Personal Developement - Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Personal Developement - - Essay Example It should be result oriented and goal driven. The success in time management is measured by the quantity of productive work attained and the persons’ private life. I attained this by developing a personal sense of time, identified long term goals, medium term goals, planned for the day, made the best use of my best time, managed meetings, delegated effectively, made use of committed time, and finally managed my health. This view is supported in the work of (Adair, 1990:24). Personal development plan Purpose in life: born to ensure that I live a purposeful and fulfilling life. Dreams: to effectively get along with others Short term goal: to be decisive and determined person Long term goal: to achieve leadership and team building skills. Beliefs and values: make effort while keep on striving Success and milestones: can identify needs, can overcome challenges, and act friendly. Task 2 Skills are the learned capacity or having that ability to carry out pre-determined results with minimum outlay of both time and energy. Therefore, these are abilities that one possesses. Skills can be categorized as domain general or domain specific skills. This view is supoorted in the work of (Lussier, 2011:56). Unlike some of the general skills in the work environment comprise of time management, team work, and leadership, and self motivation, the domain specific skills would be useful for a certain job or activity. Moreover, skills need a certain environmental stimuli and the situations to assess the skill level being shown and used. Some of the skills include labor skills, life skills, people’s skills, social skills, soft skills, and communication skills. Skills assessment helps you to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your skills. People are more likely to be contented with career choices that are consistent with values, interest and skills. Skills assessment helps you identify the useful skills that you may possess. Skills development is the adding valu e to the skills that you have and also learning about new skills through training and development programs. Teaching of a new skill is attained through verbal instruction, demonstration, video, diagram, and photo sequence. Some of the skills that I possess with other students include cognitive skills, perceptual, motor, and perceptual motor. Many organizations require a person who is team player, has leadership skills, and has personal integrity. Integrity is the building block of peoples’ skills. This means there basic honesty and truthfulness when dealing with others. Therefore, skills like openness, determination, resourcefulness, and being realistic is paramount in any professional set-up and as an individual because most of the times you are meeting people (Lussier, 2011). By personally taking the initiative to develop my skills I worked on my character and skill development by choosing to design a life that honors our values and purpose. The possession of soft skills ha s much of an impact on your success as your

National Vocational Educational and Training Essay

National Vocational Educational and Training - Essay Example NVET seeks to reconcile the educational training needs f the individual, the employer and the economy in such a way as to increase the competitiveness f organisations and British Industry as a whole, while at the same time ensuring that individuals can develop in ways that will enable them to lead meaningful and satisfying lives. Harrison, R. (1992).cited in Walton, J. (1999) p75. Methods f training and educating employees had been in existence in some form or other since medieval times. In certain industries such as engineering and printing apprenticeships had long been established. Although the education act f 1944 required employers to release young employees to attend 'further education and liberal studies' classes in 'county colleges', it wasn't until the nineteen sixties that national training and learning initiatives came into existence. Reid et al. (2004)Up to this point many organisations were still rigid in structure and ruled by bureaucracy as fathered by Weber, (1947) and followed the principles f Taylor (from Morgan.1997) where workers were deskilled for efficiency and hierarchic managers held a position f superiority and knowledge held by them was never shared as this knowledge was power. The middle years f the twentieth century saw theories from Maslow (1943) who defined a 'hierarchy f needs' for individuals in the work place and McGregor (1960 ) who contrasted management styles and categorised them into 'X and Y' theories, X being akin to Taylor's scientific management principles and his Y theory proposing that managers understood that workers wanted to contribute to the organisations objectives. Work now involved tasks being challenging and meaningful for the worker and the term 'job enrichment ' now existed as stated by Herzber,g et al. (1959). The later part f the century was subject to relentless change. Kolb, (1974, 1984) introduced a theory that managers should be naturally learned 'by experience' and described a four stage sequential process for learning at work without a teacher or trainer. In industry new products and processes emerged, especially regarding information technology and the advent f the internet. Organisations grew in stature and now had mission statements, corporate objectives and medium term plans which would include personnel issues. This era saw organisations introduce systems which were open to their environment and socio-technical systems, Trist (1981) a theory that proposed that a key task for managers was to understand changing relationships between people, tasks, technology and structure. Consultation now existed with the workforce and participation became respectable. Government agencies such as the 'Manpower Services Commission' the 'Training Services Agency' and Youth Training Schemes all

