Social Security Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Social Security - Research Paper Example Many of them were abandoned by their siblings. Some elderly were found living in sidewalks asking for alms and a number of them died due to health problem. In 1932, the citizens were somehow relieved from the effects of the phenomenon when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as president and introduced the New Deal programs (Rosenberg, n.d.). Few of the programs were aimed to help the farmers and lessen the unemployment rate across the country (Rosenberg, n.d.). Aiming to provide sustainable support and effective social security to the American nation, President Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act in 1935 (Social Security Administration [SSA], 2000). The legislation contained many provisions promoting the general welfare. Nonetheless, its most distinguishing feature was the social insurance program for retired employees aging at least sixty five years. The retirees were paid a continuing income right after they retire. The monthly benefits were planned to start in 1942 (S SA, 2000). In such case, the Social Security paid the retirees their benefits in lump-sum from 1937 to 1942. A retired motorman was the first retiree who received a lump-sum payment under the law (SSA, 2000). As a social legislation, the Social Security Act was designed to be adoptive to change. In the year 1939, it underwent a substantial amendment (SSA, 2000). The modification included two more benefits aside from the retirement benefits. The legislators added the dependents and survivors benefits. The former was made to benefit the spouse and minor children of the retired while the latter was for the family of the worker in case of premature death (SSA, 2000). In a sense, the amendment not only benefited the worker but also his or her family. As the economic situation of America began to regain strength, the amount of benefits to be received by the recipients was also increased. Moreover, the payment of monthly

Pathopharmacology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Pathopharmacology - Essay Example There are left-ventricular, right-ventricular, acute, and chronic heart failures. An estimated 70 percent of the patient populations have been found to have systolic heart failure (Mann, 2010). Additionally, the most common etiology of the systolic heart failure is ischemic heart disease. The pure diastolic heart failure may be caused by hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and both hypertrophic and restrictive cardiomyopathies. Clinical manifestation of heart failure include weight gain, dyspnea, orthopnea, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea, peripheral edema, JVD, tachycardia, hepatosplenomegaly, ascites, fatigue, weakness, nausea, poor appetite, renal hypoperfusion, and chachexia. Neurohormonal responses to heart failure are adaptive at first, and then become deleterious when they are sustained. Modern treatment of heart failure is based on neurohormonal modulation. (Steimle, 2007) Management of heart failure is a very complex issue that is why heart failure care needs to be delivered in a multi-professional manner. Although the standard of practise of managing heart failure has some consensus among healthcare providers, I based my heart failure disease management on the clinical guidelines that I developed at my organization. Using the clinical guidelines I was able to identify, summarize, and evaluate the highest quality evidence and most current data about prevention, diagnose, prognoses, and provide therapy including medications and cost-effectiveness. Using my clinical guidelines that I developed in the place I worked, I noted that there are four stages in the heart failure development namely stage A, B, C, and D. According to McDonagh et al. (2011), those patients who are in stage A and B usually do not have heart failure. However, they have risk factors that predispose them towards heart failure development. Patients in stage C comprise of those people with current or past

Zip Car Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Zip Car - Case Study Example The business had a market of people that would enjoy using Zip car. The market was good for those who were able to use the internet and did not have a car available for use at all times. The market for Zip car would target those who did not do a lot of driving throughout the year. It was important for Chase to allow operating costs to be cheaper than the cost of leasing, renting or purchasing a car. By doing this, Chase would entice the targeted market to use Zip cars as a main means of transportation. Funding is a problem for many businesses. Chase, with the help of Danielson, created business plans and presentations that are appropriate for investors. Investors want to see that they are going to receive the money they lent and more. Chase performed the necessary research and gave the investors exactly what they wanted. Seeking a new engineer to create the software was a way to keep cost down and achieve the necessary technology that Zip car needed. A new software engineer costs less than an engineer that has more experience. Little cost cutting techniques like this used by Chase were important for allowing funding to go as far as possible. Zip car had everything lined up to get the business started and seemed as if it could be successful. Question # 2) What is the business model, and how has it changed between Dec. 1999 and May 2000? What do the data from actual operations in September say about how the business model is working? Does this give you comfort or concern? Answer # 2) A business model is important for every business. Business models show the most important part of a business. That part is the businesses numbers. The numbers show everything. If the proper research has been performed and the numbers do not show a potential profit, there is no need to start the business. The business model for Zip car shows the expenses and profit for the company. The business model shows expenses such as leases, insurance, parking

The certain events Essay Example for Free

The certain events Essay In ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ tension is created by seeing how the characters behave to the certain events. For instance, when a man came from Maw and Meggins, Herbert’s place of work, to tell the family of Herbert’s accident, we see that Mrs. White was distraught by this accident, â€Å"She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his, and the fact that Herbert was ‘caught in the machinery’ means that his body must have been desecrated which creates the most horrific images. This creates tension and enables the reader to empathise how they must be feeling. Another way in which tension is evoked is by characters being mysterious and withholding information. When the sergeant is asked indirectly whether he has had his three wishes he said quietly, â€Å"I have† and his blotchy face whitened. He is being very secretive as to the wishes he wished but we can guess that there is something wrong about them for he turns white when he talks vaguely of them.  In ‘The Monkey’s Paw the reader is constantly trying to determine whether this paw is powerful or just a part of Mr. White’s ‘fancy’, or whether it will result in good or bad. These attitudes change constantly throughout the story, and all this does is confuse and mislead the reader. The family and the sergeant’s emotions constantly seem to be opposites. When they are discussing the ‘monkey’s paw’, the family are eager to find out about the paw, whereas the sergeant is being very secretive, â€Å"His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly put his empty glass to his lips.†Ã‚  Then later Herbert White cleverly said, â€Å"Well, why don’t you have three, sir?† â€Å"I have†, he said quietly. These two adjectives seem to be opposites, ‘cleverly’ and ‘quietly’. As I have already said, the family constantly change their views on whether the monkey’s paw will work, or whether the sergeant is lying. While the sergeant is talking about the paw, they seem to be taken in by the paw and even take it out of the fire when the sergeant threw it in there. When he told Mr. White to put it back into the fire, Herbert said with pretended horror, â€Å"Likely†. But when they had made the first wish for two hundred pounds, because they did not see the money, they thought â€Å"it must have been [their father’s] fancy† and joked about finding â€Å"the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of you bed†. But when they found out that the first wish had been granted and the disastrous circumstances that was brought with it, they still wanted to use it again to wish Herbert back to life. And at the end of the story, when the disfigured body of Herbert is knocking on their front, although we are not told what Mr. White whished, we can guess that it was for Herbert to return to the dead. This links it to the first man’s wishes. The sergeant said that the first man’s last wish was for death, and this might be, like in this case, for another person. At the beginning of the story, the family believed that the ‘monkey’s paw’ would result in good. They even joke about how two hundred pound might be dangerous and said, â€Å"[It] might drop on his head from the sky†. However, after the death of Herbert, they realise that this paw was magical and sinister.  Because ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is a different kind of story to ‘The Speckled Band’, the reader is mislead in completely different ways. In ‘The Speckled Band’, it misleads the reader by hiding the truth beneath layers of uncertainty and withholding certain information, such as the fact that Dr. Roylott had a snake. In Julia’s dieing words, she screamed out, â€Å"It was the band! The Speckled Band!†. This is a cryptic clue, hinting to the poisonous spotted snake which bit her. The author, Arthur Doyle, deliberately chose these words so to make a mystery, for, if she had said, â€Å"It was the snake† then there would have been no mystery at all.. This was a conscious decision made by the author to deliberately mislead the reader. This seemingly strange clue, only seems to be hinting towards the gypsies with spotted scarves, whom Dr. Roylott allowed to stay in the garden. They play no role in the mystery, hence giving depth to the plot.  Also we are told of the animals he has, a baboon and a cheetah. These seemingly pay no role in the mystery, until Sherlock Holmes later finds a saucer of milk in the Doctors bedroom and then finds out that he also has an extremely poisonous Indian snake. I think that although it gives us background information, Helen Stoner’s first speech which ultimately gives us more information than we need, could be put there to mislead the reader, because we are trying to take in all this information and make our own predictions as to what we think happened. Therefore this would just confuse the reader.  In this speech, we are told that Helen’s sister, Julia, could smell Dr. Roylott’s cigars, because of a small ventilator connecting the two rooms.. However, in the coroner’s report, he mentioned nothing about the ventilator which just misleads the reader. Also, he did not see the two puncture marks made by the snake which would have made the mystery a lot less confusing. Although ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is a story full of mystery and suspense due to the immense tension created, my favourite out of the two is undoubtedly ‘The Speckled Band’ due to its sensational plot, a successful combination of elaborate characters and the intriguing circumstances which we are presented at the beginning of the story. One of the most iconic things about a ‘murder mystery’ is its unique ability to keep the reader guessing until the end of the story until the truth is revealed to us by Sherlock Holmes, which is why, in part, ‘The Speckled Band’ is so effective.

