NIDA BASHIR


About Me: Nida Bashir


Profession:  I am a teacher by profession.  I teach Biology, English and Urdu at SSC level. I teach in the girls only section of  National Model School.
Province:
I belong to the resource and minerals rich province Khyber Pakhtun khwa. The province shares border with Afghanistan by a very famous link famously known as the “Khyber Pass”.  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a very diverse province with many cultures and languages spoken. Some widely spoken languages are:

  • Pashto.
  • Hindko.
  • Seraiki.
  • Kohistani.
Khyber Pakhtun Khwa is a beautiful province to explore its diverse culture with its unique flora and fauna. Some of the endangered species of animals are found in Khyber Pakhtun Khwa i.e. the Markhor and Snow leopards. the city of Abbottabad is linked to hill stations called Galliyat and Ayubia these areas are really beautiful and I have had the pleasure of enjoying its natural beauty by taking a cable car ride.                     
A Markhor.                                                                      A Snow leopard.



Family:
I come from a Pashtun Muslim family. We live in a joint family system. In a joint family system we live with other members of the family collectively i.e. we share a home with my Uncle and his family, my paternal grandparents and my paternal aunt. I have two siblings a younger brother and a sister.
Personal Interests:
My personal interests are:

  • Reading books especially fiction novels or personal development books. My favorite book is “Think and Grow Rich” by Napolean Hill.
  • I enjoy listening to music of different genres my favorite artists are Atif Aslam, Yanni, Lady Gaga, Darren Hayes (Savage Garden), Humayun, Enigma and Bryan Adams.
  • I love spending time with animals and caring for them.
  • I love travelling; one of my most enjoyable journeys is travelling to Plymouth New Hampshire for the PELI project 2012.

  

Description of my Educational Institution and Current Academic Structure

The name of my school is National Model School. It is a Private medium level school. It is located in a village called Toru Qayyumabad  in the District Mardan Khyber Pakhtun Khwa.  The school is a private institution. It has three different branches. The main branch is in Qayummabad Toru, the main branch is as follows:
·         The Co-ed nursery class (Kindergarten).
·         Co-ed Prep Class.
·         Co-ed Classes till 5th grade.
·         Boys only from Grade 6 to 10th grade.


There is only one girls section in the school. It is a separate building which also serves as the principal’s residence at the ground floor. All three school branches collectively have 700 students and 29 teachers. 
Students are taught in English and Urdu. The primary pedagogical methodology for teaching students is by lecture. Students copy what the teacher writes on the white board or sometimes they are given printed notes for each subject

In my school the hierarchy system is simple. The flow of communication and information is both upwards and downwards but sometimes the girls section is neglected and female teachers are shy in communicating with their male colleagues due to cultural aspects. 








Needs of My Educational Institution
Being an educator in my area is very rewarding. The students their parents and the whole community give me a lot of respect. The population consists of poor and middle class blue collar families. As most people cannot pay for a good private school they opt for my school as it is a great school with hardworking and qualified teachers and nominal tuition fees. However the school lacks some very basic facilities and resources. The school needs a library, proper science labs, enough furniture for all students to be seated comfortably, lights and a separate class for creative writing.
The pedagogical methodology practiced in my school totally diminishes a child’s ability to express them by writing an essay about a topic they would want to write about or share with their classmates. They are given already written notes provided by the teacher of each subject to memorize, reproduce the memorized material in their exams and get a great grade. This is how the education system works in my area. Changing from existing system to activity based experiential learning is a challenge but achievable.

Non-Sibi
Caring for animals is something that comforts me. On a hot summer day when a few sparrows take a dip in the tiny box of water that I or any member of my family fills up for them along with a tiny box of grain, it makes me feel better when the little sparrows clean up themselves flap their wings in the water, watching them clean up and play is enjoyable. My mother offers free tuition's to under privileged children in my locality which motivated me to help. I offer help to students who cannot afford to pay for extra tuition classes. Other than that my father has set up a small charity comprising of about a 100 families. We collect Rs.30 each month from every member family. The money collected is then used to help the poor families in our community when there is a death in the family. Funerals in my locality are expensive. Apart from the burial arrangements, meals and refreshments are also provided which makes it difficult for a poor family to afford these expenses, this small charity helps a lot of families. My role in this non sibi activity is maintaining a computer account on Microsoft Excel. We keep a record of all 100 families along with a record of the poor families which received help. The success of our small charity is advertised by word of mouth hence more families are willing to join the list. So I also maintain a database of all new and old members of the charity.


