Friday, March 20, 2020

How to Avoid Failing a College Class Even if You Dont Like It

How to Avoid Failing a College Class Even if You Dont Like It We’ve all been there. You sign up for a course that looked really great in the catalog, but once you actually start getting into it you realise it is nothing like you expected it to be. Or, maybe you find yourself having to take a mandatory class as part of a longer college course that you definitely would not have picked if you had any choice. Whatever the reason, you are in a situation where you are taking a class you really do not like! Aside from a lack of enjoyment, the big concern here is that you are now in danger of failing a college class! It is a lot more difficult to pass or to even focus on the work when you are not engaged with the subject! Let’s take a look at a few tips and tricks that will help you learn how to avoid failing a college class even if you don’t like it! Talk to Your Professor Sometimes the reason you are failing a college class can be things that would actually be incredibly easy to fix! If you are struggling, then the first step should be to talk to your professor. Let them know that you are struggling and are aware of your poor grades but want to do better. They may be able to help you pinpoint exactly why you are failing and offer advice on how to turn things around. They might offer: to revise a particularly tricky part of the course with you point you in the direction of a great tutor extend homework deadlines or even give you some extra credit projects to help claw back some grades. Remember, it is in your professor’s best interests for you to pass their class, so most of them will do whatever they can to help you succeed if you genuinely do want to pass but you must be willing to demonstrate genuine effort. Don’t expect them to give you a free ride without having to do any additional work. Evaluate Your Priorities When you are a college student, coursework is not always your first priority! You are not alone in this, we have all blown off a study session in favour of a dorm party! However, if you are failing a college class then you may need to spend some time revaluating your priorities. Cut back on the amount of time you are spending on extra-curricular activities to free up more time for studying. If you have a part time job you might want to drop one of your shifts or say no to overtime so you have more time to concentrate on classes. Finally, as difficult as it may be you will also need to cut back on the socializing. Now, we are not suggesting you spend every waking minute hitting the books, everyone needs to blow off some steam from time to time! However, you do need to find some balance. Save the partying for after you have handed in your assignments, maybe even treat it as a reward for all of your hard work! Join or Form a Study Group Sometimes, one of the best ways to avoid failing a college class is to lean on your peers for support. Join a study group or go about forming one of your own with a few of your classmates. Explain that you are struggling, and you will likely find that most of them are willing to lend you a little support. This could mean trying to explain things in a different way, so you can understand it better, or it could be looking over your notes and assignments to point out where you might be going wrong. Sometimes just getting a different perspective on things can totally change your outlook. Maybe your professor isn’t explaining things in a way you can grasp, but one of your friends can make you see what they were getting at by using a different method. Consider Withdrawing from the Class If you really can’t turn things around and it looks like you are definitely going to failing a college class then as a last resort you might want to consider withdrawing from the class. This is only going to work if its not a mandatory class for your course. However, if you don’t desperately need the class then having a withdrawal on your transcript rather than a fail is the lesser of two evils. Withdrawing is not going to affect your GPA the way a fail would. Each college has its own rules and cut off dates, so if this is something you are considering make sure to talk with a student advisor as soon as possible, but we do recommend exploring all of the other options first! Why Not Use an Essay Writing Service? When you are not enjoying a college class it can make writing essay assignments for it particularly challenging. Of course, if you can’t complete your papers then you are definitely going to struggle to pass the class! That’s why we would recommend using EssayTigers to help pull those grades up and avoid failing a college class. EssayTigers company employs experienced academic writers who can produce a quality essay that will earn you a good grade. Of course, it could get expensive to buy every assignment, but once you have a few you could use them as reference guides to help you complete your own papers. In conclusion, we understand how difficult it can be to do well in a class that you really are not enjoying. However, if you are willing to put in a little extra effort there are ways to failing a college class. Hopefully some of the techniques described above will be useful to you, but don’t forget that you have a student advisor for a reason and they can offer you lots of great advice and support.