Nostalgia for Mysticism Essay Example for Free

Nostalgia for Mysticism Essay One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells the story of the town of Macondo, sticky with nostalgia, and the Buendia family who lived out those very years of solitude. Gabo’s work is written in a style known as magical realism, in which elements of the magical and the mundane are interwoven seamlessly, making it impossible to determine where reality ends and the extraordinary begins. The story is set in an otherwise ordinary world, with familiar historical and cultural realities, although events which occur are not always explained by universal laws or familiar logic. The story was originally written in Spanish, and has since been translated into thirty-seven languages. However, as any origins or bloodlines are important- it is equally as important to note that the birthplace of this masterpiece is Latin America. Much of the magical and resonant elements come to a climax at the end of the book. As the last chapters surge into our hearts, we are presented with the line that both summarizes the story itself, and the extraordinary magic and mysticism that is artfully omnipresent within its pages. In reference to the Buendia legacy it reads, â€Å"The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by ants.† (Marquez) At the moment we read this, we realize that Aureliano Babilonia’s son, who is bloated and still damp with the dew of birth, is being carried away by all the ants in the world. Aureliano Babilonia, the last remaining Buendia’s, is reading the manuscript of the gypsy, Melquiades, the most significant character in the novel outside of the Buendia family, who wrote the prophecy of the family one hundred years before in Sanskrit, his mother tongue. He leads us to the demise of Macondo, as it blows away in torrents of dust and whirlwinds of longing, and as the novel comes to a close we read, Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth (Marquez). The novel plays with our sensibilities however it is not fantasy. It is something entirely different, because it was born from the womb of a culture that is comfortable with the mythical and the conventionally unbelievable. Magical Realism could not have been born from any other mother, than the slippery Spanish speaking, and catholic mother of Latin America: a women who wishes on saints and casts spells in the form of prayers. Magical Realism is an art form, and represents an important aspect of Latin culture. Therefore, in order to understand the symbiotic relationship between this literary style and culture, we must have a working definition of culture. Edward B, Tylor, a British anthropologist defined culture as â€Å"a complex whole including knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capability or habit acquired by human beings as members of society.† (Danesi, 3) So, culture is a conglomeration of the creations by the members of the society. However, more importantly, according to semiotician Marcel Danasi, â€Å"Societies are simultaneously the geographical and historical ‘reifications’ (manifestations) of cultures: i.e. they have existence in time and space, enfolding the signifying processes that shape and regulate the lives of the people who live within them.† (3) The logical process of the creation of culture is that culture manifests itself from the historical and ideological backgrounds of a given sphere. According to Eduardo Restrepo, â€Å"Culture is the deepest and most solid rock of our common sense.† (Grossberg, 169) Therefore, cultural sensibilities and norms are defined and framed by the culture itself. So, any art form, which we understand to be the child of a culture, can be traced back to a historical and or ideological element. In the case of Magical Realism and its importance in Latin American culture, we can trace both its creation and wide acceptance to Catholicism, and the mystical implications of Catholicism in the region. The iron of the blood that flows throughout Latin America is arguably Catholicism, but not Catholicism in the traditional sense, a Catholicism that was born of conquest, but was not defined by subordination. One cannot understand Latin America without understanding the history of the Catholic Church in the region. Catholicism has been predominant in Latin America and it has played a definitive role in its development. It helped to spur the conquest of the New World with its emphasis on missions to the indigenous peoples. (Schwaller) Now, Catholicism in the region is characterized by various practices that could arguably be considered associated with magic. This was due to the transcultural assimilation of the religion. It is a religion that was brought by the Spanish and Portuguese during the conquest of the new world, but as they introduced their religion, elements of religious cultures pushed through and created a new Catholicism. It was met by various cultures such as the Mayas, Aztecs, and even Caribbean voodoo, which are all more commonly associated with mysticism. (Schwaller) Now Catholicism is scene in multiple facets of daily life in Latin America. In nearly every home you can find a statue of the Virgin Mary. â€Å"Representations of saints take center stage in Hispanic religion. We pray, light candles and talk to our patrons, which are saints. Each Latin American country has a patron saint or virgin they celebrate. Patron Saints are also assigned to towns and regions, and we celebrate â€Å"Las Fiestas Patronales† or the patrons’ festivities in many Hispanic countries.† (â€Å"Hispanic Culture Online†) In addition, the Spanish language itself is wrought with rhetoric that implies the existence of miracles, which in this case we equate to magic. For example words like ojala, which derives from Arabic meaning literally â€Å"Allah willing† but more frequently meaning â€Å"I wish† or â€Å"I hope†, and â€Å"si dios quiere† â€Å"if God wills it†, are abundant in everyday conversation. From a semiotic point of view, in which we seek to understand the impact of this on the culture itself, we see that language of the sort creates a certain cultural framework. The words themselves, according to Jack Solomon, †¦Do mean what we want them to mean. Although a word and its meaning may appear to be one and the same, the truth is that words are only signs of meaning, arbitrary symbols whose significance, like the dots and dashes of the Morse code, is determined by cultural beliefs and social convention (2). The words used are vital within the culture, because without cultural context they would not have significance. Therefore, a culture is the sum of it’s language, and historical background. This summation is commonly known as a paradigm. Michel Foucault, who did extensive studies on paradigms and their application, asserts, â€Å" that for a given type of action, there are different possible ways to ‘conduct oneself’.† (Harrer, 79) A paradigm is defined as â€Å"a set of associated signifiers or signifiers which are all members of some defining category, but in which each is significantly different.† (Chandler) Cultures inevitably exist within a paradigm, and in simplistic terms a cultural paradigm can be considered the intricate web of what is significant, acceptable, and understood within a culture. The paradigm is perpetuated by language and practice. In practice we see how traditions and artistic expressions are simply mirrors that reflect the cultural paradigm as it is actively and continuously being defined by the peoples of that culture. Art must exist within a cultural paradigm, and therefore understanding those very paradigms allows us to contextually understand the significance of the art form. As for understanding One Hundred Years of Solitude, and its use of magical realism, we can look to various religious practices in Latin American Catholicism and how the normalize the abnormal. A prime example is the patron saint San Antonio. It is common in Latin culture for a person who is single and wants love to place a statue of this saint face down. They will pray to this saint, and only once their love is found will they turn the saint face up. What we see in this example is that mythology, and beliefs that have no basis in science or fact are practiced because of their religious ubiquity, and the magical adherence to the catholic religion that most Latinos are accustomed too. This is not the only example that can be found. Another pertinent example comes from the Virgin Mary. Latin Americans will pray to the Virgin Mary, for example, when their child falls ill. If the illness is cured, whether or not they can truly attribute this to their prayers, they will commemorate their devotion to the saint by naming their child after him. Many people even take pilgrimages to honor the importance that the saint made in their life. These instances of belief in the supernatural are commonplace, and allow us to understand how an entire culture of people could read in Marquez’s work, upon the death of Jose Arcadio Buendia: Then they went into Jose Arcadio Buendias room, shook him as hard as they could, shouted in his ear, put a mirror in front of his nostrils, but they could not awaken him. A short time later, when the carpenter was taking measurements for the coffin, through the window they saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling. They fell on the town all through the night in a silent storm, and they covered the roofs and blocked the doors and smothered the animals who slept outdoors. So many flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets were carpeted with a compact cushion and they had to clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the funeral procession could pass by. (Marquez) and accept that the flowers are falling from the sky, but we are not transported to a world separate from reality. We understand that their metaphoric existence is one of honoring the dead, and commemorating a life. As we read this we are living in the reality that has been constructed by Latin America herself, a culture where often times the most unbelievable and magical occurrences serve better to explain reality than the dry and lifeless recitation of reality itself. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in December of 1982 on account of his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Within his speech he recounted tales of madness and fantastical occurrences in the region. He emphasizes the fact that to him his novel resembles reality, as he understands it: A reality not of paper, but one that lives within us and determines each instant of our countless daily deaths, and that nourishes a source of insatiable creativity, full of sorrow and beauty, of which this roving and nostalgic Colombian is but one cipher more, singled out by fortune. Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude. (Marquez) The solitude he describes comes to represent the unique roots of the Latin American cultural paradigm, one that renders the region lonely, because no other culture can quite believe the ‘unbridled reality’ that shaped the culture. He is but one cipher more because the creation of magical realism was prophesized hundreds of years before, when the conventionality of European society collided with the ebb and flow of the immense sorrows and beauties in Latin America. History and language led to a cultural paradigm which laid the very foundation for a book like One Hundred Years of Solitude to be written, and to answer to the resounding question, which we have been exploring throughout this essay, what’s the significance of magical realism in the cultural paradigm? we needn’t look any further than the immortal pages of the novel. Melquiades, the gypsy who wrote the prophecy within One Hundred Years of Solitude says so poignantly â€Å"Things have a life of their own, its simply a matter of waking up their souls.† (Marquez) The pinnacle is that Melquiades does not just say that people have a life of their own, but things. The inanimate is granted animation and soul, and it is accepted because the cultural paradigm grants importance to that which cannot necessarily be tangibly explained or experienced. Latin America, rich with history of conquest, built from the alchemy and melding of various cultures to create a new identity, and alight with Spanish that linguistically reinforces the existence of God and the supernatural, had to be the birthplace of magical realism. Latin America is a region in which the lines between the magical and real are blurred. So, the creation of the genre of magical realism simply represents the acceptance that in telling a story as resounding as one of one hundred years of solitude in a sleepy, fictional town of Macondo, metaphor and magic become more truthful than even the truth itself, just as in Latin American culture the spiritual is granted more importance and potency than the literal. Works Cited Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics for Beginners. . N.p., 26 2002. Web. 27 Nov 2012.http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem03.html. Danesi, Marcel. Analyzing Cultures: An Introduction Handbook. Indiana: IndianaUniversity Press, 1999. Print. Grossberg, Lawrence. Cultural Studies in the Future Tense. Durham: DukeUniversity Press, 2010. Print. Hispanic Religion The Catholic Traditions, Meaning Celebrations AmongHispanics. Hispanic Culture Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov 2012.http://www.hispanic-culture-online.com/hispanic-religion.html. Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: Harper, 1970. Print. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. The Solitude of Latin America. Nobel Prize AwardCeremony. Sweden, Stockholm. 08 1982. Speech. Schwaller, John Frederick. The History of the Catholic Church in Latin America. NewYork: NYU Press, 2012. eBook.

