I
was interviewing a young girl today for trainee Java developer’s position and to
open the discussion asked her to tell me briefly about herself. Before responding to my query, she asked me if
she can speak in Telugu (her mother tongue). I said OK but asked her to try to
speak in English as much as possible throughout the discussion. I also
explained her that inability to speak in English would not negatively affect her present
job prospects as long as she is willing to learn English.
Very
soon I found that she wasn’t very good at expressing anything in any language –
English or Telugu. She had passed B Tech in electronics over a year ago and has
been trying “Groups” (Government officers jobs, as I could correctly guess) since
then and had “wasted” the time and therefore couldn’t find any suitable job. Presently,
she was willing to work in IT industry as software developer.
The
questions I asked her and could not get ANY response included:
What
is required to be a successful IT professional?
What
is required to be a successful “Group-2” officer?
What
is required to be a successful homemaker?
What
are your strengths?
Why
do you want to work in IT industry?
What
is the relation among your 1. Engineering in electronics, 2. Your interest in
Government jobs and 3. Your present willingness to work as software developer?
I wonder,
what may be the reason of a qualified engineer’s inability to possess and
express opinions about something so obvious and personal. The questions weren’t
about rocket science; they were just common sense and opinion based.
For ages, I mean for just a decade and a half, I have been transforming fresh (and stale) talent for different IT organizations in India. The pool of talent contains both “human” resources and “Robotic Coders”.
When I say “Robotic Coders” I mean those IT professionals who believe that to work professionally, they need technical skills and communication skills. However the catch is that their perception of these skills is a bit different. According to them, technical skills are limited to knowing a programming language (say, Java) and communication skills are limited to “speaking to the client”.
What the rest of the world knows is just contrary to this popular robotic belief. The knowledge of coding is not the only pre-requisite for a good IT professional; it takes much more to be one. What an IT company delivers to a client is a technology and what a typical coder does is just communication. Let’s not forget, communication is a two ways process and therefore; when I say, a programmer communicates with several entities, I mean they speak and write and listen and read and understand too!
Typically a coder communicates with the following entities as a part of their profession.
Colleagues
These are the people with whom a coder (or any professional, for that matter) communicates the most. They include seniors, juniors, peers and all the others (!) from their own organization. The modes of communication are face-to-face conversation, phones, emails, texts, voices, smileys, winks and what not!
This is the communication that is usually taken a little less seriously than… by robotic coders.
Client and Others
As I said, “Communication means speaking to the client” is a very popular belief among the robotic coders. Of course, a lot of interaction takes place between client team and the application development team, but that doesn’t limit itself to “speaking to the client” alone. As in every other case, communication to the client is multimodal and “speaking” is merely a small part of it.
Although client interaction is valued the most but understood very less. Reason being the same, “communication means speaking…”
Apart from the client, an IT professional communicates with several other organizations including service providers, regulatory bodies, social groups, NGOs, etc.
Maintenance Coder
A development coder communicates with the other users of the code including the fellow team members, maintenance coder and oneself too. The communication takes place through comments, identifiers’ names including variables, classes and objects and the code itself.
Robotic coders usually use identifiers like n1, n2, num1, num2, user_string, input_data, value1, blah blah blah… without realizing that the maintenance coder just can’t decipher these “dumb” identifiers.
End user
The most important but the least cared about person by “robotic” coders!
Coders are very happy when their code runs and in that upsurge of happiness, they just forget the cognitive level of the end user of the application they are writing code for. As a result, the poor user is instructed to “enter a value” without knowing what the “value” means and when they commit a mistake, they are fired with an error message like invalid entry, out of range, null value, overflow or whatever else that only an IT professional can decipher it. The coder thinks that every person in the world understands IT jargon and IT register and they drench people with their intense usage.
The machine
Things cannot go wrong here… or at least robotic coders think so!
Coding is something that robotic coders value the most without realizing that it’s a perfect example of communication! The code is written in a programming language (language is a medium of COMMUNICATION) that helps a coder interact with the machine. A mistake here stops the whole process of communication.
Robotic coders are very particular about the last instance of communication. They spend almost all of their time and energy in learning communication with machine. Of course, without that they just can’t do their job but that doesn’t diminish the significance of proper communication with the other entities. To transform from robotic coder to more human resource one must learn to communicate, in its true sense with all these entities.