Max Warburg Courage Reflection
On the 10th of July At Northeastern University alumni center I met a mother who lost her beloved 11 year old son to Leukemia. During the visit I learned how courageously and bravely Max fought cancer. After his death Max’s mother helped develop a curriculum which helped children fight or overcome their fears and problems by writing essays or stories about their experiences.
This experience was very enlightening; therefore I planned to share this with my students and community. Using this process  will help me understand my students more and help them sort out their issues  they can also share their stories with other children around the world which is something that will motivate my students to write and share their stories.


My Most Memorable Trip
The trip to Washington Dc was the most memorable experience of my life.  The biggest and most pleasant surprise was the tour of Capitol Building. Capitol building is a magnificent building that has been a major part of DC skyline for 100s of years. Seeing this marvelous piece of architecture and history was one of the best experiences of my life. Secondly the Smithsonian museum of Natural History visit was truly amazing.  The grand atrium holds a life size statue of an elephant it provides the view to different exhibits and balconies within the museum. The museum had a lot of fossils of dinosaurs my favorite was the T-rex. There was an outstanding gallery of natural photography which featured some really eye catching unbelievable award winning photos of wildlife and nature. The best part of the museum was the Gems and Minerals exhibit which had really beautiful gems and jewels from Hope Diamond to crown jewels and Diamond necklace belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte.  
Taking the trip around DC in Metro was fun. Taking the metro I visited my second favorite museum The National Air and Space Museum. It had a huge variety of planes, space shuttle, space food, clothing and tools used in space for repairing. It also had a full exhibit dedicated to the Wright brothers, the exhibit had all their plane models, a replica of their home and tools used to create their plane. I watched the Dark Knight Rises movie at Lockheed Martin IMAX theatre.
Our group was taken for a visit to “Voice of America” where I did something I never ever thought I would ever do. I gave an interview in a radio program in my mother tongue Pashto. The interview was conducted by Pashto Show host at “Deewa” radio service. During the interview I explained the PELI program, its transparent selection process and my experiences so far in America over all it was a lot of fun.
We also visited different monuments by taking a trolley tour. I saw the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, Capitol Building, White House, Washington Monument, Korean war monument and the World war II monument.  All these monuments made me think of the various historical transitions that America as a nation went through and how it survived the British invasion and civil war to emerge as one nation which prevailed and stood through the test of time.



MAP 2012


Background:
Changing the education and student assessment system in my school is difficult. From traditional lecture method and giving the students written essays and notes which diminish their cognitive, creative and technical writing skills.  Another major problem my students face is reading and writing in English both creative and subject specific technical writing. 
Pre-MAP Implementation:
After returning home from a very productive and useful PELI program at Plymouth State University I looked forward to resumption of classes so that I can discuss my MAP with my students. Finally on 3rd September 2012 I finally got to meet my beloved students and didn’t waste another minute discussing, sharing my experiences and most importantly the MAP. I got an over whelming positive response from the students. As my MAP did not require a lot of financial resources I got down to business but during the implementation some parts of my original MAP did not work out as I expected it to be. The problems were:
  • Part (a) of the procedure created more problems than solutions, students found it difficult to translate the English paragraph or separate sentences. Often students got bored and at times they did not feel very motivated. 
  • Finding the same book or story in both Urdu and English was difficult.
The above problems carried on for a week and I found myself and my students going nowhere with this.
Solution to the Problem:
On a Sunday morning I sat down and thought about the problems I faced with my MAP I was depressed because after working so hard in PSU with the best educators I was still unable to help out my students. Then suddenly I thought of a very simple step that I totally missed, the point is :
“Since the beginning of their education at school, teachers teach English as a Subject or Course, it is never taught as a Language”.
This phrase is the reason why after studying for 16 or more years majority of people are unable to express themselves in English let alone write about a subject of their choice. So in simple words I was putting a lot of burden on my little angels confusing them with English to Urdu translation which in practice is extremely difficult because of the very different Urdu Grammar. 
Therefore after giving it a lot of thought, I changed how I implemented the MAP instead of reading the same story in English and Urdu, I picked my old dog eared copy of “ Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” I went to the class and told them we will read Harry Potter today; the response a very loud “Yaaaaayyyyyy ” with applause so that is pretty self-explanatory. Most importantly:
“No one ever forgets a language but tends to forget about a subject or a course studied”
The Result: 
  • Students were more than interested in Harry Potter compared to other books as they have seen the movies but due to the inability to understand English they did not fully grasp the story line.( Surprisingly the students find Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and Journey to the center of the Earth by Jules Verne quiet boring).
  • They did not have to translate which was very difficult for them as they were unable to differentiate between the “Dictionary meaning” of the words and their “Contextual Meaning”.