Native Language in Foreign Language Learning

Native Language in Foreign Language Learning 1.1 Introduction The debate over whether English language classrooms should include or exclude students native language has been a controversial issue for a long time (Brown, 2000). Although the use of mother tongue was banned by the supporters of the Direct Method at the end of the nineteenth century, the positive role of the mother tongue has recurrently been acknowledged as a rich resource which, if used judiciously, can assist second language learning and teaching (Cook, 2001). Therefore, this research study tries to open up a new horizon for English instructors to find a thoughtful way to use learners mother tongue in second language teaching. The technique in which L1 was used in this study was translation from L1 to L2, a technique which was rarely used by EFL teachers. Atkinson (1987) was one of the first and chief advocates of mother tongue use in the communicative classroom. He points out the methodological gap in the literature concerning the use of the mother tongue and argues a case in favour of its restricted and principled use, mainly in accuracy-oriented tasks. In his article, Atkinson (1987) clearly stated that translation to the target language which emphasizes a recently taught language item is a means to reinforce structural, conceptual and sociolinguistic differences between the native and target languages. In his view, even though this activity is not communicative, it aims at improving accuracy of the newly learned structures. Similarly, this research aimed at investigating the effect of translation from L1 to L2 on the accurate use of the structures. The arguments in supports of using the learners mother tongue in L2 instruction clearly reveal that not only doesnt the use of first language have a negative impact on L2 learning, but it can be factor to help students improve the way they learn a second language. Although the English Only paradigm continues to be dominant in communicative language teaching , research into teacher practice reveals that the L1 is used as a learning resource in many ESL classes (Auerbach, 1993). Auerbach added that when the native language was used, practitioners, researchers, and learners consistently report positive results. Furthermore, he identifies the following uses of mother tongue in the classroom: classroom management, language analysis and presenting rules that govern grammar, discussing cross-cultural issues, giving instructions or prompts, explaining errors, and checking comprehension. Although the provision of maximum L2 exposure to the learners seems essential, L1 can be used alongside L2 as a complement. In this regard, Turnbull (2001) stated that maximizing the target language use does not and should not mean that it is harmful for the teacher to use the L1. â€Å"a principle that promotes maximal teacher use of the target language acknowledges that the L1 and target language can exist simultaneously (p. 153). Similarly, Stern (1992) stated that the use of L1 and target language should be seen as complementary, depending on the characteristics and stages of the language learning process (p. 285). On the other hand, overuse of L1 will naturally reduce the amount of exposure to L2. Therefore, attempt should be made to keep a balance between L1 and L2 use. In this regard, Turnbull (2001) acknowledges that although it is efficient to make a quick switch to the L1 to ensure, for instance, whether students understand a difficult grammar concept or an unknown word, it is crucial for teachers to use the target language as much as possible in contexts in which students spend only short periods of time in class, and when they have little contact with the target language outside the classroom. 1.2 Background to the problem The Integrated Secondary School Curriculum or Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM) was planned in accordance with the National Education Philosophy. The main goal of KBSM was based on the integrated self-development with orientation towards society or nation (Mak Soon Sang, 2003). Four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing are incorporated in the English syllabus proficiency in order to meet their needs to use English in everyday life, for knowledge acquisition, and for future workplace needs (Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia, 2000). My personal experience as a learner has shown me that moderate and judicious use of the mother tongue can aid and facilitate the learning and teaching of the target language, a view shared by many colleagues of mine. However the value of using the mother tongue is a neglected topic in the TESL methodology literature. This omission, together with the widely advocated principle that the native language should not be used in the second language classroom, makes most teachers, experienced or not, feels uneasy about using L1 or permitting its use in the classroom, even when there is a need to do so. How do students and teachers look at this issue? Schweers (1999) conducted a study with EFL students and their teachers in a Spanish context to investigate their attitudes toward using L1 and in the L2 classroom. His result indicates that the majority of students and teachers agreed that Spanish should be used in the EFL classroom (Schweers 1999). Inspired by his research and driven by my own interest, the researcher decided to carry out a similar study on the use of the native language (Malay) in the Malaysian context. However, differences exist between Schweers study and mine. 1.3. Statement of the problem Many rural school students have difficulty in understanding English, and they have often found it difficult to read English books on their own (Ratnawati and Ismail, 2003). Students lack of proficiency in English deprives them of the opportunities open to those who are able to use the language well. Recently, the teaching and learning of English has been discussed widely in Malaysia. This is because the low level of English proficiency among students hinders them from acquiring knowledge globally. Students L1 are being use in the ESL classroom especially in the rural area to help them understand English better and find out if it is an effective teaching and learning tool. Because of the students difficulty in understanding the language, teachers need to assist them thoroughly in the learning process. With the using of the L1, this will gain their interest to stay focus in the class and not being de-motivated in learning the target language. The prohibition of the native language would maximize the effectiveness of learning the target language will be a question that we need to find out. 1.4. Purposes of the study The purpose of the study is to determine whether the L1 (Malay language) are use frequently in the rural ESL classroom. The important of this study is to find out whether L1 works as an effective teaching and learning instrument. 1.5. Research questions Research questions for this study are; How frequent the Malay language was used in the Malaysian English classroom and for what purposes? Can prohibition of L1 (Malay language) maximize the interest of using English in the classroom? What are the perception of the students and the teachers towards using Malay in the English classroom? 1.6. Theoretical For this study, the researcher referred to the theory of SLA that interrelated set of hypothesis or claims about how people become proficient in a second language. In a summary of research findings on SLA, Lightbown (1985: 176-180) made the following claims: Adults and adolescents can â€Å"acquire† a second language. The learner creates a systematic inter-language that is often characterized by the same language as the first language, as well as others that appear to be based on the learners own native language. There are predictable sequences in acquisition so that certain structures have to be acquired before others can be integrated. Practice does not make perfect. Knowing language rule does not mean one will be able to use it in communicative interaction. Isolated explicit error correction is usually effective in changing language behavior. For most adult learners, acquisition stop-â€Å"fossilizes†-before the learner has achieved native-like mastery of the target language. One cannot achieve native-like or non native-like command of a second language in one hour a day. The learners task is enormous because language is enormously complex. A learners ability to understand language in a meaningful context exceeds his or her ability to comprehend de-contextualized language and to produce language of comparable complexity and accuracy. The hypothesis will be the first tool for the measurement of how the students in the rural ESL classroom comprehend with target language. Learning is a long life process so the students need a proper guide to lead them in gaining the language proficiency. There are some modifications that need to be made in using these hypotheses so it will be suit to the learners need in the rural area. There are some mistakes that made by the learners that due to interference from their first language and the learners errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits. The acquisition-learning hypothesis Stephen Krashen (1977) claimed that adult second language learners have two means for internalizing the target language. The first is â€Å"acquisition†, a subconscious and intuitive process of constructing the system of a language. The second means is a conscious â€Å"learning† process in which learners attend to form, figure out rules, and are generally aware of their own process. According to Krashen, â€Å"fluency in second language performance is due to what we have acquired, not what we have learned† (1981a:99). Adults should, therefore, do as much acquiring as possible in order to achieve communicative fluency; otherwise, they will get bogged of language and to watching their own progress. For Krashen (1982), our conscious learning processes and our subconscious process mutually exclusive: learning cannot become acquisition. This claim of no interface between acquisition and learning is used to strengthen the argument for recommending large doses of acqui sition activity in the classroom, with only a very minor role assigned to learning. The input hypothesis Krashens claims that an important â€Å"condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understand (via hearing or reading input language that contains structure a bit beyond his or her current level of competence†¦..if an acquirer is at stage or level i , the input he or she understands should contain i +1† (Krashen1981:100). In other words, the language that learners are exposed to should be just far enough beyond their current competence that they can understand most of it but still challenged to make progress. The corollary to this is that input should neither be so far beyond their reach that they are overwhelmed (this might be, say, i + 2) nor so close to their current stage that they are not challenged at all (i + 0). Important parts of the Input Hypothesis are recommendation that speaking not be though directly or very early in the language classroom. Speech