald’s used to train their staff (The Time 100 Business Case Studies 2013).

Team Concept, Human Behavior, Persuasion & Diversity

1. The role of the leader in the team concept is very important. Research shows that success is enhanced, if an organization understands and effectively manages five team processes. List and discuss these five team processes in Chapter 17. The five team processes are: 1. Buy-in: how the work of the team is legitimized and goals are set. 2. Accountability: how individual and team performance is managed and rewarded. 3. Learning: how performance is improved and skills developed. 4. Infrastructure: how the work of the team is systemized and resources accessed. 5.Partnering: how people interact and work together to achieve success on the team and across organizational units (Manning & Curtis, 2009). 2. Physical and emotional needs are important determinants of human behavior, helping to explain why people work, why they have certain personal goals, and what they want in their relationships with others. Psychologist Abraham Maslow divides human needs into five categories, progressing from basic needs to complex needs. Discuss Maslow’s five â€Å"Hierarchy of Human Needs. † List and discuss each one. Maslow’s five Hierarchy of Human Needs are: . Survival. The needs that are taken as the starting point for motivation theory are the physiological, or basic body tissue, needs. Taking a breath of air and acting in self-defense are normal expressions of such needs. Survival needs are strong and natural forces within the person. 2. Security. Once survival needs are satisfied, security needs become important. Freedom from threat and protection from loss are major security goals, helping explain our interest in savings accounts, medical insurance, seniority rights, and burglar alarms. 3. Belonging.When survival and security needs are satisfied, the need for belonging emerges. This is true for people in all cultures, whether aggressive or peaceful, primitive or advanced. Every individual makes a distinct effort to belong to some aspired social group. 4. R espect. Once survival, security, and belonging needs are satisfied, people are motivated by the need for respect the need to be considered favorably by self and others. The pursuit of fame, regardless of the field business, government, and the arts can be explained only by the powerful need for respect. 5. Fulfillment.After physical and social needs are satisfied, people are motivated by the need for fulfillment, which Maslow referred to as â€Å"self-actualization. † These people may or may not please others by what they do, and their efforts may or may not result in the attainment of intended goals (Manning & Curtis, 2009). 3. Chapter 18 discusses â€Å"why people do what they do. † There are nine points to remember about human motivation. With these in mind, you will better understand why people do what they do. These points can also explain the complicated relationship between personal goals and work behavior.List and discuss these nine points for human motivation. The nine points for human motivation are: a. A satisfied need is not a motivator. It is not what people have that motivates behavior; it is what they do not have, or what they have done without. b. Employee motivation and company success are related. c. Psychological needs and social values are not the same. d. The same act can satisfy any of the five motivation levels. e. All people have the same needs, but to different degrees and accompanied by different wants. What it takes to satisfy motivational needs and how much is required are unique to each person. . A person can be deficiency-motivated, bringing harm to self or others. It is possible to have an extreme fixation on a natural need, so strong that it can lead to neurotic and even destructive behavior. g. Unsatisfied needs can harm your health, as surely as if you were physically stricken. If you feel the need for recognition, but no one respects you; if you feel the need for love, but no one cares; if you feel the need for self-expression, but have no outlets, you can develop a motivation condition as harmful as physical illness. h.Leadership is important in meeting employee needs and preventing motivation problems. What a leader does will vary with the circumstances. Sample actions include improving job safety (survival needs), clarifying job assignments (security needs), offering a word of encouragement (belonging needs), providing praise for a job well done (respect needs), and offering new skills development (fulfillment needs). i. The ideal is to integrate the needs of the individual with the goals of the organization. If the needs of the individual can be satisfied while advancing the goals of the organization, he ultimate in employee morale and organization effectiveness will be achieved (Manning & Curtis, 2009). 