Developing Speaking Skills in School

Developing Speaking Skills in School The ability to speak a language is synonymous with knowing that language because speaking is the most basic ways of human communication. Bailey and Savage (1994) said that speaking in second language has often been viewed as that most demanding of the four skills. Speaking skill is the second skill: (1) listening (2) speaking (3) reading (4) writing. Speaking conveys thought, understanding and feeling to listeners. Moreover, it can help listener understands objectives of speaker. Thus, speaking skill is important for communication in every day life. Second language learning, speaking skill is necessary because a person who can speak able to understand other. Also, it helps reading and writing skill to be easy. However, this skill is the complicate skill that speaker has to practice for long time. It does not occur to understanding or remembrance. So, Roger Scott (1981) purposes the steps of teaching and activities as below: Informing objectives teacher should tell learners what do we learn. Presentation teacher should present contents with context. Teacher does not present without context because some contexts are different in another context. Practising and conveying learners will practice suddenly after teacher present contents. Teacher should provide a variety of expressions and native speaker accent. Teacher also encourages learner to learn freely and similar real situations. Moreover, Mary Finocchiaro and Christopher Brumfit (1983) explained that there are many activities for speaking teaching that teachers can choose appropriately an activity for students in each level as below: Answering questions that teachers or friends ask. Telling friends to act with order. Letting students ask or answer friends questions related to classroom or outside experiences. Telling characters of objects from the pictures. Telling experiences by providing key words. Reporting stories from assigned topics. Setting classroom as scenes of some situations like restaurant, bank, and grocery. Debating, discussing, and expressing your ideas. Playing language games. Practising to telephone. Reading Thai newspapers and reporting in English Role playing. Speaking is divided into two main areas which are monologue and dialogue. Monologue is a person who speaks without interaction with other people (one person show) such as speech. Another one is dialogue that has at least 2 people talking together such as conversation. Moreover, people have to know some important means (managing interaction) to speak such as openings and closings, responding appropriately in fixed routine, taking turns, and topic management. There are several activities for developing speaking skills. Discussion Discussion is probably the most used activity in the oral skill class. Learners are assigned to discuss about provided topic. This activity usually does in a group because discussion is an activity for sharing information and knowledge to each other. Furthermore, learners are necessary to take the prior knowledge for discussion. For example, the topic is Living together before marriage. The learners should find some evidences to support your ideas. The evidence is maybe findings of research, statistic, or real experience. Besides, learners have to realize the managing interaction as above. The first step is teacher have to do a warm-up activity to introduce in the topic by discussing in the similar topic. This activity will add some ideas for students. The discussion does not have right or wrong, but it is sharing your own thoughts and feeling to each other. There are how to succeed with discussion: Give students topical information and language forms in order that they have something to say with other people. Let student purpose discussion topic or choose from some options. The topic of discussion is not necessary to be serious topic. Students would like to be motivated if the topic is interesting. Set objectives before discussion, and learners should achieve the goals. Use small group instead of whole class discussion because a small group is easy to participant in. Let students discuss for 8 -10 minutes. Teacher should stop them if they have nothing to say. Give feedback after finishing discussion. Students will know your ability by teachers feedback. For example: Pair work. Look at these rules for dating. Which statements do you agree with? Why? The man should always pay for the date. Some things should never change. A woman should never approach a man first. She should always be the one whos invited. It is inadvisable to talk about your problems at the beginning of a relationship. Do not say things like Can I see you again tomorrow? Play it cool. Do not make it appear that you are desperate. To avoid awkward situations, let your family know where you are going and when you will be back. It is better to go out with groups of friends in the beginning. Most blind dates tend to be disastrous, so it is best to avoid them. It is indiscreet to ask personal questions until you get to know each other. B. Group work. What are the most important dating rules in your culture? Agree on five important rules, and then tell the class. It is best for young people to go out in groups. Two people should never go out on their own unless they are planning to get married. Role play It is an activity for developing speaking skill, and students can show your ability about performance. Students usually are assigned some roles and fit into some situations that students maybe face outside classroom. Role play activity is advantage for practicing and developing sociolinguistic competence that they have to speak English with appropriateness according to situations and characters. Students always enjoy playing, but some are not because they are lack of self confidence. To succeed role play should do: Introduce activity by explaining the