will be emerging once the acquirer has built up enough comprehensible input ( i + 1). Success in a foreign language can be attributed to input alone. Such a theory ascribes little credit to learners and their own active engagement in the process. Moreover, it is important to distinguish between input and intake. Intake is what you take with you over a period of time and can later remember. Krashen (1983) did suggest that input gets converted to knowledge through a learners current internalized rule system and the new input. The application of these theories will help the study in measuring how effective the use of L1 in the ESL classroom based on the prior knowledge of the participants and in what way the theories will help the researches defines the result of the studies. Motivation Theory Various definitions of motivation have been proposed over decades of research and three different perspectives emerge: From a behaviourist perspective, motivation was seen in matter of fact terms. It is quite simply the anticipation or reward. Driven to acquire positive reinforcement, and driven by previous reinforcement, and driven by previous experiences of reward for behaviour, we act accordingly to achieve further reinforcement. In this view, our acts are likely to be at the mercy of external forces. In cognitive terms, motivation places much more emphasis on the individuals decisions. Ausubel (1968:368-379), for example, identified six needs undergirding the construct of motivation: a. The need for exploration, for seeing the other side of the mountain, for probing the unknown; b. The need for manipulation, for operating- to use Skinners term- on the environment and causing change; c. The need for activity, for movement and exercise, both physical and mental; d. The need for stimulation, the need to be stimulated by the environment, by the other people, or by ideas, thoughts, and feelings; e. The need for knowledge, the need to process and internalize the result of exploration, manipulation, activity, and stimulation, to resolve contradictions, to quest for solutions to problems and for self consistent systems of knowledge; f. Finally, the need for ego enhancement, for the self to be known and to be accepted and approved by others. 3) A constructivist view of motivation places even further emphasis on social context as well as individual person choices (Williams Burden 1997:120). Each person is motivated differently, and will therefore act on his or her environment in ways that are unique. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Edward Deci (1975:23) defined intrinsic motivation: â€Å"Intrinsically motivated activities are ones for which there is no apparent reward except the activity itself. People seem to engage in the activities for their own sake and not because they lead to an extrinsic reward†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.intrinsically motivated behaviours are aimed at bringing about certain internally rewarding consequences, namely, feelings of competence and self determination†. Extrinsically motivated behaviours, on the other hand, are carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self. Behaviours initiated solely to avoid punishment are also extrinsically motivated, even though numerous intrinsic benefits can ultimately accrue to those who instead, view punishment avoidance as a challenge that can build their sense of competence and self determination. The intrinsic and extrinsic continuum in motivation is applicable to foreign language classrooms and around the world. Regardless of the cultural beliefs and attitudes of learners and teachers, intrinsic and extrinsic factors can be easily identified (Dornyei and Csizer 1998). During the classroom observations, the researcher will identify whether the teacher use this kind of method. If the students communicate with their L1, should the teacher give a punishment or give them the motivation to communicate with L1 as long it will help the students to understand the whole lesson. 1.7. Significance of the study It is hope that the study will: Help all the teachers in selecting the best method in teaching the ESL classroom especially in the rural area. Determine the appropriateness of using the Malay in the ESL classroom. Enable the teacher to realize the important of using the L1 in the ESL classroom at the rural area. Help the students to gain their interest in learning the target language by giving them the opportunity to use their L1 while learning ESL. 1.8. Limitation of the study This study was undertaken with the following limitations; The small sample clearly does not represent the whole population of students in SMK in Felda Gedangsa. The sample taken is 40 students from one class in Felda Gedangsa. The reliability and validity of the survey instruments may be questioned. The questionnaire is not based on any existing survey instrument, which had been tested and/ or certified in terms of reliability and validity. The questionnaire is developed specifically for this study. The time constrain will limit the quality of the study. SMK Felda Gedangsa is situated in Ulu Selangor district and about 30KM from UPSI. It will take a long time in doing this study. The students level of proficiency is at the lower level and they will need help in understanding the questionnaires. 1.9. Summary Understanding of English is crucial for every student in the ESL classroom. Without a proper guide from the teacher, they will lose their motivation in learning. Teacher need to be ready with a proper methods and teaching skills and should not ignore the use of L1 in the classroom. With the lacking of vocabulary and understanding towards certain aspects in the learning process, surely the use of L1 in the classroom should be considered to guide the students. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1. Introduction This paper provides a review of the literature on students L1 are being used in the ESL classroom especially in the rural area and find out if it is an effective teaching and learning tool. There are several studies which are significance to the focus of this study. The summaries of previous work related to the hypothesis of the study are listed below. Long (1985, 1996), adapted the input Hypothesis to include interaction. His modified Input Hypothesis (1996) focuses on negotiation of meaning that occurs when communication breaks down. It proposes that oral input that is simplified through interactional modification is more successful than non-interactionally modified input in promoting learner comprehension, which in turn facilitates language acquisition. This hypothesis claims that the modified output produced by learners who are interacting in order to negotiate meaning can also aid acquisition. In this view, which gives importance to input that has been simplified through interaction, there is a possible role for the use of the learners L1 in the interactive input. Modified must give the learner information related to the linguistic form that were problematic and the use of the L1 is a potential source of this critical information (Gillis, 2007). 2.2. Close studies on the Using of L1 in the ESL Classroom Research on the usage of the L1 in the ESL classroom is a vital has demonstrated that L1 are not only effective but necessary for adult ESL students with limited L1 literacy or schooling and that use of students linguistic resources can be beneficial at all levels of ESL (Auerbach 1993). Auerbach (1993), performed a research on the topic of â€Å"Do you believe that ESL students should be allowed to use their L1 in the ESL classroom†? Only 20% of the respondents gave an unqualified yes to the question; 30% gave an unqualified no, (with comments such as, Its a school policy and No but its hard); the remaining 50% said sometimes (with comments such as Usually not, but if I have tried several times to explain something in English and a student still doesnt understand, then I allow another student who speaks the same language to explain in that language; Theyre going to do it anyway; As a last resort). The essence of these comments is captured by the following response In general ESL students should be encouraged to use English as much as possible, but in reality this doesnt always work. Thus, despite the fact that 80% of the teachers allowed the use of the L1 at times, the English only axiom is so strong that they didnt trust their own practice. On the flip side, when the native language is used, practitioners, researchers, and learners consistently report positive results. Rivera (1990) outlines various models for incorporating the L1 into instruction, including initial literacy in the L1 (with or without simultaneous but separate ESL classes) and bilingual instruction (where both languages are utilized within one class). The first benefit of such programs at the beginning levels is that they attract previously un-served studentsstudents who had been unable to participate in ESL classes because of limited L1 literacy and schooling. Further, contrary to the claim that use of the L1 will slow the transition to and impede the development of thinking in English, numerous accounts suggest that it may actually facilitate this process. Shamash (1990), for example, describes an approach to teaching ESL used at the Invergarry Learning Center near Vancouver which might be considered heretical by some: Students start by writing about their lives in their L1 or a mixture of their L1 and English; this text is then translated into English with the help of bilingual tutors or learners and, as such, provides a natural bridge for overcoming problems of vocabulary, sentence structure and language confidence. At a certain point in the learning process, according to Shamash, the learner is willing to experiment and take risks with English. Thus, starting with the L1 provides a sense of security and validates the learners lived experiences, allowing them to express themselves while at the same time providing meaningful written material to work with. This research had shows us that the usage of L1 in the ESL classroom is sometimes considered as vital because of the students level of proficiency. Tang (2002), based on her studies, â€Å"Using the mother tongue in the Chinese EFL classroom† bear many similarities to Schweers (1999) study in a Spanish context. Both studies indicate that the mother tongue was used by the majority of teachers investigated, and both students and teachers responded positively toward its use. Minor discrepancies exist concerning the occasions when the L1 should be used. Some of these differences can be accounted for by the participants different levels of L2 language proficiency. The teachers participating in this study indicated that the translation of some words, complex ideas, or even whole passages is a good way to learn a foreign language. Her observation of the three classes suggests that without translation, learners would be likely to make unguided and often incorrect translations. This study also reveals that in the EFL classes observed Chinese plays only a supportive and facilitating role. The chief medium of communication in the class is still English. As with any other classroom technique, the use