Lunar Calendar and Ramadan Effect on Islamic Mutual Funds Performance in Pakistan

This report is principally intended to ascertain out the result of the lunar calendar with special focus on the holy month of Ramadan on the operation of Islamic mutual funds in Pakistan. Economic activity in Pakistan demands a different turn due to observation of fast and short working hours in the country in the month of Ramadan. This work utilizes the logit model to investigate the impact of lunar calendar generally and the holy month of Ramadan, specifically along the net asset values of the mutual fund. This study confirms lower expected growth of net asset value in the month of Ramadan and the other stages of the religious sentiment. Economic activity regains pace after Ramadan and Zulhajjah as evident from the probable increase of net asset value of the Islamic mutual funds in the month of Shawwal & Moharram following months of the Ramadan and Zulhajjah respectively.

Helping an Elt Teacher in Assessing Students Speaking Skills: An Action Research

The skill of speaking has been one of the most neglected areas in English language teaching (ELT) and this is true for its assessment as well which has always been a tedious and compromising task. The consequence of this negligence not only propels a negative backwash effect on teaching speaking skills but also adversely affects students' career chances particularly when they seek jobs or admission for further studies. The principal purpose of this study was to exhibit the ways to help an ELT teacher in assessing speaking skills (SS) by introducing an analytical marking rubric. Moreover, the study intended to embed summative and formative assessments using constructive feedback to improve students' SS in an EFL context. A qualitative paradigm under a participatory action research (PAR) endeavour was employed to conduct this study with an ELT teacher and Grade eight students in the context of Gilgit-Baltistan for a period of five weeks. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and, discussion. The findings at the pre-intervention stage revealed that there was a dearth of assessing SS - both in formative and summative ways. In the mock tests, the assessment of SS was rarely practiced. Summative exams, however, comprised a few marks, but constituted arbitrary marking, that is, without any marking rubrics. In the intervention stage, it was observed that the teacher's perception and practice were enhanced through introducing direct and semi-direct modes of assessing SS and by developing marking rubrics. The post-intervention stage yielded a comprehensive understanding of the teacher's practices in terms of assessing SS. This study recommends that an ELT teacher should focus on assessing SS summatively and formatively using marking rubrics. The examination department needs to ensure that all the language skills are given due importance in the end-term exams. Besides, the inclusion of assessment procedures in the English curriculum is deemed to be an important consideration to help guide teachers in assessing SS more effectively.