Words have Power-Choose them carefully.

Words have Power

-Choose them carefully.

‘Son of Blind is Blind’ (Andhey Ka Beta Andha)

Just four carelessly chosen words by Draupdi resulted in the mother of all wars:

Mahabhatra.

Legend has it that when an angry Duryodhan was speedily walking out of Palace of Illusion, he accidentally fell into a water body. (In palace of illusion water body looked like dry surface and dry surface looked like water body).

A furious Duryodhan turns around and sees Draupadi laughing at him. She said sarcastically “Andhe ka Beta Andha” (son of blind is blind)” as Duryodha was son of the blind king-Dhritrashtra. Duryodhan left in a rage and vowed to take revenge.

This led to Duryodhan to try to disrobe Draupdi when he had won her in a game of dice.

These are two major incidences which eventually led to the war between Pandvas and Kuarvas-

War of Mahabharta.

The words we use can result in motivating others, they can lead to irritating others and the words we use can also invite action. Hence, one must exercise special care in choosing words, because:

Do you know which words can invite action, which words can irritate, and which words can motivate? Given below are the words which can invite action, motivate others or even irritate others.

Words which invite action:

·         You, your

·         Money

·         Save

·         Guaranteed

·         Health

·         Safety

·         Love

·         Discover

·         Proven

·         New

·         Results

·         Benefit

·         Easy

·         Service

Words which Irritate

·         Understand?

·         Get the point?

·         See what I mean?

·         You don’t say.

·         Not really.

·         I, me, mine, my.

·         I’ll tell you what.

·         Old friend.

·         Hey Pal.

Words which Motivate

·         Will you help me?

·         I am sorry.

·         It was my fault.

·         Thank you.

·         I am proud of you.

·         Help me to understand this.

·         You are very kind.

·         I beg your pardon.

·         It has been real pleasure.

Words which Probe

·         What is your idea?

·         What do you think?

·         Can you give example

·         What was the situation?

·         How do you feel about this?

·         What happened then?

·         Could you please explain?

·         Why do you say so?

Which words are used by you more?

Be extremely careful to choose proper words and phrases so that the receiver of our words feels motivated to carry out the action desired by you. This is also the main purpose of our communication.

Also never forget:

We conduct many English improvement and soft skills training programs both on site and on line for industries, educational institutes and individuals. We also offer a few programs like ‘Shine under Stress (Strategies to Succeed in Exams)’, ‘Seven Laws of Teaching’, ‘Student’s Behaviour Management’ etc. pro bono to educational institutes Please write to us at sarwansingh6644@gmail.com orenglishacademybaroda@gmail.com

or call (91)8866680407 for details..

by:

Sarwan Singh

@sarwan_singh

http://sarwansingh6644.blogspot.in

Employability Skills required for 21st Century

Employability Skills Required 

for Success in 21st Century

The intended learning outcome of this article is:

1.    Understand the importance of skills/competencies in 21st century and be what employers look for in employees,

2.    Identify which skills you have and how to give its evidence,

3.    Identify strategies and resources for enhancing and developing skills you want to develop.

In 21st century, technology has converted the world to a global village. Practically all the information and everybody is now just a click away. This has brought in following two major changes in which work is carried out these days:

1.    21st Century has become the century of self promotion,

2.    Work is no more the place you go to; work is the thing you do!

Positive Attitude, Communication and interpersonal skills have become the highly desirable attributes by all employers. In fact as per a research carried out by Harvard University, interpersonal skills contribute 85% towards our professional success. Contribution of our technical skills is only 15% towards our professional success. Stanford Research Institute further corroborates this finding and states that share of soft skills in our progress is 87.5%

In addition, Critical, Thinking Media, Literacy, Communication Skills, Information Literacy, Collaboration and Creativity have become other critical attributes to be successful in 21st century.

Following are the other habits of valuable employees which all employers appreciate:

15 all time desirable Habits of Valuable Employees:

1.    Good Communicator,

2.    Self Motivated,

3.    Hard Worker,

4.    Effective Leader,

5.    Team Player,

6.    Avoids Gossip,

7.    Exceeds Expectations,

8.    Self Disciplined,

9.    Honest,

10.     Dependable,

11.     Etical,

12.     Healthy,

13.     Polite,

14.     Punctual,

15.     Adaptable and Flexible.

In addition in future the working is going to change even more. Four major changes will take place in the working arena: In future work will be

1.    Transparent,

2.    Flat,

3.    Competitive,

4.    On demand

The Future of work will be transparent:

 Now time and task tracking tools track productivity in real time. Hence contribution of every single individual towards the overall objective of the organization can be measured in the go. Hence more productive a person is; more money he/she will make. Besides, it will not be possible to hide anything as it will be possible to cross verify any information/data from multiple sources in real time.