of the mother tongue is only a means to the end of improving foreign language proficiency. She agreed with the majority of student participants (about 63 percent combined) that no more than 10 percent of class time should be spent using Chinese. In her experience, this percentage decreases as the students English proficiency increases. Of course, a translation course would be an exception. Unlike Schweers student participants, the students in the present study are highly motivated to learn English. As English majors in the university, their English language proficiency is regarded as a symbol of their identity and a route to future academic and employment opportunities. Few of them feel that English is imposed on them or regard the use of English as a threat to their identity. Instead, they generally prefer greater or exclusive use of English in the classroom. In their view, Chinese should be used only when necessary to help them learn English better. The research seems to show that limited and judicious use of the mother tongue in the English classroom does not reduce students exposure to English, but rather can assist in the teaching and learning processes (Tang, 2002). Strohmeyer and McGrail (1988) found that allowing for the exploration of ideas in the L1 served to enhance students ESL writing. When students were given the choice of writing first in Spanish, they went on to write pieces in English that were considerably more developed than their usual ESL writing. These findings from practice are supported by Garcias (1991) more formal research on effective instructional practices which found that (a) academically successful students made the transition from Spanish to English without any pressure from teachers; and (b) they were able to progress systematically from writing in the native language in initial literacy to writing in English later. A recent study by Osburne and Harss-Covaleski (1991) suggested that the widely frowned upon practice of writing first in the L1 and then translating into the L2 is not harmful to the quality of the written product. They cite the conventional wisdom that students should be discouraged from translating as this will cause them to make more errors, result in rhetorically inappropriate texts, and distract them from thinking in Englishand that all these factors would negatively affect the quality of their writing. To investigate the validity of this claim, they compared ESL compositions written directly in English with others written first in the L1 and then translated into English; their results indicated no significant difference in the quality or quantity of the written products. They conclude, It seems then that there is no need for teachers to become overly anxious if students choose to employ translation as a composing strategy at times. Friedlander (1990) cited numerous other studie s reporting the beneficial effects of using the L1 for L2 composing; his own study provides further support for L1 use in planning ESL writing when knowledge of the topic has been acquired in the L1. Mirzaei Vaezi (2007), had been conducted the study of the effect of using translation from L1 to L2 as a teaching technique on the improvement of EFL Learners Linguistic Accuracy- Focus on form. Based on the results obtained from the statistical analyses in the study, it was discovered that the idea of the effectiveness of using translation from L1 to L2 as a teaching technique to improve a group of Iranian EFL learners linguistic accuracy was supported. Therefore, it can be concluded that translating form L1 to L2, using specific structures, can enhance learners linguistic accuracy within the scope of those structures. It also manifests that learners mother tongue is not a useless element in second or foreign language learning. In other words, mother tongue, if used purposefully and systematically, can have a constructive role in teaching other languages. In effect, the purpose of the present study was to join the three vertices of the triangle i.e., first language, translation, an d focus on form. Moreover, it can be claimed that translating sentences form L1 to L2, if selected purposefully, can push learners to use specific structures accurately when producing utterances in the second language. This mental practice in transforming an idea from mother language to the second language helps the learner tackle the psycho-linguistic challenge they have to face in producing second language in real life situations. Nevertheless, when utilizing this teaching technique, the learners should be bewared about the structural differences existing between languages which may cause negative interference from their L1. In other words, learners should be warned that there is not always a structural correspondence between their first language and the language they are learning. To make it short, translation from L1 to L2 is a kind of practice which makes the learners use specific L2 structures accurately in order to express L1 ideas. This transformation—mental translation from L1 to L2â €”is a natural and sometimes inevitable process which is mostly experienced by the learners of lower levels. Consequently, as discussed above, the technique used in this study is a means through which learners can practice producing L2 grammatically correct sentences which enables them to perform accurately in communicative situations (Mirzaei Vaezi, 2007). Translation from L1 to L2 was not a strange process; nonetheless, it might not have been dealt with through systematic and research-based studies yet. Although the word translation and even mother tongue has been abominated by many so-called innovatory-oriented teachers, this study demonstrated that there are judicious ways in which language teachers can use mother tongue, in general, and translation from L1 to L2, in particular, in their instruction with the purpose of improving learners proficiency. In addition, mother tongue is truly a very rich source of linguistic knowledge with which any L2 learner is already equipped, and it does not seem reasonable to deprive our learners from using this recourse at the expense of exercising an English-only atmosphere in our classrooms. Therefore, it can be suggested that teachers be familiarized with advantages of using learners mother tongue in EFL/ESL classrooms and they should be reasonably given enough leeway to use this resource constructively. In particular, language teachers can use the technique presented in this study, i.e. using translation from L1 to L2, as a communicative task to promote their learners linguistic accuracy. Therefore, it seems reasonable to allocate some time to the training of teachers in this regard (Mirzaei Vaezi, 2007). Schweers (1999) had done a research on the attitudes toward the use of Spanish in the English classroom among the students and the teachers in Puerto Rican. A high percentage (88.7%) of the student participants in this study felt that Spanish should be used in their English classes. All of the teachers reported using Spanish to some degree. Approximately 99 percent of the students responded that they like their teachers to use only English in the classroom. Very noticeable is the 86 percent of students who would like Spanish used to explain difficult concepts. Only 22 percent of teachers saw this as an appropriate use. Students also responded notably higher than teachers on the following uses for Spanish: to help students feel more comfortable and confident, to check comprehension, and to define new vocabulary items. Neither students nor teachers saw a use for the L1 in testing. A notable percentage of students would like Spanish to be used in English class either between 10 and 39 p ercent of the time. A sizeable number of students like the use of Spanish because it helps them when they feel lost. About 87 percent of students feel Spanish facilitates their learning of English between â€Å"a little† and â€Å"a lot,† and about 57 percent think it helps from â€Å"fairly much† to â€Å"a lot.† These results showed that in English classes in a Puerto Rican university, Spanish should be used to some degree. Students feel there are clear cases where Spanish will facilitate their comprehension of what is happening in class. A majority also agree that the use of Spanish helps them to learn English. Studying students reactions to the use of the L1 in English classes, Terence Doyle (1997), in his presentation at TESOL 97, reported that students in a study he conducted claimed that the L1 was used approximately 90 percent of the time in their classes. Some 65 percent of these students preferred the use of the L1 in their classes sometimes or often. While the first figure is comparable to the one he found in his study, the second is higher than the percentage in his study. Romstedt (2000) had conducted a research of the effects of L1 Pre-writing discussion on ESL writing. The subjects of the study were thirty five graduate and undergraduate students, both male and female representing six native languages at two different levels of intensive English instruction. The general conclusi Native Language in Foreign Language Learning Native Language in Foreign Language Learning 1.1 Introduction The debate over whether English language classrooms should include or exclude students native language has been a controversial issue for a long time (Brown, 2000). Although the use of mother tongue was banned by the supporters of the Direct Method at the end of the nineteenth century, the positive role of the mother tongue has recurrently been acknowledged as a rich resource which, if used judiciously, can assist second language learning and teaching (Cook, 2001). Therefore, this research study tries to open up a new horizon for English instructors to find a thoughtful way to use learners mother tongue in second language teaching. The technique in which L1 was used in this study was translation from L1 to L2, a technique which was rarely used by EFL teachers. Atkinson (1987) was one of the first and chief advocates of mother tongue use in the communicative classroom. He points out the methodological gap in the literature concerning the use of the mother tongue and argues a case in favour of its restricted and principled use, mainly in accuracy-oriented tasks. In his article, Atkinson (1987) clearly stated that translation to the target language which emphasizes a recently taught language item is a means to reinforce structural, conceptual and sociolinguistic differences between the native and target languages. In his view, even though this activity is not communicative, it aims at improving accuracy of the newly learned structures. Similarly, this research aimed at investigating the effect of translation from L1 to L2 on the accurate use of the structures. The arguments in supports of using the learners mother tongue in L2 instruction clearly reveal that not only doesnt the use of first language have a negative impact on L2 learning, but it can be factor to help students improve the way they learn a second language. Although the English Only paradigm continues to be dominant in communicative language teaching , research into teacher practice reveals that the L1 is used as a learning resource in many ESL classes (Auerbach, 1993). Auerbach added that when the native language was used, practitioners, researchers, and learners consistently report positive results. Furthermore, he identifies the following uses of mother tongue in the classroom: classroom management, language analysis and presenting rules that govern grammar, discussing cross-cultural issues, giving instructions or prompts, explaining errors, and checking comprehension. Although the provision of maximum L2 exposure to the learners seems essential, L1 can be used alongside L2 as a complement. In this regard, Turnbull (2001) stated that maximizing the target language use does not and should not mean that it is harmful for the teacher to use the L1. â€Å"a principle that promotes maximal teacher use of the target language acknowledges that the L1 and target language can exist simultaneously (p. 153). Similarly, Stern (1992) stated that the use of L1 and target language should be seen as complementary, depending on the characteristics and stages of the language learning process (p. 285). On the other hand, overuse of L1 will naturally reduce the amount of exposure to L2. Therefore, attempt should be made to keep a balance between L1 and L2 use. In this regard, Turnbull (2001) acknowledges that although it is efficient to make a quick switch to the L1 to ensure, for instance, whether students understand a difficult grammar concept or an unknown word, it is crucial for teachers to use the target language as much as possible in contexts in which students spend only short periods of time in class, and when they have little contact with the target language outside the classroom. 