situation and make sure that students understand their own character. Set objectives before discussion, and learners should achieve the goals. Give a card that explains the person or role to students. The card maybe composes of words, expressions, or sentences. Have students brainstorm in their group for planning. Use small group instead of whole class discussion because a small group is easy to participant in. Let students work at their own ability level because students have different individual language skill. Teacher does not expect that everybody has to produce equally to discussion. Give feedback after finishing discussion. Students will know your ability by teachers feedback. For example: Choose the situation 1 or 2 to make up a dialogue and demonstrate the play in the classroom. Situation 1 Students A : You are going to join the live concert of your favorite singer or band, but you do not want to go alone. So, you need to invite your friend and tell his or her what do/does he/she/they look(s) like? Students B: You do not know his or her favorite singer or band for making decision. Situation 2 Students A: You are robbed the golden necklace. However, you are so lucky, you can remember his character. You need to describe him to a police. Students B: You are a police man. You need to ask his/her what is happening and what is the robber looks like? Information Gap The information gap activity involves each learner in a pair or group possessing information which the other learners do not have. The information of learners has to be shared with other in order to reach the objectives and outcomes. Doughty and Pica (1986) suggest that if students work in pairs with an activity that to be required exchanging information, students would engage in more negotiation of meaning that with activity. The information gap activities have their own advantages and limitations. They help language acquisition, but they do not involve students in conversational strategies in the same way like role play and discussion. For example: There are many different activities for developing speaking skills. The most important thing to realize is communicative competence including linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse, and strategic competence. Moreover, speakers need to speak with fluency and accuracy. As you can see that speaking need more abilities to be mixed together. Recently, there are many foreigners wives at Udon Thaini province. Speaking is mostly used to communicate with other people. While a good speaker needs those things as above, some are not. For example, a foreigners wife at the department store says Honey, it the same at house. with pointing to a bag of detergent which is namely Breeze. This sentence is not correctly, but her husband can understand what she means. She speaks with some competence which is strategic competence that she speaks and point to something she means. Although she produces a sentence with any knowledge, she is able to communicate. Furthermore, there are not only utterances but also body language and eye contacts that you should act while you are speaking. The important activity for developing speaking skill in terms of body language and eye contacts is presentation, especially public speaking. For instance, when I was a fourth year student at Khon Kaen University, I usually practice presentation skill. Every subject need to oral presentation. I think that I was given many opportunities for practice until I can present confidently in front of classroom or anywhere. I also realize that dressing can help me to be a believable person. Although sometimes I am not sure for information that I have to present, I try to produce with confidence and good looking. After I finish presentation, my friend told me that You speak with reliability Then I answered that But I have no substances, ha ha. It makes me aware that speaking is the most important skill in every day life. Also, body language or gestures and eye contacts are choices to convey meaning to the audiences. If you are a good speaker, you should always practice anytime. For the second language learners, you cannot to be a perfect speaker because second language is not mother tongue, but you can speak with a few mistakes. Besides, you can speak English similar to native speakers by more practicing. For another example, I have a speech examination in terms of introduction of guest speaker which is the promptu speech. The teacher assigned since at the beginning of December. I have many times for preparation, but I still speak with some incorrect point. I also think that I cannot speak every word I prepared, but I can convey meaning to audience that it still has the same meaning. After that, it is the time for impromptu speech. Everyone has to pick a piece of paper that wrote a topic, and I was let a minute to prepare. Suddenly, I produce about the topic I selected. Luckily, I got a quite easy topic which is What custom in your country is different from customs in other countries? That top ic is in the Thai context while some are not related to Thai people. I realize that a speaker is needed to have omniscience for any topics. Person who has wider knowledge will get more advantages in speaking. In addition, experiences are considered to be necessity, especially direct experiences. As I mentioned as above, there are several activities for developing speaking skill in different ways. Teacher should select the appropriate activities for your students. Recently, communicative approach is taught widely in second language learning. This approach focuses on the ability to communicate in the real situation or authentic events, but the teacher should not ignore to teach grammar for them that is a heart of English learning. Moreover, I believe that vocabularies are necessary in speaking skill. Also, teacher should encourage developing vocabulary skill at the same time.