International Finance Transactions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

International Finance Transactions - Essay Example In most cases, most international financial borrowing involves syndicated loan agreements due to the large sums of money involved. In addition, most borrowing is often for financing most international projects. These agreements varies from region to region for instance, syndicated loan agreements carried out in Europe are not similar to those carried out in America. Another aspect of syndicated loan agreements is that they have developed from the traditional way to a more sophisticated method, rendering them fast and more efficient. Syndicated loan participation agreements also offer various advantages to the lending bank as well as to the borrowers. These advantages are in the form of rapid financing of international projects, cost reduction as well as efficiency. In addition, there are three major legal and practical methods of loan transfer in relation to syndicated participation agreements. These methods include assignment, novation and sub-participation. These three major method s present various advantages and disadvantages and occur in various forms. The Assignment involves the transfer of rights or benefits from one party to another. The major transactions involving the assignment are mortgages and deed trusts. ... In this case, the method involves several legal aspects and features as in syndicated loans it is often not possible to obtain approval from all the participants of the contract. The paper will discuss the concepts of syndicated loans agreements and international finance transactions. It will also analyse in depth these loan transfer methods. It will discuss their availability and occurrence as well as their advantages and disadvantages. It will also evaluate their effectiveness and the parties involved in such transactions. International Finance Transactions The integration of the three main financial service areas – that is insurance, security and banking occurred in the 80s due to the liberalization trend of financial supervision and the heating-up competition in finance industry. However, the integration threatens the banking business since the banking industry experiences huge challenges despite owning the main position in financial structure. In addition, there is regula tion of the average rate of interests for commercial banks’ deposits and loans in nearly all the countries. Consequently, there is a reduced margin between banks’ liabilities and assets leading to intense competition among banks. Due to this, the banks can only create more chances for reducing costs, increase profits and upgrade their competence by provision of a bridge hence the securitization trends1. There are many participants in international projects with each participant bringing into the project what other participants are lacking for example technical ability, procurement of supplies, financing ability, human resources, political authority, etc. In addition, due to the complex nature of project

Compare two separate popular weight loss plans Research Paper

Compare two separate popular weight loss plans - Research Paper Example The weakness of the SlimFast program is that it does not induce a long-term behavioral change in the individual. The SlimFast program only replaces a couple of meals and snacks by powered drink mixes and pre-packaged bars. Another weakness of the SlimFast weight-loss program is that the individual does not find the powdered drink mixes tasty enough to stick to for a long time, though it provides the individual with a good alternative to a milk shake in terms of reduced intake of fats and calories. A potential drawback of the SlimFast weight-loss program is that it does not provide the individual with any social support. The Fit or Fat weight-loss program is very popular among people. Millions of copies of the series of eight books written by Covert Bailey have been sold since their publishing (Tate, 2008). The Fit or Fat weight-loss program encourages the individual to lose weight through increased exercise. The plus points of the Fit or Fat weight-loss program are that not only is it safe to undertake, but is also very inexpensive as it does not rely on special diets to cause a reduction of weight in the individual. The Fit or Fat weight-loss program resembles the SlimFast weight-loss program in that it offers no social support to the individual. People attempting to reduce the weight through the Fit or Fat weight-loss program are encouraged to undertake such exercises as weight lifting, aerobic exercises, and cross training. Their food is rich in vitamins and low in the sodium content and fat. The Fit or Fat weight-loss program is better as compared to the SlimFast weight-loss program in that it relies on natural techniques to cause weight loss in the individual rather than prescribing them expensive diets. Exercise is a necessary part of a healthy lifestyle, which provides an individual with a whole range of benefits in addition to causing loss of weight. Such benefits include but are not limited to reduction of the risk of