1.2 Background to the problem The Integrated Secondary School Curriculum or Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM) was planned in accordance with the National Education Philosophy. The main goal of KBSM was based on the integrated self-development with orientation towards society or nation (Mak Soon Sang, 2003). Four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing are incorporated in the English syllabus proficiency in order to meet their needs to use English in everyday life, for knowledge acquisition, and for future workplace needs (Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia, 2000). My personal experience as a learner has shown me that moderate and judicious use of the mother tongue can aid and facilitate the learning and teaching of the target language, a view shared by many colleagues of mine. However the value of using the mother tongue is a neglected topic in the TESL methodology literature. This omission, together with the widely advocated principle that the native language should not be used in the second language classroom, makes most teachers, experienced or not, feels uneasy about using L1 or permitting its use in the classroom, even when there is a need to do so. How do students and teachers look at this issue? Schweers (1999) conducted a study with EFL students and their teachers in a Spanish context to investigate their attitudes toward using L1 and in the L2 classroom. His result indicates that the majority of students and teachers agreed that Spanish should be used in the EFL classroom (Schweers 1999). Inspired by his research and driven by my own interest, the researcher decided to carry out a similar study on the use of the native language (Malay) in the Malaysian context. However, differences exist between Schweers study and mine. 1.3. Statement of the problem Many rural school students have difficulty in understanding English, and they have often found it difficult to read English books on their own (Ratnawati and Ismail, 2003). Students lack of proficiency in English deprives them of the opportunities open to those who are able to use the language well. Recently, the teaching and learning of English has been discussed widely in Malaysia. This is because the low level of English proficiency among students hinders them from acquiring knowledge globally. Students L1 are being use in the ESL classroom especially in the rural area to help them understand English better and find out if it is an effective teaching and learning tool. Because of the students difficulty in understanding the language, teachers need to assist them thoroughly in the learning process. With the using of the L1, this will gain their interest to stay focus in the class and not being de-motivated in learning the target language. The prohibition of the native language would maximize the effectiveness of learning the target language will be a question that we need to find out. 1.4. Purposes of the study The purpose of the study is to determine whether the L1 (Malay language) are use frequently in the rural ESL classroom. The important of this study is to find out whether L1 works as an effective teaching and learning instrument. 1.5. Research questions Research questions for this study are; How frequent the Malay language was used in the Malaysian English classroom and for what purposes? Can prohibition of L1 (Malay language) maximize the interest of using English in the classroom? What are the perception of the students and the teachers towards using Malay in the English classroom? 1.6. Theoretical For this study, the researcher referred to the theory of SLA that interrelated set of hypothesis or claims about how people become proficient in a second language. In a summary of research findings on SLA, Lightbown (1985: 176-180) made the following claims: Adults and adolescents can â€Å"acquire† a second language. The learner creates a systematic inter-language that is often characterized by the same language as the first language, as well as others that appear to be based on the learners own native language. There are predictable sequences in acquisition so that certain structures have to be acquired before others can be integrated. Practice does not make perfect. Knowing language rule does not mean one will be able to use it in communicative interaction. Isolated explicit error correction is usually effective in changing language behavior. For most adult learners, acquisition stop-â€Å"fossilizes†-before the learner has achieved native-like mastery of the target language. One cannot achieve native-like or non native-like command of a second language in one hour a day. The learners task is enormous because language is enormously complex. A learners ability to understand language in a meaningful context exceeds his or her ability to comprehend de-contextualized language and to produce language of comparable complexity and accuracy. The hypothesis will be the first tool for the measurement of how the students in the rural ESL classroom comprehend with target language. Learning is a long life process so the students need a proper guide to lead them in gaining the language proficiency. There are some modifications that need to be made in using these hypotheses so it will be suit to the learners need in the rural area. There are some mistakes that made by the learners that due to interference from their first language and the learners errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits. The acquisition-learning hypothesis Stephen Krashen (1977) claimed that adult second language learners have two means for internalizing the target language. The first is â€Å"acquisition†, a subconscious and intuitive process of constructing the system of a language. The second means is a conscious â€Å"learning† process in which learners attend to form, figure out rules, and are generally aware of their own process. According to Krashen, â€Å"fluency in second language performance is due to what we have acquired, not what we have learned† (1981a:99). Adults should, therefore, do as much acquiring as possible in order to achieve communicative fluency; otherwise, they will get bogged of language and to watching their own progress. For Krashen (1982), our conscious learning processes and our subconscious process mutually exclusive: learning cannot become acquisition. This claim of no interface between acquisition and learning is used to strengthen the argument for recommending large doses of acqui sition activity in the classroom, with only a very minor role assigned to learning. The input hypothesis Krashens claims that an important â€Å"condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understand (via hearing or reading input language that contains structure a bit beyond his or her current level of competence†¦..if an acquirer is at stage or level i , the input he or she understands should contain i +1† (Krashen1981:100). In other words, the language that learners are exposed to should be just far enough beyond their current competence that they can understand most of it but still challenged to make progress. The corollary to this is that input should neither be so far beyond their reach that they are overwhelmed (this might be, say, i + 2) nor so close to their current stage that they are not challenged at all (i + 0). Important parts of the Input Hypothesis are recommendation that speaking not be though directly or very early in the language classroom. Speech will be emerging once the acquirer has built up enough comprehensible input ( i + 1). Success in a foreign language can be attributed to input alone. Such a theory ascribes little credit to learners and their own active engagement in the process. Moreover, it is important to distinguish between input and intake. Intake is what you take with you over a period of time and can later remember. Krashen (1983) did suggest that input gets converted to knowledge through a learners current internalized rule system and the new input. The application of these theories will help the study in measuring how effective the use of L1 in the ESL classroom based on the prior knowledge of the participants and in what way the theories will help the researches defines the result of the studies. Motivation Theory Various definitions of motivation have been proposed over decades of research and three different perspectives emerge: From a behaviourist perspective, motivation was seen in matter of fact terms. It is quite simply the anticipation or reward. Driven to acquire positive reinforcement, and driven by previous reinforcement, and driven by previous experiences of reward for behaviour, we act accordingly to achieve further reinforcement. In this view, our acts are likely to be at the mercy of external forces. In cognitive terms, motivation places much more emphasis on the individuals decisions. Ausubel (1968:368-379), for example, identified six needs undergirding the construct of motivation: a. The need for exploration, for seeing the other side of the mountain, for probing the unknown; b. The need for manipulation, for operating- to use Skinners term- on the environment and causing change; c. The need for activity, for movement and exercise, both physical and mental; d. The need for stimulation, the need to be stimulated by the environment, by the other people, or by ideas, thoughts, and feelings; e. The need for knowledge, the need to process and internalize the result of exploration, manipulation, activity, and stimulation, to resolve contradictions, to quest for solutions to problems and for self consistent systems of knowledge; f. Finally, the need for ego enhancement, for the self to be known and to be accepted and approved by others. 