The New MAP:
The aforementioned problems and their solution based on my observation and feedback changed my MAP completely. The new MAP is as under:
Goals: 
  • Teach English as a language not a Subject but keeping in mind the Board of Examination English Paper requirements and guidelines.
  • Improve secondary students’ English reading/writing skills.
  • Improve Comprehension skills. 
Objectives:
  • Improved reading comprehension through activities.
  • Help students fully grasp the content of given text.
  • Students will write creatively in English.
Modes of Learning a Language:
  1. Listening.
  2. Speaking.
  3. Reading 
  4. Writing.
If students skip even one point from the aforementioned points they will not be able to be efficient in English or any other language.
Procedure:
  1. Improvement in Pronunciation Skills:
  1. English has 26 alphabets with 44 sounds.
  2. Out of these 44 sounds, 24 are consonant sounds while 20 are vowel sounds.
  3. 20 vowels are divided into 12 single sounding vowels and 8 are double sounds.
  4. Familiarize students with these basic sounds.
(Sources for this information is from sweetsearch.com website www.press.umich.edu/pdf/0472031341-sample2.pdf and my English101 professor at my university.


  1. Improved reading/writing comprehension through activities
  1. Book used will be “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”.
  2. Divide the paragraphs among students.
  3. Avoid Chanting.
  4. Students will read the assigned paragraphs.
  5. Students will be encouraged to look up for the meanings of difficult words by themselves. 
  6. Students will lookup English to Urdu as well as English to English meanings.
  7. Questions will be asked from students.
  8. Review questions about the story/topic will be provided.
  9. Students will discuss the questions and share their opinions.
  10. Audio/Visual aids will be used to aid in proper use of Grammar.


  1. Students will write creatively in English
  1. Students will read a story in Urdu.
  2. Students will translate the story into English to their best effort.
  3. Students will be introduced to Max Warburg Courage Essays. 
  4. Students will be encouraged to write and share their own experiences of courage in Urdu or Pashto.
  5. Guidance will be provided to the students to improve their creative writing skills.
  6. Match the words, fill in the missing words, sentence re-phrasing exercises will help students to comprehend and arrange the text.

Assessment:
Feedback, photos and videos will be uploaded to paksitaninarrative.blogspot.com

Timeline: 
  Implementation of my MAP will start from September 3rd 2012 as the school is closed for summer and Ramadan holidays. It will be finished by February 2013. But the process and methods will be followed.


December 10, 2012

Today I started the main part of my MAP based on English Improvement and I received a very positive feed back from the students. I introduced them to my MAP and taught them how to use the dictionaries (picture available). The students are captivated by Harry Potter today we constantly studied since 8:25am till 12:30 it was a rare opportunity because as i mentioned earlier the girls go to the other section for studies but today was just our day for the rest of the class for MAP we arranged on a Sunday. Today the students learned to:
  • Use the dictionary properly including identifying the parts of speech, definitions, and pronunciation.
  • Discuss and share opinions about the characters.
  • How to differentiate between between Literal and Figurative speech ( a relatively new concept for them). 
  • Identify the difference between American and British English.
Today was fun my students and me are really happy because we managed to take out time for this activity a fun way to learn English and Grammar. I will keep you updated as things progress, the girls are having their preliminary examinations from the 17th of this month till 28th hope everything turns out fine thank you so much for everything that you all did and still do to help us improve standard of education for girls in this ignored part of Pakistan.













A report on MAP 2012

MAP Implementation:
  1. After receiving half amount of my seed-grant, I started implementing the main part of my MAP which was to encourage them to read books. To improve their English speaking and reading is the main step. 

    Problems in Implementation:
    During the project implementation phase I faced a number of difficulties, the main problem was that the school principal did not allow me to introduce them to a Novel, his reason was that the students are in a very important stage as Matriculate examinations are in March and the students’ needs to concentrate on Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Pakistan Studies rather than spending a whole 40 minutes session on reading a novel he went as far as calling it a “waste of time”. It was the biggest blow for me and the students as well as they were very excited about the MAP. After discussing the problem with the students we decided to come to school in Sunday which is the only weekend holiday. Now the students come on a Sunday and we read Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone each Sunday from 9:30 am till 1pm. The students have dedicated their only holiday to my MAP this shows how much they are interested on the first day I treated them with doughnuts to thank them for their cooperation.
    The second problem I faced was at first due to cultural reasons I was not allowed to share my student’s pictures with anyone but that was solved as well. I arranged a meeting with the parents. I explained my MAP to them. I motivated the mothers by telling them that this MAP and pictures as feedback are for their betterment, all these books and hard work is for their daughters eventually I was allowed to photograph the students with their faces covered but only for non-internet use, I still can’t put them on my blog or PELI Facebook page.