Economics of Marriage :: essays research papers

Economics of Marriage Nowadays, marriage is hardly a new subject of discussion and is found in every human society. Any marriage involves two individuals each of whom has their own experience of that marriage. Nowadays, the roles and expectations that the families have to fulfill are distributed evenly among the members of the family. What this means is that mothers, who were identified in the past as household wives (since they were responsible with cleaning, cooking and raising children) are granted with more rights such as the right to participate in a voting process or the right to get a job. As oppose to mothers, fathers have always been mainly responsible with working hard to support their families because in most of the situations, they were the main financial providers. As a result, they had to bring money to their families by any means even if that meant getting more than one job. This situation became much more problematic when children appeared in the families. As we all know, children had and will always play an extremely important role and raising them is a big responsibility for thei r parents. Having children and only one member of the family (for instance the father) working is a familiar situation for most families. In this case, the father has to be more realistic than ever that his family relies on his financial support. He has to make sure that his family has the necessary supplies to survive. If this situation is not being resolved due to various reasons such as the husband does not earn enough money or just simply refuses to contribute financially, conflicts and issues may arise which often lead to family separations, and thus, poor living conditions and even death from malnutrition. This is exactly the situation that parents have to avoid. They have to be more responsible and realistic of their own actions, and take the decisions that are in the best interest of the family, the right decisions. These types of marriages are called emotional and financial support marriages. Another type of marriages that are very common nowadays and very numerous on a wide scale are the economic marriages. Economic marriages are essentially those kind of marriages in which money play a tremendous role in the lives of one or more couples. This is often a situation in which one or even both individuals involved in marriage have an unconditional desire and hunger for money.

Women in Ancient Civilizations Essays -- essays research papers

The role of women in different civilizations, even though on different spectrums of the world, had many similarities and only a few differences. Women in these four civilizations: Greece, Egypt, China, and India faced many of the same hardships, struggles, and prejudices. Some of this treatment of women didn’t even end until present day (1920’s). In some of these civilizations women were able to rise up somewhat in their communities but it didn’t come without some kind of interference. When it came to the rights of these women, they really didn’t have any at all. In Greece women were considered to be second class citizens at best. All women were forbidden to own property, inherit their own name, vote, or attend political debate. Men viewed them as nothing of real importance. To them they were irrational, fearful, and only to be used for their physical desires. They were considered to be the ward of a man (Sacks 263). Women in Egypt were treated fairly well compared to the others. They shared the same legal and economic rights as men they were capable of owning land, slaves, and could acquire possessions for themselves in many ways. Elite women did have more rights and opportunities than the nonelite but they were both very fortunate. Regardless of class though, all women had only a few main concerns and expectations. They were all expected to get married and raise a family, maintain the management of the household, and bearing and rearing children (Harrison 510). The rights of women in China and India were similar as well. In India the rights of women have barley changed since ancient times. Women in this country are not allowed to own property, show their faces in public, and are the complete property of a man (www.geocities.com/hinduism/hindu_women.html). The women of china were also inferior to men. For around two thousand years they lived under the rules and laws set by Confucius. The Confucius doctrine said that women weren’t equal to men because they were unworthy and incapable of an education. These women were the property of men from birth till death (Andrea and Overfield 82-90). Their rights were not only limited to their families though in some cases there were actual laws passed that limited the rights of women. In ancient times The Code of Hammurabi for example had several laws that restricted women when it had to do with marriage and what a hus... ...ng their own property, they were encouraged to join athletics such as gymnastics, and some rose to be estate managers. They were even capable of participating in religion and could leave the house during holy days. During the Hellenistic age the treatment of women started to lighten up. Many started to realize that they have a greater value including their intelligence (Sacks 264). Chinese women didn’t start to rise up until the 20th century when communism began. Communists believed that women were equal to men; they felt that it would help the population of china to thrive (Dillion 346). The women of Egypt were treated well and did have a say in many of the things that involved them so they didn’t rise up too much more. Unfortunately for the women in India they have never truly risen up. They are still victims of being very subservient to men. In conclusion, women in all of these cultures have faced many hard times. Either from their community, husbands, fathers, or any man they were put down and restricted but though it all many women found a way to rise up through it all. There is still a long way for women of other culture to go but times are changing and anything is possible.