3) A constructivist view of motivation places even further emphasis on social context as well as individual person choices (Williams Burden 1997:120). Each person is motivated differently, and will therefore act on his or her environment in ways that are unique. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Edward Deci (1975:23) defined intrinsic motivation: â€Å"Intrinsically motivated activities are ones for which there is no apparent reward except the activity itself. People seem to engage in the activities for their own sake and not because they lead to an extrinsic reward†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.intrinsically motivated behaviours are aimed at bringing about certain internally rewarding consequences, namely, feelings of competence and self determination†. Extrinsically motivated behaviours, on the other hand, are carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self. Behaviours initiated solely to avoid punishment are also extrinsically motivated, even though numerous intrinsic benefits can ultimately accrue to those who instead, view punishment avoidance as a challenge that can build their sense of competence and self determination. The intrinsic and extrinsic continuum in motivation is applicable to foreign language classrooms and around the world. Regardless of the cultural beliefs and attitudes of learners and teachers, intrinsic and extrinsic factors can be easily identified (Dornyei and Csizer 1998). During the classroom observations, the researcher will identify whether the teacher use this kind of method. If the students communicate with their L1, should the teacher give a punishment or give them the motivation to communicate with L1 as long it will help the students to understand the whole lesson. 1.7. Significance of the study It is hope that the study will: Help all the teachers in selecting the best method in teaching the ESL classroom especially in the rural area. Determine the appropriateness of using the Malay in the ESL classroom. Enable the teacher to realize the important of using the L1 in the ESL classroom at the rural area. Help the students to gain their interest in learning the target language by giving them the opportunity to use their L1 while learning ESL. 1.8. Limitation of the study This study was undertaken with the following limitations; The small sample clearly does not represent the whole population of students in SMK in Felda Gedangsa. The sample taken is 40 students from one class in Felda Gedangsa. The reliability and validity of the survey instruments may be questioned. The questionnaire is not based on any existing survey instrument, which had been tested and/ or certified in terms of reliability and validity. The questionnaire is developed specifically for this study. The time constrain will limit the quality of the study. SMK Felda Gedangsa is situated in Ulu Selangor district and about 30KM from UPSI. It will take a long time in doing this study. The students level of proficiency is at the lower level and they will need help in understanding the questionnaires. 1.9. Summary Understanding of English is crucial for every student in the ESL classroom. Without a proper guide from the teacher, they will lose their motivation in learning. Teacher need to be ready with a proper methods and teaching skills and should not ignore the use of L1 in the classroom. With the lacking of vocabulary and understanding towards certain aspects in the learning process, surely the use of L1 in the classroom should be considered to guide the students. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1. Introduction This paper provides a review of the literature on students L1 are being used in the ESL classroom especially in the rural area and find out if it is an effective teaching and learning tool. There are several studies which are significance to the focus of this study. The summaries of previous work related to the hypothesis of the study are listed below. Long (1985, 1996), adapted the input Hypothesis to include interaction. His modified Input Hypothesis (1996) focuses on negotiation of meaning that occurs when communication breaks down. It proposes that oral input that is simplified through interactional modification is more successful than non-interactionally modified input in promoting learner comprehension, which in turn facilitates language acquisition. This hypothesis claims that the modified output produced by learners who are interacting in order to negotiate meaning can also aid acquisition. In this view, which gives importance to input that has been simplified through interaction, there is a possible role for the use of the learners L1 in the interactive input. Modified must give the learner information related to the linguistic form that were problematic and the use of the L1 is a potential source of this critical information (Gillis, 2007). 2.2. Close studies on the Using of L1 in the ESL Classroom Research on the usage of the L1 in the ESL classroom is a vital has demonstrated that L1 are not only effective but necessary for adult ESL students with limited L1 literacy or schooling and that use of students linguistic resources can be beneficial at all levels of ESL (Auerbach 1993). Auerbach (1993), performed a research on the topic of â€Å"Do you believe that ESL students should be allowed to use their L1 in the ESL classroom†? Only 20% of the respondents gave an unqualified yes to the question; 30% gave an unqualified no, (with comments such as, Its a school policy and No but its hard); the remaining 50% said sometimes (with comments such as Usually not, but if I have tried several times to explain something in English and a student still doesnt understand, then I allow another student who speaks the same language to explain in that language; Theyre going to do it anyway; As a last resort). The essence of these comments is captured by the following response In general ESL students should be encouraged to use English as much as possible, but in reality this doesnt always work. Thus, despite the fact that 80% of the teachers allowed the use of the L1 at times, the English only axiom is so strong that they didnt trust their own practice. On the flip side, when the native language is used, practitioners, researchers, and learners consistently report positive results. Rivera (1990) outlines various models for incorporating the L1 into instruction, including initial literacy in the L1 (with or without simultaneous but separate ESL classes) and bilingual instruction (where both languages are utilized within one class). The first benefit of such programs at the beginning levels is that they attract previously un-served studentsstudents who had been unable to participate in ESL classes because of limited L1 literacy and schooling. Further, contrary to the claim that use of the L1 will slow the transition to and impede the development of thinking in English, numerous accounts suggest that it may actually facilitate this process. Shamash (1990), for example, describes an approach to teaching ESL used at the Invergarry Learning Center near Vancouver which might be considered heretical by some: Students start by writing about their lives in their L1 or a mixture of their L1 and English; this text is then translated into English with the help of bilingual tutors or learners and, as such, provides a natural bridge for overcoming problems of vocabulary, sentence structure and language confidence. At a certain point in the learning process, according to Shamash, the learner is willing to experiment and take risks with English. Thus, starting with the L1 provides a sense of security and validates the learners lived experiences, allowing them to express themselves while at the same time providing meaningful written material to work with. This research had shows us that the usage of L1 in the ESL classroom is sometimes considered as vital because of the students level of proficiency. Tang (2002), based on her studies, â€Å"Using the mother tongue in the Chinese EFL classroom† bear many similarities to Schweers (1999) study in a Spanish context. Both studies indicate that the mother tongue was used by the majority of teachers investigated, and both students and teachers responded positively toward its use. Minor discrepancies exist concerning the occasions when the L1 should be used. Some of these differences can be accounted for by the participants different levels of L2 language proficiency. The teachers participating in this study indicated that the translation of some words, complex ideas, or even whole passages is a good way to learn a foreign language. Her observation of the three classes suggests that without translation, learners would be likely to make unguided and often incorrect translations. This study also reveals that in the EFL classes observed Chinese plays only a supportive and facilitating role. The chief medium of communication in the class is still English. As with any other classroom technique, the use of the mother tongue is only a means to the end of improving foreign language proficiency. She agreed with the majority of student participants (about 63 percent combined) that no more than 10 percent of class time should be spent using Chinese. In her experience, this percentage decreases as the students English proficiency increases. Of course, a translation course would be an exception. Unlike Schweers student participants, the students in the present study are highly motivated to learn English. As English majors in the university, their English language proficiency is regarded as a symbol of their identity and a route to future academic and employment opportunities. Few of them feel that English is imposed on them or regard the use of English as a threat to their identity. Instead, they generally prefer greater or exclusive use of English in the classroom. In their view, Chinese should be used only when necessary to help them learn English better. The research seems to show that limited and judicious use of the mother tongue in the English classroom does not reduce students exposure to English, but rather can assist in the teaching and learning processes (Tang, 2002). Strohmeyer and McGrail (1988) found that allowing for the exploration of ideas in the L1 served to enhance students ESL writing. When students were given the choice of writing first in Spanish, they went on to write pieces in English that were considerably more developed than their usual ESL writing. These findings from practice are supported by Garcias (1991) more formal research on effective instructional practices which found that (a) academically successful students made the transition from Spanish to English without any pressure from teachers; and (b) they were able to progress systematically from writing in the native language in initial literacy to writing in English later. A recent study by Osburne and Harss-Covaleski (1991) suggested that the widely frowned upon practice of writing first in the L1 and then translating into the L2 is not harmful to the quality of the written product. They cite the conventional wisdom that students should be