4. Managing diversity is very important for both the leader and organizational survival. List and discuss strategies and techniques that can help both individuals and organizations man age diversity effectively. What can individuals do:  ¦ Connect with and value your own culture.  ¦ Think about how it feels to be different by remembering times when you felt that you were in the minority.  ¦ Try to understand each person as an individual, rather than seeing the person as a representative of a group. Participate in educational programs that focus on learning about and valuing different cultures, races, religions, ethnic backgrounds, and political ideologies.  ¦ Make a list of heroes in music, sports, theater, politics, business, science, and so forth.  ¦ Learn about the contributions of older people and people with visual, hearing, or other impairments.  ¦ Learn more about other cultures and their values through travel, books, and films, and by attending local cultural events and celebrations.  ¦ Continually examine your thoughts and language for unexamined assumptions and stereotypical responses. Include people who are different from you in social con versations, and invite them to be part of informal work-related activities, such as going to lunch or attending company social events.  ¦ When dealing with people, try to keep in mind how you would feel if your positions were reversed. What can organizations do:  ¦ Include employees from a variety of backgrounds in decision-making and problem solving processes.  ¦ Develop strategies to increase the flow of applicants from a variety of backgrounds. Look for opportunities to develop employees from diverse backgrounds and prepare them for positions of responsibility  ¦ Show sensitivity in the physical work environment.  ¦ Form a group to address issues of diversity.  ¦ Implement training programs that focus on diversity in the workplace programs designed to develop a greater awareness and respect for differences.  ¦ Pay attention to company publications such as employee newsletters.  ¦ Evaluate official rules, policies, and procedures of the organization to be sure all employees are treated fairly. Develop mentoring and partnering programs that cross traditional social and cultural boundaries.  ¦ Talk openly about diversity issues, respect all points of view, and work cooperatively to solve problems (Manning & Curtis, 2009). 5. Historically, women in high leadership positions have come from nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and public office. However, over the last few years, they are starting to come from the business world. The Center for Creative Leadership has identified six success factors for women in high leadership positions. List and discuss these six success factors for women.The Center for Creative Leadership has identified six success factors for women in high leadership positions: 1. Help from above. Women in high levels of leadership have typically received the support of influential mentors. 2. A superior track record. Held to high standards, executive-level women have usually managed effectively and have develope d an excellent record of performance. 3. A passion for success. Senior-level women have been determined to succeed. They worked hard, seized responsibility, and achieved their objectives. 4. Outstanding people skills.Successful women executives typically utilize participative leadership, employee empowerment, and open communication to foster trust and high levels of morale among subordinates. 5. Career courage. Successful women leaders have demonstrated courage to take risks, such as taking on huge responsibilities. 6. Mental toughness. Senior-level women are seen as tenacious, demanding, and willing to make difficult decisions (Manning & Curtis, 2009). Applications Exercise 19. 2 1. 4 2. 4 3. 2 4. 3 5. 3 6. 3 7. 4 8. 3 9. 2 10. 3 11. 4 12. 4 13. 2 14. 4 15. 4 Domination = 12 Collaboration = 8 Compromise = 8 Avoidance = 11 Accommodation = 11