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams :: A Streetcar Named Desire Essays

A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, has been called the best play written by an American. The setting of the play, New Orleans, creates a blended mood of decadence, nostalgia, and sensuality. The plot of the play comes about through the conflict between a man and his sister-in-law who comes to live at his house with he and his wife. Stanley and Blanche immediately capture the attention of the audience through Williams' portrayal of the intensely strong willed characters.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Play takes place in a two-story apartment in the heart of New Orleans. Eunice lives on the top apartment and Stella and Stanley live on the bottom apartment. The set has a classic Creole ambiance. The props in the play as with the rest of the costumes, and set are based on pieces from the 1940à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s. The props were very realistic, and very durable due to the fact that they had to stand up to Stanleyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s outburst. The props were very ordinary to show the humble life of Stanley and Stella in 1940à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s New Orleans.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The costumes in the play reflected the plot of the play and gave insight into the characters that wore them. Stella and Stanley had simple costumes to reflect their simple impoverished life. Blanche outfits reflected her southern bell attitude, and set her apart from the rest of the characters so you could focus in on her. It showed that she like the best and would do anything for it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The lighting set the mood for the play. In key scenes the lighting added another dimension to show the conflict and hardship in the story.

Daniel hade

Shaina Gilbert Prof. Conway English 101 November 26, 2013 It is an obligation since elementary for children to learn about the U. S. history.However, some historical books feed our children and society inaccurate stories to cover some lies that our prideful country, the United States of America is hiding from To paraphrase, Hade talks about The American Girl Collections how the stories in those books are so inaccurate that the United States tends to hide the issues, or to focus less on the consequences of some issues as a result for our children to grow up ith the belief that the United Sates is this perfect and progressing country, where the United States always have a happy ending (563-572).Related to Hade's approach of inaccurate stories, the conspiracy of Martin Luther Kings death falls into the same category. Our history book always taught us that Martin's assassination was done by a lone gunman called James Earl Ray. However along the line, cases and investigations have proven that Martin Luther's death was all a conspiracy involving the FBI, military, CIA plotting against civil rights leaders. The government and media anage to cover up by providing the public misinformation to protect the pride of the United States, that the U.S. would never have such corrupted agencies, that USA should always be the best, the example of many (Halyard). We all knew that it was never about a racist gunman, there was more to the situation but again the government partially revealed the information, for the purpose of how people will look at the United States and it is the same point as Hade said about his article that our children are taught lies and even adults had to grow up with those lies for the protection of the US's reputation.He argues that â€Å"the books are too busy telling the students how great the United States was and still is to give them much real history'(Hade 568). It is true, we all know that books will never admit that we were wrong for some part, on the contrary books will brush off the real issues or the real story of the issue to present the United States as being on the right side and doing the best of all. Martin Luther's death until this day is still not fully revealed to the public and will never for the sake of the prideful fgure that United States have. Quoted by Hade, â€Å"These books†¦ ems to connect with the ultimate American goal† (572), and he is right we have given stuff that only they decided we should know to protect the American goal.