    With the resources purchased in a few days the students are able to:
    • Improve their reading skills gradually.
    • Use the dictionary to look up for words by themselves.
    • Differentiate between Literal and figurative speech.
    • Learn about different cultures and customs.
    • Share ideas, give opinions.
    • Learn to identify the difference between a narrative, essay or regular textbook chapter adopted from other sources (the chapters found in Class 10th Mardan Board Books).
    • Improve English grammar.
    • Learn to punctuate words.
    • Encourage them to speak English even if they are totally wrong.





    Using the seed-grant following items were purchased:

    Budget for MAP 1st Installment.


    Sr#
    Items
    Number of items
    Cost
    (Rs.)
    1.
    Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone novel.
    18 books @ Rs.170 each.
    3060
    2.
    Oxford Mini School Dictionary
    17 dictionaries@Rs.500 each
    8500
    3.
    Oxford Urdu to English Pocket Dictionary
    17 dictionaries@Rs.250 each
    4250
    4.
    Ferozesons Urdu Lughat
    1
    1026
    5.
    Fuel ( From my village to Mardan city).
    One time only
    600
    6.
    HP 61 Inkjet cartridge (Black)
    One
    1250
    7.
    Doughnuts (Refreshment for students)
    40 @Rs.40 each
    1600
    8.
    Pizza (For students)
    1
    1200
    9.
    Tea and biscuits for Meeting with mothers and students.
    12 boxes
    800
    10.
    Miscellaneous Stationary
    ….
    665
    11.
    Cleaning and housekeeping charges
    2 helpers
    2000

    Total

    24951


    Budget for MAP 2nd Installment.



    Sr#
    Items
    Number of items
    Cost
    (Rs.)
    1.
    Vocabulary and Grammar by George Davidson and George Stern.
    01 
    595
    2.
    The Concise Geography Encyclopedia
    01
    2161
    3.
    English Essays Volume II by Betty Kirkpatrick 
    01
    585
    4.
    Ferozesons Urdu Lughat
    01
    1028
    5.
    Fuel (From Toru, to Peshawar city) Trip one 
    Round trip
    1200
    6.
    Fuel (Toru to Mardan city)
    4 round trips
    1452
    7.
    A Handbook of Letters 
    04 @420 each 
    1680
    8.
    Verbs and tenses By George Davidson 
    02
    1300
    9.
    Phrases Clauses and Tenses 
    02
    1190
    10.
     Move Ahead by Robyn Mann Text and Activity book 
    05(Text books) @320 each &05(activity books)@ 250 each
    2850
    11.
    Phrasal verbs by Betty Kirkpatrick
    04
    2580
    12.
    Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia 
    02
    3990
    13.
    Casio Scientific Calculators 
    03
    4200
    14.
    Printing and photocopy expenses 

    5723

    Total

    30,802




    Achievements 


    The biggest achievement so far is that finally after almost a year the principal is paying attention to  problems my students faced because of his rude and unacceptable attitude just because “Americans sponsored my PELI course and provided a seed grant” that behavior has finally changed and I am provided with a whole separate class room in the boys section, I am also asked to train other teachers in teaching English language as my students I am not a teacher educator but I promised to share my experiences and methods of teaching English language to my fellow teachers.  Excellent academic performance of my students in current Board Examinations has been exceptionally well although we still await results but my students had smiling faces after their exams specially the English exam.
    More female teachers from my area have shown interest in PELI.  I live in a Pashtun Village called Toru and when I went to USA last summer visited several wonderful beautiful cities including Washington DC returned home safely I shared my experiences with friends, family, neighbors, students and their parents and my colleagues it has changed how my people perceived USA, parents are willing to send their daughters abroad and this year few of the teacher wished to apply but they could not fill out their forms but that can change if I train and guide them.
    After PELI I have become the center of attention and have been offered jobs in various elite school of Mardan and Peshawar but I couldn’t join them due to transportation problems and the major reason was that this small scale private school and its students have changed my life. I have grown too attached to my students and what they all did for me to help me complete my MAP. I don’t want to leave them. I am the only help they have and it will be selfish to just leave because I am offered more money. 

























1 comment:

  1. Dear Nida! You have rightly changed your MAP and it shows sense. I am still a little bit skeptical about the fact that with the implementation of the MAP designed so far will enable your students to SPEAK English flawlessly and fluently. In the beginning of your revised MAP you mentioned four modes of speaking/learning english but again in the ending part of the MAP you forgot to emphasized the first two Modes i.e listening and speaking. I have seen a number of people who, speak English as a foriegn language even without the capablities of reading and writing. so I suggest that if you really want your students to speak English, then you have to focus on listening and speaking more than reading and writing.

    ReplyDelete