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

The English Language as Spoken in Pakistan

The English Language as Spoken in Pakistan In the country of Pakistan, English is a co-official language with Urdu. Linguist Tom McArthur reports that English is used as a second language by a national minority of c.3 million in a population of c.133 million (The Oxford Guide to World English, 2002). The slang term Pinglish is sometimes used as an informal (and often unflattering) synonym for Pakistani English. Examples and Observations: English in PakistanPakistani Englishshares the broad characteristics of South Asian English in general and is similar to that spoken in contiguous regions of northern India. As in many former British colonies, English first enjoyed the status of an official language alongside Urdu after independence in 1947...The grammatical features . . . [of] Indian English are largely shared by Pakistani English. Interference stemming from background languages is common and switching between these languages and English occurs frequently on all levels of society.Vocabulary. As might be expected, loans from the various indigenous languages of Pakistan are to be found in local forms of English, e.g. atta flour, ziarat religious place....There are also word formations consisting of hybrids and blends with inflectional elements from English and stems from regional languages, e.g. goondaism hooliganism, thuggish behaviour, biradarism favouring ones clan.Still further word-formation processes are atteste d in Pakistani English with outcomes which are not necessarily known outside this country. Back-formation: to scrute from scrutiny; blends: telemoot from television and moot meeting; conversion: to aircraft, to arson, to change sheet; compounds: to airdash depart quickly by air, to head-carry.(Raymond Hickey, South Asian Englishes. Legacies of Colonial English: Studies in Transported Dialects, ed. by Raymond Hickey. Cambridge University Press, 2004) SubvarietiesLinguists generally describe the three or four subvarieties [of Pakistani English] in terms of proximity to the British Standard: the samples most distant from itand any other varietyare often regarded as genuinely Pakistani. American English, which has gradually infiltrated the spoken and written idiom, is discounted in most studies.(Alamgir Hashmi, Language [Pakistan]. Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, 2nd ed., edited by Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly. Routledge, 2005)The Importance of English in PakistanEnglish is . . . an important medium in a number of key educational institutions, is the main language of technology and international business, has a major presence in the media, and is a key means of communication among a national elite. The constitution and the laws of the land are codified in English.(Tom McArthur, The Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford University Press, 2002)English and Urdu in PakistanIn some ways, I have a lover’s qu arrel with the English language. I live with it and I cherish this relationship. But there is often this feeling that in preserving this bond, I have betrayed my first love and my childhood’s passionUrdu. And it is not possible to be equally faithful to both of them. . . .A bit subversive it may be deemed but my contention [is] that English is . . . a barrier to our progress because it reinforces class division and undermines the main purpose of education as an equaliser. In fact, the domination of English in our society may also have contributed to the growth of religious militancy in the country. Whether English should be our official language, in spite of its value as a means of communication with the rest of the world, is surely a major issue . . ..At the heart of all this discussion, of course, is education in all its dimensions. The rulers, supposedly, are very serious about it. Their challenge is to realise the slogan of ‘education for all.’ But, as the â €˜policy dialogue’ would suggest, it should not just be education for all but quality education for all so that we can truly be liberated. Where do English and Urdu belong in this venture?(Ghazi Salahuddin, Between Two Languages. The International News, March 30, 2014) Code Switching: English and Urdu[T]he use of English words in Urducode switching for linguistsis not an indication of not knowing the two languages. If anything, it may be an indication of knowing both languages. First, one switches code for many reasons, not just lack of control of languages. Indeed, code switching has always been going on whenever two or more languages have come in contact. . .People who do research on code switching point out that people do it to emphasize certain aspects of identity; to show informality; to show easy command of several languages and to impress and dominate others. Depending on the situation, one can be humble, friendly, arrogant or snobbish through the way one mixes languages. Of course, it is also true that one may know so little English that one cannot manage to sustain a conversation in it and has to fall back upon Urdu. That might well be the case but that is not the only reason for code switching. And if someone does not know English and fal ls back upon Urdu, then he or she knows Urdu best. It is still untrue to argue that this person does not know any language. Not knowing literary Urdu is one thing; not knowing the spoken language quite another.(Dr. Tariq Rahman, Mixing Languages. The Express Tribune, March 30, 2014) Pronunciation in Pinglish[S]oftware designer Adil Najam . . . took time to define Pinglish, which according to him, emerges when English words are mixed with words of a Pakistani languageusually, but not solely, Urdu.Pinglish is not just getting the construction of the sentences wrong, but also about pronunciation.Many Pakistanis often have trouble when two consonants appear together without a vowel in between. The word school is often mispronounced as either sakool or iskool, depending on whether your native tongue is Punjabi or Urdu, pointed out blogger Riaz Haq.Commonplace words such as automatic is aatucmatuc in Pinglish, while genuine is geniean and current is krunt. Some words also take a plural form such as roadien for roads, exceptionein for exception and classein for classes.(Get Set for Pakistani English or ‘Pinglish. The Indian Express, July 15, 2008)