After all, life has many more options than merely “if-else”!
Being among the fastest growing economies in the world, India had no dearth of talented young graduates; be it for IT, ITES, manufacturing or other traditional service sectors. However, graduates in India definitely fall short when it comes to the achievement of employment of choice. This is typically true especially in modern technology-enabled sectors. The discredit obviously goes to the lack of employability skills on the part of graduates.
An IT finishing school screens such fresh graduates, selects those out of them who are really trainable, trains them on technical and soft skills and ultimately converts them into employable candidates. Corporates finds such candidates as deployable and ready-to-work professionals. Eventually its a win-win affair for both the corporate and the candidate.
This post contains the basic information of English structure grammar including parts of speech; helping verbs, forms of be, have and do; forms of main verbs etc.
Parts of Speech
Parts of Speech are kinds of words. They are divided into eight categories based on their usage.
Noun:A noun is the name of a person, animal, thing or place.
E.g.: Ravi is pursuing MBA in HRM..
We saw a group of foreigners in the vehicle.
The crowd was very big.
Always speak the truth.
Our class consists of 20 students.
APEC has many branches in Hyderabad and abroad.
Tenali Raman was famous for his wisdom.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
The class is studying grammar.
Lion is called as the king of jungle.
Pronoun:A pro-noun is a word used instead of a noun. Given below are the common pronouns in English.
I
We
You
He
She
It
They
My
Our
Your
His
Her
Its
Their
Me
Us
Your
Him
Her
It
Them
Other Pronouns: This, That, These, Those etc
E.g.: They were going at a speed of 110 kmph.
Here is your book, take it away.
When I saw the child it was crying.
You began the quarrel, not me.
His sister is my colleague.
Some say he is very intelligent.
These are my best friends.
Many of them were Americans.
Did you ask anybody to come?
Somebody has stolen my watch.
Everyone knows his position.
Anybody can participate in the contest.
Adjective:An ad-ject-ive gives additional information of noun; it qualifies a noun. It answers the question how is the subject or the object.
E.g.: She is a slim, beautiful, smart girl.
The screw is loose, tighten it.
The Sun is red, the Earth is blue,
The crazy guy was shouting in the road.
Where are my new shoes?
He was absent last week.
Raju won the second prize.
Main road leads to the station.
Look at that lazy foolish fellow.
The old woman lives in a small hut.
Verb:A verb shows an action or a condition.
E.g.: Krishna was swimming in the river.
Chaitanya was not doing the work.
Fresh batch will begin from March 1st.
You must practice LSRW regularly.
We have an opening in our marketing department.
Do not use cell phones in the lab.
The results have been declared.
He tried again and again.
We will get back to you soon.
T-shirts don’t look good for a professional.
Bajaj bikes give best mileage.
She came to office rather late today.
Adverb:An ad-verb, as its name itself shows describes a verb; It answers the questions like when, how, where an action took place. In English, an adverb normally ends in –ly.
E.g.: She was walking slowly in the road.
Finally, India won the exciting match.
Try again, try again, if you don’t succeed.
We woke up very early.
You are truly a very smart gal.
I surely expect him tomorrow.
The patient is breathing rapidly.
She spoke to me nicely.
Do not walk so fast.
Are you going so immediately?
Preposition:A pre-position is placed before a noun and it shows the relationship between two nouns.
E.g.: The book is on the table.
His cousin lives on Bank Street.
Do not run in the road.
They will reach the venue at 6 O’ clock.
I can do anything for you.
The train travels from Hyderabad to Mumbai.
The trainer has been working here since 2001.
The baby is crying for an hour.
The reception will be on November 22.
They will come to India in January 2010.
Conjunction:A con-junction connects two nouns or two clauses.
E.g.: And, Or, If, But, So, Because etc
E.g.: Jyoti and Swati are Shrikant’s sisters.
Dhoni hit a boundary because it was full toss ball.
Wait here till I come back.
Walk quickly else you will miss the train.
I like him because he is honest.
You will get the prize if you work hard.
I waited till the train arrived.
Harry failed because he was idle.
Work hard otherwise you will fail.
Seeta is tall but Kamala is taller.
Cats can climb trees however dogs cannot.
You must start at once otherwise you will be late.