Decisions Essay

Decisions in 2006 regarding discrimination in the workplace centered largely on a theme of time and evidence. The court regularly held that the evidence of discrimination must be clear and that the legal action must be filed in a timely manner. The idea that a person can have been the victim of discrimination for years and have taken no action was dismissed as untimely. A case alleging racial discrimination was held to have insufficient proof of intent and in another case the court held that a union suing an employer for prejudicial hiring practices also did not submit sufficient proof. Finally, the court held that when an employer takes discriminatory action it does not have to be within the confines of the workplace to be discriminatory. First, in a case against Good Year Tire and Rubber Company, the plaintiff claimed that in her 18 years with Good Year, she had routinely been paid a smaller wage than her male counterparts. A local jury awarded her damages based on a series of wage-related decisions going back 19 years. However, the 11th Circuit Court held that the plaintiff’s lawsuit was untimely in that her complaint was not based on actions taken in the last 180 days according to the summation of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, 421 F. 3d 1169 (11th Cir 08/23/2005) (Runkel, 2007. The court did not rule on the merit of the case, but held that the statute restricts the time frame in which the alleged discrimination was to have occurred (Runkel, 2007). The plaintiff has appealed the decision to the U.  S. Supreme Court and in May, 2007, Justice Samuel Alito writing for the court, affirmed the lower court’s ruling â€Å"Ledbetter v. Good Year†, 2007). Next, in case versus Tyson Foods the court held that use of the term â€Å"boy† is not enough proof of racial animus to sustain a ruling alleging discrimination, but reverse a portion of the lower court’s ruling which had claimed that a racial descriptor was required to accompany the word to prove animus. In Ash v. Tyson Foods, 126 S. Ct. 195 (02/21/2006), the court wrote, â€Å"†Although it is true the disputed word will not always be evidence of racial animus, it does not follow that the term, standing alone, is always benign. The speaker’s meaning may depend on various factors including context, inflection, tone of voice, local custom, and historical usage. Insofar as the Court of Appeals held that modifiers or qualifications are necessary in all instances to render the disputed term probative of bias, the court’s decision is erroneous. (Runkel, 2007). That means the court needs more information that just a word to determine discrimination. The court ruling says that to prove discrimination, the plaintiff must show more than just a misjudgment by the hiring authority of perceived qualifications. It must show that ‘disparities of qualifications must be or such weight and significance† that a reasonable person could not have made the hiring decision which was made (â€Å"Ash v. Tyson, 2006). This decision dovetails with the court’s decision in IBEW v.  Mississippi Power & Light, 442 F. 3d 313 (5th Cir 03/02/2006). The union had argues that the employer’s standard for employment was discriminatory in that the cut-off point on the standardized tests was inherently discriminatory. The court did not dispute the merit of the claim, but ruled that the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff and that the union had failed to prove that there was another way that the employer could adequately determine employment eligibility. (Runkel, 2007) Finally, the court held that when an employer is accused of retaliatory action, it does not have to be limited to the confines of the work environment. In Burlington Northern v. White, 126 S. Ct. 2405 (06/22/2006), the court upheld the defendant’s claim that her employer had retaliated against her by moving her from one position to another and by initially trying to suspend her without pay, requiring that she file a grievance through the union to receive reinstatement and her back pay. The court held, â€Å"We conclude that the anti-retaliation provision does not confine the actions and harms it forbids to those that are related to employment or occur at the workplace. We also conclude that the provision covers those (and only those) employer actions that would have been materially adverse to a reasonable employee or job applicant. In the present context that means that the employer’s actions must be harmful to the point that they could well dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. (Runkel, 2007). The court further held that retaliatory practices do not have to include financial loss to be actionable. (Runkel, 2007) The overwhelming effect of these court ruling on future graduates is a trend within employment law toward the defense of the employer. These cases tend to indicate that the court has placed the entire burden of proof on the employee when it comes to discrimination cases and expects that the employee can make a clear case for their claim, rather than relying on vague innuendoes, such as in the Tyson case. For employees, this can be a difficult precedence in that other employees are unlikely to back a person’s claim regarding workplace discrimination especially when they would then have such stringent requirements in proving their own retaliation case. This is also likely to have a chilling effect on employees who feel they are being mistreated because of the burden of proof. The reality is that for any African-American man, the mere use of the word boy is inflammatory, especially in the south. Though the word was not accompanied by any racial descriptor, the court held that intonation and other context can be used to determine the word’s intent. For an African-American in the South, that is the context and proving what his supervisor was thinking places too great a burden on the plaintiff. The Tyson case in particular makes it difficult for a person who is the victim of subtle racism to prove it and the Ledbetter cases reiterates that the person must deal with any perceived discrimination within 6 months of its occurrence, compounding the difficulty in proving a case.

Chinese fan dance Essay

The art and tradition of the Chinese fan dance have captivated audiences for two thousand years. Just one of many forms of traditional folk dances, fan dances has been preserved to share the stories and beauty of Chinese culture. Chinese Fan Dance the Chinese fan dance is performed in celebration of Chinese culture. It represents beauty, grace and delicacy, according to the Chinese Educational Development Project. It also expresses feelings of joy. The dance is composed of consistently changing rhythms paired with consistency changing body positions. Father fans and silk both are part of the traditional Chinese dance that has its roots in the Han Dynasty, circa 206 BC. History: While archaeologists have found pottery depicting Chinese folk dances dating from about 4000 to 2000 BC, the fan dance is believed to have begun during the Han dynasty. This dates the fan dance to around 200 AD. It was also during the Han dynasty that the first effort was made to collect and preserve the country’s folk dances. Thankfully, this practice became important to following generations and folk dances of old are still shared today. Classifications: Chinese dance was divided into either civilian or military dance and their movements can vary based upon the classification. Civilian fan dances tend to be more flowing and detailed, celebrating grace and beauty. They derived from early dances celebrating the distribution of the food gathered from hunting and fishing; people would dance holding feathered banners. Fans: The fans are used to highlight the graceful movements of the dancers and as extensions of very delicate poses. They can be used as a sort of prop, representing a basket of food, a gift or a found treasure. The fans are made of a variety of materials including feathers, paper or bamboo and they reflect the highest level of craftsmanship and artistry. Different kinds of fans Costumes Colorful costumes are typically used to enhance the beauty of the fan dance performance. Today, dancers may be dressed in traditional Chinese garments or in modern lyrical dresses or dance wear. If the dance is intended to tell a specific story, some dancers may be dressed differently from one another but all dancers in a group typically are costumed in the same garments. The Chinese Fan Dance Costume:

State of the UK construction industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