discouraged from translating as this will cause them to make more errors, result in rhetorically inappropriate texts, and distract them from thinking in Englishand that all these factors would negatively affect the quality of their writing. To investigate the validity of this claim, they compared ESL compositions written directly in English with others written first in the L1 and then translated into English; their results indicated no significant difference in the quality or quantity of the written products. They conclude, It seems then that there is no need for teachers to become overly anxious if students choose to employ translation as a composing strategy at times. Friedlander (1990) cited numerous other studie s reporting the beneficial effects of using the L1 for L2 composing; his own study provides further support for L1 use in planning ESL writing when knowledge of the topic has been acquired in the L1. Mirzaei Vaezi (2007), had been conducted the study of the effect of using translation from L1 to L2 as a teaching technique on the improvement of EFL Learners Linguistic Accuracy- Focus on form. Based on the results obtained from the statistical analyses in the study, it was discovered that the idea of the effectiveness of using translation from L1 to L2 as a teaching technique to improve a group of Iranian EFL learners linguistic accuracy was supported. Therefore, it can be concluded that translating form L1 to L2, using specific structures, can enhance learners linguistic accuracy within the scope of those structures. It also manifests that learners mother tongue is not a useless element in second or foreign language learning. In other words, mother tongue, if used purposefully and systematically, can have a constructive role in teaching other languages. In effect, the purpose of the present study was to join the three vertices of the triangle i.e., first language, translation, an d focus on form. Moreover, it can be claimed that translating sentences form L1 to L2, if selected purposefully, can push learners to use specific structures accurately when producing utterances in the second language. This mental practice in transforming an idea from mother language to the second language helps the learner tackle the psycho-linguistic challenge they have to face in producing second language in real life situations. Nevertheless, when utilizing this teaching technique, the learners should be bewared about the structural differences existing between languages which may cause negative interference from their L1. In other words, learners should be warned that there is not always a structural correspondence between their first language and the language they are learning. To make it short, translation from L1 to L2 is a kind of practice which makes the learners use specific L2 structures accurately in order to express L1 ideas. This transformation—mental translation from L1 to L2â €”is a natural and sometimes inevitable process which is mostly experienced by the learners of lower levels. Consequently, as discussed above, the technique used in this study is a means through which learners can practice producing L2 grammatically correct sentences which enables them to perform accurately in communicative situations (Mirzaei Vaezi, 2007). Translation from L1 to L2 was not a strange process; nonetheless, it might not have been dealt with through systematic and research-based studies yet. Although the word translation and even mother tongue has been abominated by many so-called innovatory-oriented teachers, this study demonstrated that there are judicious ways in which language teachers can use mother tongue, in general, and translation from L1 to L2, in particular, in their instruction with the purpose of improving learners proficiency. In addition, mother tongue is truly a very rich source of linguistic knowledge with which any L2 learner is already equipped, and it does not seem reasonable to deprive our learners from using this recourse at the expense of exercising an English-only atmosphere in our classrooms. Therefore, it can be suggested that teachers be familiarized with advantages of using learners mother tongue in EFL/ESL classrooms and they should be reasonably given enough leeway to use this resource constructively. In particular, language teachers can use the technique presented in this study, i.e. using translation from L1 to L2, as a communicative task to promote their learners linguistic accuracy. Therefore, it seems reasonable to allocate some time to the training of teachers in this regard (Mirzaei Vaezi, 2007). Schweers (1999) had done a research on the attitudes toward the use of Spanish in the English classroom among the students and the teachers in Puerto Rican. A high percentage (88.7%) of the student participants in this study felt that Spanish should be used in their English classes. All of the teachers reported using Spanish to some degree. Approximately 99 percent of the students responded that they like their teachers to use only English in the classroom. Very noticeable is the 86 percent of students who would like Spanish used to explain difficult concepts. Only 22 percent of teachers saw this as an appropriate use. Students also responded notably higher than teachers on the following uses for Spanish: to help students feel more comfortable and confident, to check comprehension, and to define new vocabulary items. Neither students nor teachers saw a use for the L1 in testing. A notable percentage of students would like Spanish to be used in English class either between 10 and 39 p ercent of the time. A sizeable number of students like the use of Spanish because it helps them when they feel lost. About 87 percent of students feel Spanish facilitates their learning of English between â€Å"a little† and â€Å"a lot,† and about 57 percent think it helps from â€Å"fairly much† to â€Å"a lot.† These results showed that in English classes in a Puerto Rican university, Spanish should be used to some degree. Students feel there are clear cases where Spanish will facilitate their comprehension of what is happening in class. A majority also agree that the use of Spanish helps them to learn English. Studying students reactions to the use of the L1 in English classes, Terence Doyle (1997), in his presentation at TESOL 97, reported that students in a study he conducted claimed that the L1 was used approximately 90 percent of the time in their classes. Some 65 percent of these students preferred the use of the L1 in their classes sometimes or often. While the first figure is comparable to the one he found in his study, the second is higher than the percentage in his study. Romstedt (2000) had conducted a research of the effects of L1 Pre-writing discussion on ESL writing. The subjects of the study were thirty five graduate and undergraduate students, both male and female representing six native languages at two different levels of intensive English instruction. The general conclusi

Case study on the Hoover Dam :: essays research papers fc

Before Hoover Dam After By- Balaji.T.K, CE02B011 CONTENTS No  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Description  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Page no 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hoover dam –an Introduction  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Requirements posed by structural design  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  2 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Requirements posed by other details  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  6 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Type of Concrete  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  7 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Guidelines for Mix design  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  9 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Fabrication and Installation  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  10 7.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Formwork  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  11 8.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cooling of concrete  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  12 9.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Temperature control of Mass Concrete  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  12 10.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Quality Assurance  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  13 11.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Bibliography  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  14   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hoover Dam- an Introduction! It still stands tall as an engineering marvel high above the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada. Hoover Dam attracts over 7 million visitors from around the new world every year feeding vast tourism into the Las Vegas Nevada and Arizona economy. The building of Hoover Dam took the brilliance of over 200 engineers to pull-off what many deemed as almost impossible. And it was the fortitude of over 7,000 dam workers that endured amazingly harsh conditions and extreme dangers to complete Hoover Dam almost two years ahead of schedule The Mission of the Dam: 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Flooding along the Colorado River as it made its way to the Gulf of California had to be controlled. 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The water-flow had to be harnessed to provide much needed water to the fertile, yet arid agricultural areas of California and Arizona. 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hydroelectric energy was to satisfy the requirements of millions and millions of people in adjacent regions. Some Statistics About the dimensions of the dam: Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall and 1,244 feet long. At its base, Hoover Dam is 660 feet thick which is 60 feet longer than two football fields laid end-to-end. Combined with its top thickness of 45 feet, there is enough concrete (4.5 million cubic yards) in Hoover Dam to build a two-lane highway from Seattle Washington to Miami Florida. Or imagine a four-foot wide sidewalk around Earth at its equator. A scenic by-product of Hoover Dam is the gigantic reservoir of Lake Mead, a stunningly beautiful water recreation wonderland. This boating, sailing, fishing and house-boating paradise attracts over 10 million visitors a year. Lake Mead covers 550 miles of majestic shoreline and 247 square miles of area which is twice the size of Rhode Island. Its capacity of 1 1/4 trillion cubic feet of water would cover the entire state of Pennsylvania one foot deep. Requirements for concrete posed by Structural design: The Hoover Dam is an arch dam. Arch dams transmit most of the horizontal thrust of the water stored behind them to the abutments by arch action and hence thinner cross sections are sufficient (compared to the massive cross-sections of the gravity dams). Narrow V-shaped canyons(just like the Black canyon where the Hoover dam was constructed) will be suited for locating arch dams since they can withstand the thrust produced by the arch section.