Genetics modification and domestications animals Essay

Genetics modification and domestications animals - Essay Example This experiment was later on repeated by Trut and his team and they found out that the hypothesis was true. However, these efforts at domestication were not without disadvantages. The changes that both Belyaev’s and the Farm Fox Experiment have brought about are very disadvantageous to the original wild fox species as well as to the tamed generations of foxes. One advantage of taming the fox species is that the physiological changes that generations of fox species undergo while being domesticated might lead to the extinction of the originally wild species of foxes. Domestication of the wild fox species does not only make the animal tamed but also causes various physiological changes in it like changes in body size, proportion, pigmentation, tail and ears (31). Although these may just seem to be minor changes as of this moment in history, such changes might prove to be less resistant to diseases and environmental conditions. Moreover, such efforts at domestication might eventua lly cause permanent changes in the fox species until such a point where all the original wild foxes were wiped out. This is not the same as evolution because there is human manipulation of the species. There must be a reason why some animals are wild and defying nature might result in the extinction of the original species. ... Moreover, new diseases might be brought along with the domesticated species as disease genes made dormant by a wild nature may eventually show up when the animal is tamed. Thus, the new domesticated species, although numerous, may not be able to survive very long. The idea that domestication brings along with it the fact that the fear response develops much later, which is 9 weeks or later instead of 6 weeks for the wild species, implies that there is a relatively longer time for the fox offspring to remain vulnerable to danger due to the absence of fear (33). The earlier fear develops in the fox species and in any other animal species, the earlier it may be able to learn to protect itself from danger. Thus, domesticated foxes tend to be more trusting of people and other animals that might cause them great harm or even death. Although the purpose of domestication is to delay the development of fear or even to get rid of it completely, fear has a great role in the survival of the anim al species. One final disadvantage of domestication of foxes is, as stated by Trut herself, â€Å"Anything that tampers with [polygenes] runs the risk of upsetting other parts of an organism’s genetic machinery† (35). As previously stated, the domestication experiment on foxes is not the same as natural evolution because there is deliberate human intervention in the manipulation of the polygenes. Any such manipulation may result in the alteration of what nature has intelligently created. The reverberations of such manipulation might result in destructive physiological changes in the fox species like immunity problems and thus eventually cause its extinction. The

Outsourcing or Exporting America Essay Example for Free

Outsourcing or Exporting America Essay With the new economic slump, many people are trying to find ways to rebuild the economy and find the cause of the downward spiral that has recently plagued our country. In the quack of high unemployment, and many families losing their homes, many of the economists and researchers are looking to the outsourcing of jobs to other countries as the culprit for the dilemma. Is his belief true or false? The answer lies within each person’s individual belief, because politicians do not give all the information available about this new crises and the reason for it. In a year of presidential elections, one only needs to look at the previous election to see that this same topic was prevalent. In 2004, John Kerry accused George W. Bush of â€Å"exporting† jobs to other countries so big business could save money. In fact, N. Gregory Mankiw stated that the outsourcing of jobs was just another type of trade on an international level. Even at that time, many opponents realized that the government was trying to make excuses for high unemployment and the loss of jobs in this country. With the end of the election, the topic lost steam and lay in the background for years (Drezner, 1; Dobbs, 1). Now, in the smoke filled world of foreclosures, banks going under and financial giants losing their grasp of the world, the issue of outsourcing has again reared its head. Why? Because the majority of the public believe that the exporting of jobs is a major factor in the current slump. While manufacturing jobs have been lost to countries for lower wages, now the middle manager and white collar jobs are being shipped overseas to companies that charge much less then their American counterparts. This leaves the middle class American with few options and young Americans with unfulfilled dreams (Drezner, 1; Dobbs, 1). Both sides of the argument believe that they are in the right. Those that applaud the globalization and outsourcing to other countries, truly or blindly believe that it is the best option for this country. They even believe that it will help to create higher paying jobs for Americans, while the mundane and manufacturing jobs are done elsewhere for less money. They fool themselves with this notion. The truth of the matter is that American companies shut down factories and outsource middle management or call center activities; they are hurting the American worker and the American economy (Dobbs, 1). Look around and see the economy failing, banks losing, real estate stagnant. While the stock market roller coasters from downward spirals to euphoric rises, the economy is more imbalanced than ever. Multinational corporations will continue to layoff workers in the United States to give those jobs to people in other countries for less money. Is destroying our country worth a few dollars per employee? Most American would not agree. They would take up rank and fight, but until they have the correct information, and the government stops skewing the truth, the American people will suffer and the economy will fail.