The work (organization) will be flat:

Because of advances in information technology, it has become possible for a person at any level in an organization to interact with anybody at any geographical location. Hierarchies have broken and organizations have become flat. In fact many organizations allow their employees to work from home and many other have adopted flexi working hours. In future location will become irrelevant. It will be possible to hire employees from anywhere in the world. And they will be working from any place of their choice.

The work will become more competitive

It has now become common place to hire vendors and temporary experts from anywhere in the world. Hence choice for vendors/employees is not limited to any geographical location. It is now common place for work teams to resemble movie production teams in which several people having diverse skills collaborate to make a movie. They all go their different ways once the movie is made. Innovation rather than location will be the key word in future relationships between employees and employers.

The Work will be on Demand:

In future people having specific skills and expertise rather than degrees will be more in demand. Knowledge and not formal qualification will be the key factor in hiring a person. Hence informal education will become more and more important. As every type of information and education is available on net virtually free, not having proper knowledge will not be acceptable. Hence those having experience and skills in a particular field will be more in demand as compared to people just having formal qualification.

Hence in future employers will have greater access to employees across the globe. Same way even employees will have much greater choice. Most importantly, in future the earning will be linked to the merit and experience and not to geographical location or qualification.

In conclusion 21st century worker:

. . will use technologies that haven’t been invented to do jobs that don’t exist at present,

. . will be networked,

. . will be multi-tasker,

. . will be digitally literate,

. . will crave interactivity,

. . will have strong visual-spatial skills,

. . will be tethered to the internet,

. . will want to learn things that matter,

. . will want to be challenged to reach own conclusions.

We conduct many English improvement and soft skills training programs, both on site and on line, for industries, educational institutes and individuals. We also offer a few programs like ‘Shine under Stress (Strategies to Succeed in Exams)’, ‘Seven Laws of Teaching’, ‘Student’s Behaviour Management’ etc. pro bono to educational institutes Please write to us at sarwansingh6644@gmail.com orenglishacademybaroda@gmail.com or call (91)8866680407 to know details of our programs.

Just Listen and Speak

Just Listen and Speak!

Many persons who want to speak in English hesitate to do so because they fear that they will not be able to speak correctly. Also, all of us want to know about how English, or for that matter any second language, can be learnt easily.

Many times we get answers to our questions from unlikely sources.

Like, I got answers to these questions from interviews of two Bollywood actresses, one a school drop out and second had her schooling in Europe. Given below is how it happened.

A very popular all India based radio channel runs a one hour program every Sunday afternoon. A celebrity from Bollywood is called and interviewed. In between favourite songs of the celebrity are played.

In one such program an actress from West Bengal, who is school drop out, was invited.  

When the program started the actress told the interviewer that she is not much fluent in English and that she can not express herself well in this language.

 ‘That’s OK’, Said the interviewer ‘This program in any case is in Hindi and there are billions of persons in the world who can not speak in English. So, it is no problem.’

‘But, I can not express my self well in Hindi also.’ Said the actress.

‘That’s also OK. There are millions of people in India who can not speak in Hindi. But, we have spoken to you so many times in the past and we can manage with your skill and fluency of Hindi.’ Said the interviewer.

‘Let me tell you that I can not express my self well in Bangla too.’ The actress revealed.

(Let me add here that Bangla is the mother tongue of the actress.)

Now even the interviewer was surprised and she said: ‘You say that you can not express yourself well in English and Hindi. I can understand that. But, you say that you can not express yourself well in Bangla also. How do you communicate? How do you make people understand what you want to say? Please tell us this.’

Here is the gem of an answer from the actress.

She said, ‘It is true that I can not express my self well in any of these languages. But I know one thing. I know that purpose of speaking is not to speak well or speak accurately or use impressive words. Speaking has only one purpose and it is to see that your listener understands what you want to say. And this madam I can do in all three languages.’

How true!

Purpose of speaking is not to speak well or speak accurately or use impressive words. Speaking has only one purpose and it is to see that your listener understands what you want to say.

Let’s just do that.