Markowitz Portfolio Optimization Essay

Introduction Markowitz (1952, 1956) pioneered the development of a quantitative method that takes the diversification benefits of portfolio allocation into account. Modern portfolio theory is the result of his work on portfolio optimization. Ideally, in a mean-variance optimization model, the complete investment opportunity set, i.e. all assets, should be considered simultaneously. However, in practice, most investors distinguish between different asset classes within their portfolio-allocation frameworks. In our analysis, we view the process of asset allocation as a four-step exercise like Bodie, Kane and Marcus (2005). It consists of choosing the asset classes under consideration, moving forward to establishing capital market expectations, followed by deriving the efficient frontier until finding the optimal asset mix. We take the perspective of an asset-only investor in search of the optimal portfolio. An asset-only investor does not take liabilities into account. The investment horizon is 5 – 10 years and the opportunity set consists of twelve asset classes. The investor pursues wealth maximization and no other particular investment goals are considered. We solve the asset-allocation problem using a mean-variance optimization based on excess returns. The goal is to maximize the Sharpe ratio (risk-adjusted return) of the portfolio, bounded by the restriction that the exposure to any risky asset class is greater than or equal to zero and that the sum of the weights adds up to one. The focus is on the relative allocation to risky assets in the optimal portfolio. In the mean-variance analysis, we use arithmetic excess returns. Geometric returns are not suitable in a mean-variance framework. The weighted average of geometric returns does not equal the geometric return of a simulated portfolio with the same composition. The observed difference can be explained by the diversification benefits of the portfolio allocation. We derive the arithmetic returns from the geometric returns and the volatility. a) The CIO has sent some of the results you have done above to the IPC. After the members of the IPC perused the results, some of them asked the CIO to explain why the equal-weighted portfolio underperformed the mean-variance optimal portfolio for the periods studied. Explain to the CIO using only the whole period results. First, let’s quickly look at some of the values of the fields that are used to draw the capital allocation line. As an example to my explanation let’s go through 2 possible capital allocation lines from the risk-free rate (rf = 3.5%). The first possible CAL is drawn for naively diversified portfolio for the whole period with rf = 3.5%. The expected return for this portfolio is 0.006224053, and its standard deviation is 0.025002148, the reward-to-volatility ratio, which is the slope of the CAL is 0.132284095. The second CAL is drawn for the Optimal portfolio for the whole period with rf = 3.5%. The expected return for this portfolio is 0.009508282, and its standard deviation is 0.00734826, the re- reward-to-volatility ratio is 0.897030832. We can see from the numbers that the optimal portfolio does better than the naively diversified portfolio because the RTV is higher for the optimal portfolio. The reason for that is that we’ve identified the optimal portfolio of risky assets by finding the portfolio weights that result in steepest CAL. The CAL that is supported by the optimal portfolio is tangent to the efficient frontier. The bottom line is that we have chosen the optimal portfolio that has the portfolio weights that lie on the capital allocation line that is tangent to the efficient frontier. Which means a portfolio of risky assets that provides the lowest risk for the expected return and thus this selected portfolio is bound to outperform the naively diversified. b) The IPC has noticed that the optimal allocations of sub-period 1 and sub-period 2 are very different (based on different scenarios of target returns and investment limits). They asked why. Would you please explain (using the set of results for 3.5% risk free rate)? This entails an analysis of the economic conditions for different periods. The most important insight we get is that in a diversified portfolio, the contribution to portfolio risk of a particular security will depend on the covariance of that security’s return with those of other securities. If you see the correlation matrix for the 2 sub periods, we can