Bilingual Acquisition in Early Childhood

Bilingual Acquisition in Early Childhood Are bilingual children two monolingual children in one? Discuss. Research into bilingual acquisition in early childhood has investigated whether infants and toddlers brought up in bilingual settings can be said to have a single language system during the initial stages of language acquisition or whether these early bilinguals develop two separate language systems from the start. If the latter can be shown to be the case, it could be argued that bilingual children are indeed two monolingual children in one. However, there has been considerable debate over the merits of both claims for some period of time. This essay will consider the arguments and some of the evidence put forward in support of both points of view. Researchers differentiate between two languages acquired from birth (simultaneous bilingual acquisition) and the acquisition of a second language during early childhood. Research, intending to address the question of developing bilingual language systems in the infant, focuses on simultaneous bilingual acquisition. Although as Lanza points out it isn’t always easy to decide on â€Å"the cut-off point between first language acquisition and early second-language acquisition.† [1] The language environment, with both parents speaking both languages or the adoption of a one language one parent approach, is also a consideration. It is often pointed out that bilingual children acquire their languages in much the same way as monolingual children acquire theirs. Pearson and colleagues testing the acquisition of vocabulary found that â€Å"differences in average vocabulary size (between the bilingual and monolingual children in their study) across the age range tested were relat ively small.†[2] Studies of childhood bilingual development have shown that in almost all cases, children mix elements from the two languages they are acquiring. This has lead to claims that in the early stages of acquisition bilingual children have a single language system. Code mixing may involve any aspect of the child’s language system i.e., phonetic, lexical, phrasal, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. Code mixing is not limited to children. Many researchers have investigated the phenomenon of code mixing or switching in adult bilinguals. However, there are important differences between the two. Adult code switching is rule governed. â€Å"What is thought to distinguish bilingual children’s mixing from adult mixing is the lack of systematicity or compliance to linguistic rules in the case of children.† [3] The fact that mixing declines with age has been cited as evidence that the child originally had one system that gradually separates into two. The period of mixing is followed by language differentiation sometime during the bilingual child’s third year. Volterra and Taeschner’s seminal paper interpreting code mixing in terms of a three-stage model of a single language system has had numerous supporters and critics. [4] A growing number of researchers have published papers in the past couple of decades supporting a two-language system. In 1985 Vihman looked at a bilingual Estonian/ English child. Having pointed out that there was insufficient data concerning the child’s comprehension skills in both languages to confirm whether or not he had a single system: â€Å"It seems likely that two receptive stores did exist in a rudimentary form even at this earliest stage, however, since comprehension appeared to develop rapidly in both English and Estonian contexts well before the development of a wide-ranging productive vocabulary.† [5] Considerable research has shown that monolingual children develop comprehension before production skills. The author agreed with Lindholm and Padilla[6] that â€Å"bilingual children are able, from an early age, to differentiate their two systems†. [7] Genesee also found evidence of â€Å"differentiated underlying language systems† in his study of early bilinguals. He argued that â€Å"bilingual children are able to differentiate their language systems from the beginning and that they are able to use their developing language systems differentially in contextually sensitive ways.† [8] Paradis and Genesee concluded the bilingual children in their study developed entirely distinct pronoun system for the two languages. [9]Their research therefore supports the separate language hypothesis. Likewise, Quay’s study of an English/ Spanish bilingual child â€Å"provides no evidence for the two-stage model of lexical development proposed by Volterra and Taeschner.