And, on another occasion the second actress who was being interviewed on the same program said that she can speak in about ten languages.

‘You must have worked very hard to learn these ten languages.’ Said the interviewer.

‘No, I just listened.’ Said the actress.

So, just listen!

Such useful advices coming from such unlikely sources!

So, how to learn to speak any language?

Keep in mind that purpose of speaking is not to speak well or speak accurately or use impressive words. Speaking has only one purpose and it is to see that your listener understands what you want to say.

Just do that.

and

Just listen!

by:

Sarwan Singh

@sarwan_singh

We conduct many English improvement and soft skills training programs, both on site and on line, for industries, educational institutes and individuals. We also offer a few programs like ‘Shine under Stress (Strategies to Succeed in Exams)’, ‘Seven Laws of Teaching’, ‘Student’s Behaviour Management’ etc. pro bono to educational institutes 

Please write to us at sarwansingh6644@gmail.com or englishacademybaroda@gmail.com or call (91)8866680407 to know details of our programs.

Does Grammar Help?

Does knowledge of 

grammar help in speaking English?

Almost every body who wants to learn to speak in English has this doubt. Will I be able to speak in English without first reading/learning grammar? This article answers such doubts.

Question: How grammar help in english spoken course?

Response 1:

Grammar is the soul of a language, be it English or any other language. It is possible to speak English without knowing grammar by being in the company of a native speaker, but this way you would never know the ins and outs of the English language. Mastering English grammar makes you a confident speaker and enables you to answer many language related questions

Response 2:

Spoken English doesn't need grammar.Students develop an inferiority complex when rules of grammar are applied and get confused in the bargain.One would have noticed that acumen of children is sharper that helps them pick up another language while playing with children of that language.Do we follow the rules of grammar when we speak in our own mother tongue? So my humble recommendation is to teach Spoken English to non-English medium students first.I have been sailing with different nationalities out at sea.They use simple English and convey their message.I am in the field of teaching Spoken English employing non-grammatical method which instils a lot of confidence in them to develop the required skill to converse in English.The pity which is prevailing in our system is that people good in grammar are not able to convey even a simple thought.

My response:

Let us start with the basic requirement of any language. The basic requirement of any language, especially spoken language, is simply to convey a thought. And, it is not necessary for the language to be grammatically correct for this thought to be understood by the recipient. For instance; let us take this question and above responses. Two persons above have replied to the question because they have understood the intention of the writer. But, the question itself is grammatically wrong. It should actually be: How does grammar help in Spoken English course?

Now the answer to the question: Does grammar help in speaking English or for that matter any language? Yes, it does. And, what is grammar? Grammar is simply like traffic rules of the language.And, rules are same for everybody.  Following the traffic rules makes flow of traffic smooth and not following it will result in accident. Grammar basically simply tells us how words should be arranged in a sentence so that the recipient can understand your message easily.Not following rule of grammar makes it difficult for the recipient to understand our message thus defeating the very purpose of communication.

But, the real question is: Will a person whose first language is not English be able to speak English confidently and fluently without being taught grammar (I repeat taught grammar in a classroom)? 

The answer is- YES, ABSOLUTELY.

Why? Because, we learn to speak a language by listening to it, and not by studying rules of grammar of that language. That is how we learn our mother tongue or first language. Just imagine that parents start teaching toddler rules of grammar instead of just carrying on routine daily conversations   in presence of the child! Will the child learn to speak? No. That is why a child who is born deaf will not be able to speak because it could not listen to the language.

But, how do I learn grammar of the language I want to speak? Just by listening to that language. Listening is the first step to learning any language. Without listening, no one can learn any language.

Also, we all want to learn a language we do not know. Hence, how will I be able to understand rules of grammar of the language I do not know in first place? Isn't it impossible?

Hence, the only way to learn any language is not to first master rules of grammar by reading books on grammar but simply by listening to that language and speaking. And, listening some more and speaking some more without worrying about grammar. This way you will learn grammar automatically and be able to speak confidently and fluently eventually.   Incidentally, even in educational institutes teaching grammar starts only after students have learned to speak, read and write and not from the day a child starts attending school.

We conduct many English improvement and soft skills training programs both on site and on line for industries, educational institutes and individuals. We also offer a few programs pro bono (free of charge) to educational institutes. Contact us at englishacademybaroda@gmail.com or at sarwansingh6644@gmail.com or on (91)88666 80407.