see that the economic-wide risk factors have imparted positive correlations among the stock returns for Sub Period 2 (03 – 10). This was the time of economic crisis (08-10) and since most of the risk was economic, the optimal portfolio incorporates less risky assets. While the sub period 1 (95 – 03) went through a healthy growth period, had mostly firm specific risk and lesser economic risk. c) The CIO wants to propose investment limits on certain asset classes to the IPC for consideration, but the CIO may not be aware of the likely impact on the performance of the Fund. Since you have run some analysis above based on the proposed limits, present your analysis and make a recommendation regarding investment limits for the historical arithmetic average (target) return and the 6% p.a. target return. The fundamental concept behind MPT is that the assets in an investment portfolio should not be selected individually, each on their own merits. Rather, it is important to consider how each asset changes in price relative to how every other asset in the portfolio changes in price. The optimal portfolios derived from the analysis are tangency portfolios and represents the combination offering the best possible expected return for given risk level. If we change the investment limits it could result in sub-optimal portfolios. This can be easily from the tables from (comparing naà ¯ve allocation to optimal allocation): Optimal Portfolio: When we draw the CAL and the efficient frontier using the above values, we see that the weights in the optimal portfolio result in the highest slope of the CAL. We can see this with the improved reward-to-volatility ratio of the portfolios. We also saw from the analysis where we constrained the portfolio return to 6% pa, the weights of the optimal portfolio changed and the RTV was lower than the un constrained optimal portfolio. Constrained:Unconstrained: d) The CIO would like to test the sensitivity of the mean-variance optimization to a change in the portfolio target return. Since you have done some runs using the historical arithmetic average return and 6% p.a. target return, present what you’ve learned from your analysis to the CIO using your results. We have tested the sensitivity of the mean-variance analysis to the input parameters. Table below shows the impact on the optimal portfolio of an increase and a decrease in the expected volatility of an asset, all other things being equal. Note that a change in volatility affects both the arithmetic return and the covariance matrix. Again, this table demonstrates the sensitivity of a mean-variance analysis to the input parameters. An increase in expected volatility leads to a lower allocation to that asset class. High yield even vanishes completely from the optimal portfolio. It is noteworthy that commodities are hardly affected by a higher standard deviation. A decrease in volatility mostly leads to a higher allocation. Government bonds, despite their expected zero risk premium, add value due to the strong diversification benefit. In this analysis, they appear to be insensitive to a change in their expected volatility. Credits and bonds are quite similar asset classes and, in a mean-variance context, the optimal portfolio tends to incline towards one or the other. In short, the mean-variance analysis suggests that adding real estate, stocks and high yield to the traditional asset mix of stocks and bonds creates most value for investors. Assets| Optimal Portfolio| Optimal Portfolio (6%)| SPTR Index| 0| 0| RTY Index| 0| 0| MXEA Index| 0| 0.747626014| MXEU Index| 0| 0| MXEF Index| 0| 0| SPGSCITR Index| 0| 0| FNCOTR Index| 0.862665445| 0.179140105| H15T3M Index| 0| 0.05| WOG1| 0| 0| C0A0| 0| 0| H0A0| 0| 0| G0Q0| 0.137334555| 0.023233881| e) Could we use the optimal weights from a previous period, say sub-period 1 or sub-period 2 or the whole period, as the recommended asset allocation for the next 5 or 10 years? Explain your answer with the out-of-sample test results you have done. No, we cannot recommend asset allocation based on the out-of-sample test results. The in-sample MV efficient frontiers overestimate the return associated with portfolio optimization not only with respect to resampled efficiency but importantly with respect to out-of-sample investment performance. Even with good inputs, MV efficiency error maximizes the risk and returns inputs, creates upward biased estimates of future performance, and substantially underperforms resampled efficiency. f) Based