Interjection:An Inter-jection is a single word exclamation; it takes an exclamatory mark (!) at the end and is a complete sentence in itself.
E.g.: Alas! How poor the child is!
Pity! She is so hungry!
Bravo! Let’s do it man!
Hello! What on Earth are you doing there?
Alas! He is dead!
Hurrah! We have won the game!
Ah! Have they gone?
Hush! Don’t make noise.
Kinds of Sentences
Sentences are of four types, based on the purpose of their use. They can be positive or negative. A negative sentence contains any one word out of: no, not, nobody, no one, none, nothing, never, nowhere, neither- nor etc. In the following examples, starred (*) sentences are negative ones. Normally exclamations are not possible in negative form.
Statements: Meant to give information. They have a full stop (.) at the end.
E.g.: Barack Obama is the president of the U.S.A.
Dinosaurs existed a million years ago.
*Reliance GSM is not available in A.P.
*You have to get through I-CET for doing MBA.
Questions:Meant to ask information. They have a question mark (?) at the end.
E.g.: Where is my laptop?
Do you have 1000 Rs. change?
*Why don’t you join a good gym?
*Don’t you know the importance of practice?
Orders: Meant to tell someone to do something; they are order, and request. They have a full stop (.) at the end.
E.g.: Go straight and turn left in third lane.
Please, get me two CDs from the market.
*Never open unknown e-mails on April 1st.
*Please, don’t tease the poor child.
Exclamations: Meant to express sudden feelings like wonder, love, happiness, joy, anger, pity, sorrow etc. They have an exclamatory mark (!) at the end.
E.g.: Wow! What a great shot!
Alas! The poor girl lost everything!
What a great victory India recorded!
How gracefully the artiste performed!
Helping Verbs
Helping verb, as the name itself shows, helps main verb to make different tenses, without changing their meaning.
E.g.:
1. Rahul came to college on bike.(Simple Present Tense)
2. Rahul was coming to college on bike.(Past Continuous Tense)
3. Rahul can come to college on bike.(Simple Present Tense)
4. Rahul should come to college on bike.(Simple Present Tense)
Be, Have, Can and Do
These are the most important words in English. The verbs like be, have and do are used both as helping verbs and as main verbs. Their forms are as follows:
Be: Be shows a state or a condition. It tells you that something / somebody is in existence. As helping verb, it is used to make Continuous Tenses.
Forms of Be
Tense
Form
Meaning in your Mother tongue
Used with
Present
Am
I
Is
he, she, it, Singular Noun
Are
We, you, they, Plural Noun
Past
Was
I, he, she, it, Singular Noun
Were
we, you, they, Plural Noun
Future
Will Be
All
Perfect
Been
All
Other
Be
All
E.g.: I am an M. Sc. in computer science.
I am working in HCL since January this year.
He is really a very interesting chap.
She is cleaning the dining table.
They are all American citizens.
Cell phone was a very big thing ten years ago.
The cat was sleeping in the gallery.
Little children were ready for drill.
We were traveling to Vizag last Monday.
Tirupati will be our next destination.
The whole of India will be speaking English.
I have been to Pondichery a few times.
He can be a good English speaker by practice.
He should be a good programmer next year.
Have: Have, as helping verb is used to make perfect tenses.
Forms of Have
Tense
Form
Used with
Present
Have
I, We, You, They, Plural Noun
Has
He, She, It, Singular Noun
Past
Had
All
E.g.: They have gone out since morning.
My cousin has left the job to go abroad.
He has spoken to me about the matter.
I had watched the movie long back.
The internet connection has brokendown.
She has settled in her job in Australia.
Do: do, as helping verb is used to make questionsandnegative sentences, only in simple present and simple past tenses, when there in no Be or Can form in the sentence.
Forms of Do
Tense
Form
Used with
Present
Do
I, We, You, They, Plural Noun
Does
He, She, It, Singular Noun
Past
Did
All
E.g.: I know. I don’t know. You know. Do you know? He doesn’t know anything.
She went to college. She did not go to college. Did she go to college?
Can: Can group has the words like can, could, should, would, may, might, must, have to, dare, need to etc. See Chapter no. 9 Helping Verbs for more details.
Forms of Main Verbs:Main verbs are action verbs. They need above mentioned helping verbs to make different tenses. Main verbs themselves have different forms used for different tenses as follows:
