پروفیسر باور
پچھلے مارچ میں جرمنی کے ہالے یونیورسٹی کے علوم مشرقیہ کے پروفیسر باور کا انتقال ہوگیا، وہ لسانیات کے ماہر تھے، وہ یورپ کی تقریباً جملہ زبانوں کے جاننے کے علاوہ ساری سامی زبانوں سے واقف تھے اور تورانی زبانوں خصوصاً چینی زبان میں خاص مہارت رکھتے تھے۔ اس حیرت انگیز وسیع لسانیاتی واقفیت کے سبب سے وہ راس شمرہ کی کھدائیوں میں بعض نئے خطوں کے کتبوں کے برآمد ہونے پر ان کو حل کرسکے، ماسوف علیہ کو امام غزالی کی احیاء العلوم سے خاص دلچسپی تھی، اس کے متفرق ابواب کے ترجمے اکثر شائع کرایا کرتے تھے، اسلامی علم مرایا و مناظر پر بھی بعض اچھے مضمون لکھے تھے، انسائیکلوپیڈیا آف اسلام کے شریک ناشر بھی تھے اور فلک، حاء، حفص الفرد، وغیرہ عنوانوں پر اس میں مقالے لکھے تھے، ’’حرف تہجی کی ابتداء‘‘ پر ان کی ایک جرمن تالیف اس وقت مطبع میں ہے۔ (سید سلیمان ندوی، جولائی ۱۹۳۷ء)
The research deals with the exegesis of the meanings of the Holy Qurānic. It sheds light on the Qurānic context and to what extent it has been taken care of in the modern dictionaries compiled for the meanings of the difficult words of the Holy Qurānic. Cocntext is one of the most prominent phenomenon for help in determining the meanings of the Qurānic words and its exegesis. The research defined context, both as a lexical and technical word. It described its importance in the Holy Qurānic. It then differentiated between context and Nazm (order) which is discussed by both exegete and scholars of rhetoric. It was followed by Qurānic context, its features and importance. It then brought examples from some selected dictionaries which gave importance to the Qurānic context while explaining the meaning of the difficult words. The research concluded that there is great role of Qurānic context in explanation of the words. It is a phenomenon which has been taken care of right from the Holy Prophet and his companions up to the exegete of modern world.
This action research aims to trace the development of a model of portfolio for formative assessment in a non-credit, remedial writing skills’ course at a private higher education institute in Karachi. It is aimed to gain holistic insights into the ways portfolio is used, the benefits that emerged and the challenges that arose. At higher education level, writing is mainly assessed through traditional methods, which have several limitations (Sahakian, 2009). A portfolio has the potential to overcome these limitations. Most of the studies on portfolios in ESL/EFL settings employ quantitative methodology (e.g., Moradan & Hedayati, 2011; Öztürk & Çeçen, 2007; Qinghua, 2010; Tabatabaei & Assefi, 2012) and a few of them are action researches. Drawing upon multiple sources for data collection that was subjected to thematic analysis, it was found that portfolios enhanced students’ writing abilities in terms of producing paragraphs with better organisation and clearer sentences, citing evidences for arguments, and demonstrating awareness of metacognitive strategies. For these benefits, the students found the teacher’s feedback particularly useful. Portfolios also allowed focus on critical thinking skills rather than reproducing content knowledge, provided a clear means of monitoring progress, and fostered students’ creativity. These perceived benefits were consistent with previous findings. However, the challenges were that most of the students did not consistently meet the submission deadlines and maintain the portfolio in the prescribed order. Moreover, some students displayed negative attitudes towards revision. Despite these challenges, the educational value of portfolios cannot be denied. The implications of these findings relate to the issue of students’ ownership of work, assessing their work in a formative context, and the difficulty of changing their attitudes towards formative assessment. Pedagogical suggestions for improving the portfolio model are offered for English language teachers of tertiary level students. At the end, recommendations for the stakeholders are presented.