on the above analyses, what lessons and implications can be learned from your analysis on the mean-variance portfolio optimization? Key lessons: The fundamental goal of portfolio theory is to optimally allocate your investments between different assets. Mean variance optimization (MVO) is a quantitative tool which allows you to make this allocation by considering the trade-off between risk and return. Markowitz Portfolio Optimization The single period Markowitz algorithm solves the following problem: Single Period Problem * Inputs: * The expected return for each asset * The standard deviation of each asset (a measure of risk) * The correlation matrix between these assets * Output: * The efficient frontier, i.e. the set of portfolios with expected return greater than any other with the same or lesser risk, and lesser risk than any other with the same or greater return. The Markowitz algorithm is intended as a single period analysis tool in which the inputs provided by the user represent his/her probability beliefs about the upcoming period. The expected return, standard deviation, and correlation matrix are computed using standard statistical formulae. The expected return represents the simple (probability weighted) average of the possible returns for each asset, and the standard deviation represents the uncertainty about the outcome. The correlation matrix is a symmetric matrix, with unity on the diagonal, and all other elements between -1 and +1. A positive correlation between two assets A and B indicates that when the return of asset A turns out to be above (below) its expected value, then the return of asset B is likely also to be above (below) its expected value. A negative correlation suggests that when A’s return is above its expected value, and then B’s will be below its expected value, and vice versa. Input Data Issues A major issue for the methodology is the selection of input data. The use of historical data provides a very convenient means of providing the inputs to the MVO algorithm, but there are a number of reasons why this may not be the optimal way to proceed. All these reasons have to do with the question of whether this method really provides a valid statistical picture of the upcoming period. The most serious problem concerns the expected returns, because these control the actual return which is assigned to each portfolio. Failure of underlying hypothesis When you use historical data to provide the MVO inputs, you are implicitly assuming that * The returns in the different periods are independent. * The returns in the different periods are drawn from the same statistical distribution. * The N periods of available data provide a sample of this distribution. These hypotheses may simply not be true. The most serious inaccuracies arise from a phenomenon called mean reversion, in which a period, or periods, of superior (inferior) performance of a particular asset tend to be followed by a period, or periods, of inferior (superior) performance. Suppose, for example, you have used 5 years of historical data as MVO inputs for the upcoming year. The outputs of the algorithm will favor those assets with high expected return, which are those which have performed well over the past 5 years. Yet if mean reversion is in effect, these assets may well turn out to be those that perform most poorly in the upcoming year. Error in the estimated mean Even if you believe that the returns in the different periods are independent and identically distributed, you are of necessity using the available data to estimate the properties of this statistical distribution. In particular, you will take the expected return for a given asset to be the simple average R of the N historical values, and the standard deviation to be the root mean square deviation from this average value. Then elementary statistics tells us that the one standard deviation error in the value R as an estimate of the mean is the standard deviation divided by the square root of N. If N is not very large, then this error can distort the results of the MVO analysis considerably. Summary The above discussion does not mean to imply that the Markowitz algorithm is incorrect, but simply to point out the dangers of using historical data as inputs to a optimization strategy. If you make your own estimates of the MVO inputs, based on your own beliefs about the upcoming period, single period MVO can be an entirely appropriate means of balancing the risk and return in your portfolio.