State of the UK construction industry - Essay Example These changes in growth of the construction industry in United Kingdom point to long term stagnation and possible shrinking of the industry. While the global financial crisis has been blamed far and wide for these drops in performance across many industries but it must be realised that industrial shortcomings have also contributed to these changes. The current situation is unlike but comparable to stagnation in the construction industry in the past. The previous periods of stagnation and negative growth in the construction industry required government impetus to crawl out of their problems. However, this time around governmental support seems to be unlikely to drive growth in the construction industry. The government has already announced a 20% cut in the capital expenditure over a period of four years but this has failed to attract the attention of the private sector. In turn this has exacerbated the situation on ground. The structural gaps in the construction industry in the United Kingdom need to be looked into in order to find workable solutions. This must be explored in a historical perspective as well in order to discern the previous attempts at resolving issues. These could be taken as guidelines in order to see how the construction industry in United Kingdom is expected to perform in the future. ... A number of different governments in the United Kingdom undertook various forms of studies in order to improve the state of the construction industry and its practices. Various institutional reports have also highlighted the need for change in order to improve the state of the construction industry. Overall the concerns exhibited both by institutional reports and government surveys have remained the same. Such investigations have often blamed building projects for possessing more problems than other areas. Consequently the focus of improvements has also been the building construction sector. Generally the performance of different building construction projects is targeted using indicators such as cost, time and quality. While these indicators may serve to highlight the performance of smaller projects but these indicators cannot be considered as a holistic solution for all kinds of construction projects. As mentioned before, a number of reports were construed to deal with the problems in the construction industry. The earliest of these reports can be traced back to the 1960’s but no report was able to garner industry and government support enough to warrant change (Ward & Crane, 2003). This trend of non recognition and resistance to change was changed by the investigation conducted by the Latham Report. Unlike previous findings on this issue, the Latham Report was able to garner governmental support for change. The Latham Report (1994) Sir Michael Latham was asked by the government of United Kingdom and relevant construction industry organisations to look into industrial practices for procurement and contracting. Latham was given the task of looking into

Literature Review of Studies Focused on Vocabulary Development Research Paper

Literature Review of Studies Focused on Vocabulary Development Strategies and Interventions for Grades 9-12 - Research Paper Example There are strategies ideal only for children and there are those applicable only for grownups. In teaching Grades 9-12, teachers will find issues relating mostly to comprehension and vocabulary. This paper reviews three articles that investigated effective reading strategies for improving vocabulary of Grade 9-12 students. One article worthy of attention was written by Douglas Fisher (2007). In this paper, Fisher reports the five-part program that the teachers and administrators of Hoover High School developed and implemented in order to improve the vocabulary performance of students in state-administered tests. According to Fisher (2007), Hoover High School was a low-performing school with a population of 2,300 students at the time of study, all qualifying for free breakfast and lunch and 76% speak a different language apart from English. To improve vocabulary at the school level, the school implemented vocabulary routines and instruction. The first component of the program was wide reading. This component consisted silent sustained reading (SSR) and independent reading for content area subjects. The school identified and purchased appropriate reading materials, among these were historical accounts of WWII. In addition to these resources, the school assigned teachers who could provide relevant information to students regarding the materials they read. The students devoted 20 minutes per day to SSR and just read any material they wanted. This method was not enough, thus additional time was provided during content area instruction for independent reading. The second component of the program was reading aloud. This strategy is very common for beginning readers. Nevertheless, Hoover High School used it because of its tested effectiveness to learn content and vocabulary. In this method, the teacher read aloud a passage for 3-5 minutes at every class. Again, the school had to purchase materials specially designed for the procedure, including Richardson’s (200 0) â€Å"Read It Aloud! Using Literature in the Secondary Content Classroom,† Trelease’s (1993) â€Å"Read All About It! Great Read-Aloud Stories, Poems, and Newspaper Pieces for Preteens and Teens.† These materials, along with other interesting books, were purchased using the school’s site book funds. School administrators conducted observation of read aloud sessions. Consequently, to enhance interest of teachers in implementing read aloud sessions, professional development funds were also utilized to pay teachers to observe other teachers during read alouds. The third component composed of content vocabulary instruction. This was the usual vocabulary instruction in which teachers used graphic organizers, semantic maps, tables, etc. One issue that aroused teachers’ attention on this component was deciding on what vocabulary words to teach. To address the problem, several questions were raised to qualify the words, such as â€Å"Will the word be u sed in other subject areas? Will the word be used again during the school year?† This kind of questions served as guide to teaching specific vocabulary words. The fourth component was academic vocabulary development. For this component, the school team consulted Coxhead’s (2000) â€Å"Academic Word List† and Marzano and Pickering’s (2005) â€Å"ELL Students and Academic Vocabulary† and came up with 570 academic words to teach their students. The last component was called the â€Å"