† [10] Empirical and Interpretative Difficulties Methodology Most researchers criticise the methodology used by previous researchers in the field. Diary studies of a single child are common making any generalisation difficult. Other factors making comparison and therefore generalisation difficult include: the differing exposure to the languages experienced by each child, their different language backgrounds and history, the different methods of language sampling undertaken by the various researchers, and the fact that to date there is no standardised measurements to compare children at various stages of bilingual development. Furthermore, diary studies may be insufficient to accurately reflect the linguistic competence of the child studied, regardless of whether or not the findings can be shown to be valid for other bilinguals. â€Å"Diary data may not capture all translation equivalents.† [11] Quay also points out that studies making use of audio and video recordings tend not to make them frequently enough: â€Å"Infrequent recordings for a short duration each time do not allow for conclusive evidence with regard to bilingual children’s ability to produce translation equivalents.†[12] Radford reviewing Paradis and Genesee (1996) remarks on a methodological shortcoming noted in many other studies, the use of a small corpus of data: â€Å"This might lead us to the conclusion that PG simply didn’t have enough data from enough children to support the sweeping theoretical claims that they make.†[13] Pearson and colleagues also criticize the emphasis on case studies â€Å"a form in which systematic comparisons with other children are not generally attempted.† [14] Their own research compared the language development of 25 English/ Spanish bilinguals with 35 monolinguals: â€Å"Without detailed information from a wide range of children, it is difficult to gain a broad perspective on what is typical and what is exceptional in early bilingual development.†[15] Radford states, â€Å"much of the evidence VT (Volterra and Taeschner) bring to bear in support of their claim that children start out with a common syntax for their two languages is based to a large extent on code-mixing.†[16] He suggests the fact that bilingual children are known to code mix cannot be seen as evidence for a single language system because adult also code switch and they are â€Å"generally assumed to have separate grammars for each language.† However, as has been stated earlier, children do not code mix in the way adults do. More problematic for supporters of the single language system is the finding by Genesee and colleagues that code mixing in early bilinguals is not as common as Volterra and Taeschner claim.[17] These researchers discovered that code mixing takes place in only 1%-7% of bilingual children’s utterances. Like Radford, Genesee claims that there are serious methodological and interpretative shortcomings with much research into simultaneous bilingualism. In order for the single system hypothesis to be valid, bilingual children would need to â€Å"use items from both languages indiscriminately in all contexts of communication.†[18] However, as Genesee makes clear, most research in the field has failed to analyse the data by context. Volterra and Taeschner for example, present isolated examples of the child addressing one parent only.[19] Vihman did look at her bilingual child’s utterances in context but she focused on one language only.[20] If the appearance, then decline, of code mixing in early bilingual development is not necessarily evidence of a single language system, what other factors may be responsible for the phenomenon? Vihman (1985) argues that the decline in mixing has more to do with the bilingual child gaining in sociolinguistic competence than evidence of the separation of language systems.[21] Lanza also suggests a more sociolinguistic explanation for code mixing: â€Å"Children do learn to differentiate their language: however, this differentiation process occurs in language socialisation through which they learn to differentiate ways of speaking according to the social demands of the situation.† [22] Other researchers point out that with the acquisition of more lexical items as the child’s language skills develop, there is less need to borrow between languages (the lexical gap hypothesis).[23] [24] Peterson claims bilingual children switch to their dominant language because they haven’t the lexicon or syntactic structure in the weaker one.[25] Bernardini agrees â€Å" in some young bilingual children†¦with uneven development, having one language that is clearly weaker than the other, sentence-internal code-mixing is a result of uneven lexical development in the two languages.† [26] Pearson and colleagues test the Volterra Taeschner (1978) claim â€Å"if children already have a lexical representation for a concept in either language, they will not be motivated to learn or use the word’s translation in the other.†[27] This follows Clark’s principle of contrast, which predicts an absence of synonymy in early lexical development in both monolingual and bilingual children.[28] Pearson and colleagues found no evidence to support Volterra Taeschner in their study of 27 early bilinguals. Quay also found â€Å"no foundation for the principle of contrast in (the) bilingual case (studied).† Quay points out â€Å"most studies do not take into account whether young bilinguals have the lexical resources to make a choice between their two languages.† [29] According to Grosjean one language may be dominant because the child is exposed to that language more frequently and needs it to communicate with more people.[30] Serratrice defined â€Å"language dominance in terms of the amount of input the child receives†. [31]It has been pointed out by a number of researchers that mixing may be linked to the child’s speech environment. [32] The bilingual child might code mix because he hears his parents or other adults doing so. It has been argued the â€Å"best way to avoid bilingual mixing in children is to have each parent speak only one language to the child.† [33] Quay suggests, â€Å"linguistic input from adult interlocutors must be taken into account in discussions of children’s language choices.†[34] Conclusions It is clear that many factors are involved in simultaneous bilingual acquisition. The debate over whether these young children develop one or two language systems initially has yet to be satisfactorily resolved. As many researchers point out parental input may well prove to be of particular importance. Whether the child has one system or two and thus resembles a single monolingual child or two monolingual children, it is clear that their â€Å"ability to understand two languages may be comparable in each language to monolingual children’s.†[35] Bernardini, P and Schlyter, S (2004) Growing syntactic structure and code-mixing in the weaker language: The Ivy hypothesis. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7, 49-70 Clark, E (1987) The principle of contrast: a constraint on language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (ed.) Mechanisms of Language Acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Genesee, F (1989) Early bilingual development: one language or two? Journal of Child Language 16, 161-179 Genesee, F. Nicoladis, E Paradis, J (1995) Language differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child language 22, 611-630 Grosjean, F (1982) Life with two languages: an introduction to bilingualism. Cambridge MA: Harvard Uni press Lanza, E. (1992) Can bilingual two-year-olds code-switch? Journal of Child language 19, 633-657 Lindholm, K and Padilla, A (1978) Child bilingualism: report on language mixing, switching and translations. Linguistics 211, 23-44 Paradis, J. and Genesee, F. (1996). ‘Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children: autonomous orinterdependent?’ Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18: 1-25. Pearson, B, Fernandez, S and Oller, D 1993. Lexical development in bilingual infants and toddlers: comparison to Monolingual norms. Language Learning 43:1, 93-120 Pearson, B, Fernandez, S and Oller, D 1995. Cross-language synonyms in the lexicons of bilingual infants: One language or two? Journal of Child Language 22, 345-368 Pearson, B. Fernandez, S. Lewedeg, V Oller, K (1997). The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics 18, 41-58 Peterson, J (1988) Word-internal code-switching constraints in a bilingual child’s grammar. Linguistics, 26, 479-493 Quay, S (1995) The bilingual lexicon: implications for studies of language choice. Journal of Child Language 22, 369-387 Radford, A (2005) Children’s English: Principles-and-Parameters Perspectives. University of Essex. Serratrice, L. Referential cohesion in the narratives of bilingual English-Italian children and monolingual peers. Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 1058–1087 1083 Vihman, M. (1985) Language differentiation by the bilingual infant. Journal of Child Language 12, 297-324 Volterra, T and Taeschner, T (1978) The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language 5, 311-326 1 Footnotes [1] Lanza (1992:634) [2] Pearson et al (1993:112) [3] Genesee (1989) [4] Volterra and Taeschner (1978) [5] Vihman (1985:316) [6] Lindholm and Padilla (1978) [7] Vihman (1985:317) [8] Genesee (1989:174) [9] Paradis and Genesee (1996). [10] Quay (1995:385) [11] Quay (1995:382) [12] Quay (1995:383) [13] Radford (2005) [14] Pearson et al (1993:95) [15] Pearson et al (1995:348) [16] Radford (2005) [17] Genesee et al (1995) [18] Genesee (1989:165) [19] Volterra and Taeschner (1978) [20] Vihman (1985) [21] Vihman (1985) [22] Lanza (1992:654) [23] Volterra and Taeschner (1978) [24] Lindholm and Padilla (1978) [25] Peterson (1988) [26] Bernardini and Schlyter (2004:49) [27] Pearson et al (1995:346) [28] Clark (1987) [29] Quay (1995:369) [30] Grosjean (1982) [31] Serratrice (2007) [32] Genesee (1989) [33] Genesee (1989:170) [34] Quay (1995:383) [35] Pearson et al (1993:113)