Leadership and Management Paper Essay

Ursula M. Burns is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Xerox. She has held this position for the last five years. She started out as a summer intern in 1980, and signed on in 1981. From then until she became CEO she has led several business teams and positions within Xerox, all along growing within the company. According to Fortune, she is the 22nd most powerful woman in the world. In addition to the Xerox board, she is a board director of the American Express Corporation and Exxon Mobil Corporation. Burns also provides leadership counsel to community, educational and non-profit organizations including FIRST – (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), National Academy Foundation, MIT, and the U.S. Olympic Committee, among others. She is a founding board director of Change the Equation, and President Barack Obama appointed Burns vice chair of the President’s Export Council (â€Å"Xerox: Ursula Burns, CEO†, 2014). Leadership and Management Holding a management title does not necessarily equate to holding leadership skills. Leadership is defined in many ways, and depending on who you ask can simply be â€Å"coordinating the work of others†. However that is taking a very limited view on leadership. Leadership is a combination of rationale, inspiration, science, and art. It is said, â€Å"Leaders are thought to do the right thing, while managers do things right† (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2009). Not all leaders are managers, look at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is argumentatively the most important Civil Rights leader, however many would not look to him as a manager. According to Forbes, Ursula has made Xerox a profitable and viable company, this past year, Burns helped Xerox generate adjusted earnings per share of $1.09, up from $1.02 in 2012, and  post $21.4 billion in full-year revenue (Forbes, 2014). Her skills as a manager aided in building Xerox to the power-house they are today. Burns is responsible for the largest acquisition in Xerox history, and has allowed them to invest in business services, which is a $600 billion industry. Making these decisions requires hard decisions, including outsourcing, closing offices that are not performing well, and adopting a work from home culture. Because of this Burns has found herself on the 2014 Worst CEO list put together by 24/7 Wall Street and Glassdoor. Burns received a positive review from fewer that the 140,000 employees Xerox gained in the business services acquisition. Only 30% approved of her performance (Brown, 2014). Also something that does not help Burns gain leadership approval is the fact that she was paid on average $13 million dollars for 2010 – 2012, while over 500 people were laid off. While Burns has made moves in hopes of ensuring the stability of Xerox there are some that are calling for her to be fired. Burns’ recent letter to shareholders showed just how badly the transaction had go ne. Over the course of 2010 to 2013, revenue, net income and operating margins are flat to down. In particular, revenue fell 1% to $21.4 billion in 2013. In the fourth quarter, revenue dropped 3% to $5.7 billion. Net income was down 1% to $1.2 billion last year. In the fourth quarter, the drop was 4% to $311 million (McIntyre, 2014). When measuring success of a leader, there are many ways to do that and depending on which way is chosen could render different results. Using unit performance indices, Burns appears to be very successful as a leader. Unit performance indices can be used to examine what impact leaders have on the â€Å"bottom lines† of their organizations. Since she has taken over as CEO, Xerox shares have gone up 50% and the S & P is higher by nearly 100% (Brown, 2014). Based on this information and her average salary the board must be happy with how she is performing. However, another way to measure success is by subordinates ratings of effectiveness. Subordinates may be relatively satisfied or dissatisfied, may be motivated or unmotivated, may feel relatively committed or uncommitted to the organization, or may believe their leader is relatively effective or ineffective. Because Burns has found herself on the worst CEO’s list of 2014 it can be said that she has been unsuccessful as a leader (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2009). Conclusion Overall it is important to remember that there are many dynamics to measuring leadership and management. Leadership and management can have many different meanings. Burns is a prime example of this. I believe she is an effective manager, because businesses are in the business of making money and her shareholders are happy. She also sits on the board of several inspirational companies like FIRST and Change the Equation, which could have many people looking at her leadership abilities. However, when it comes to Xerox her primary focus is making the shareholders happy, when could indicate she is not being a true leader in a way that motivates, inspires, encourages, or simply speaks to their employees. Refrences Hughes, R.L., Ginnett, R.C., &e Curphy, G.J. (2009). Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hills. Xerox: Ursula Burns, CEO. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.xerox.com/about-xerox/executive-leadership/ceo/enus.html McIntyre, D.A. (2014). Time for Xerox Board to Fire CEO Burns. Retrieved from http://247wallst.com/investing/2014/03/20/time-for-xerox-board-to-fire-ceo-burns/ Brown, A. (2014). Xerox’s Ursula Burns Named One of Worst CEO’s in Corporate America. Retrieved from http://madamenoire.com/418058/xeroxs-ursula-burns-named-one-worst-ceos-corporate-america/ Forbes: #22 Ursula Burns. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/profile/ursula-burns/