English

 

ENGLISH CURRICULUM FOR
CLASS XI AND XII

ENGLISH ELECTIVE
The course is intended to give students a high level of competence in English with an emphasis on the study of literary texts. The course will provide extensive exposure to a variety of rich texts of world literature as well as Indian and Tibetan writings in English, including classics, develop sensitivity to the creative and imaginative use of English and give them a taste for reading with delight and discernment. The course is pitched at a level which the students may find challenging yet interesting.
The course is primarily designed to equip the students to pursue higher studies in English literature and English language at the college level.
Objectives
The general objectives at this stage are:

  1. to provide extensive exposure to a variety of writings in English, including some classics to develop sensitivity to literary and creative uses of the language.
  2. to further expand the learners’ vocabulary resources through the use of dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopaedia.
  3. to develop a taste for reading with discernment and delight.
  4. to critically examine a text and comment on different aspects.
  5. to develop proficiency in English both in receptive and productive skills.

At the end of this course, the learner

  1. grasps the global meaning of the text, its gist and understands how its theme and sub-themes relate.
  2. relates to the details provided in the text for example, how the details support a generalization or the conclusion either by classification or by contrast and comparison.
  3. comprehends details, locates and identifies facts, arguments, logical relationships, generalization, conclusion, in the texts.
  4. draws inferences, supplies missing details, predicts outcomes, grasps the significance of particular details and interprets texts.
  5. assesses and analyzes the attitude and bias of the author.
  6. infers the meanings of words and phrases from the context; differentiates between apparent synonyms and appreciates the nuances of words.
  7. appreciates stylistic nuances, the lexical structure; its literal and figurative uses and analyses a variety of texts.
  8. identifies different styles of writing like humorous, satirical, contemplative, ironical and burlesque.
  9. can produce text-based writing (writing in response to questions or tasks based on prescribed as well as ‘unseen’ texts.)
  10. develops the advanced skills of reasoning, inferring, analysing, evaluating and creating.
  11. develops familiarity with the poetic uses of language including features of the language through which artistic effect is achieved.

Methods and Techniques
The techniques used for teaching should promote habits of self-learning and reduce dependence on the teacher. The multi-skill, learner-centred, activity based approach already recommended for the previous stages of education, is still in place, though it will be used in such a way that silent reading of prescribed selected texts for comprehension will receive greater focus as one of the activities. Learners will be trained to read independently and intelligently, interacting actively with texts and other reference materials (dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, etc.) where necessary. Some pre-reading activity will generally be required, and course books should suggest those activities. The reading of texts should be followed by post reading activities. It is important to remember that every text can generate different reading strategies. Students should be encouraged to interpret texts in different ways, present their views of critics on a literary text and express their own reactions to them. Some projects may be assigned to students from time to time. For instance, students may be asked to put together a few literary pieces on a given theme.
The Approach to the Curriculum

  • A skill-based communicative approach is recommended with graded texts followed by learner-centred activities.
  • Academic reading and writing and appreciation of literature form the basis of the syllabus.
  • It is recommended that teachers consciously take a back seat, playing the role of a manager, coordinator and facilitator.
  • Language Skills and their Objectives

 
Approach to Reading

  • The course aims at introducing a variety in text type rather than having only short stories and prose pieces.
  • The emphasis is to enlarge the vocabulary through word building skills and impart training in reading for specific purposes.

 
Specific Objectives of Reading:

Students are expected to develop the following study skills:

  • refer to dictionaries, encyclopaedia, thesaurus and academic reference material
  • select and extract relevant information, using reading skills of skimming and scanning
  • understand the writer’s attitude and bias
  • comprehend the difference between what is said and what is implied
  • understand the language of propaganda and persuasion
  • differentiate between claims and realities, facts and opinions
  • form business opinions on the basis of the latest trends available
  • comprehend technical language as required in computer related fields
  • arrive at personal conclusion and comment on a given text
  • be original and creative in interpreting opinion
  • be logically persuasive in defending one’s opinion

 
Develop literary skills as enumerated below:

  • personally respond to literary texts
  • appreciate and analyse special features of languages that differentiate literary texts from non-literary ones
  • explore and evaluate features of character, plot, setting, etc.
  • understand and appreciate the oral, mobile and visual elements of drama
  • identify the elements of style such as humour, pathos, satire and irony, etc.
  • make notes from various resources for the purpose of developing the extracted ideas into sustained pieces of writing
  • summarizing

Speaking and Listening
Speaking and listening skills need a very strong emphasis and is an important objective leading to professional competence. Hence testing of oral skills must be made an important component of the overall testing pattern. To this end, speaking and listening skills are overtly built into the material to guide the teachers in actualization of the skills.
As good communication skills raise the self-esteem and gives a student confidence to face the challenges of life, it is desired that the student acquires proficiency in it by the time he or she completes school education. In the present time, speaking and listening are considered to be the essential skills of learning a language which are extensively used in one’s life. Hence, the formal assessment of speaking and listening skills has been added in the overall assessment scheme with a view to bring in a ‘washback’ effect in the teaching process. While the focus of listening skills is to assess a student’s competency in listening for understanding the main points to identify general and specific information for a purpose, distinguishing the main points from the supporting details, interpreting messages, understanding and following instructions, advice, requests, etc., the linguistic and non-linguistic features of a language, etc., and appropriate activities may be used for assessing the achievement of learning objectives.
The outcome of the Assessment of Speaking and Listening Skills (ASL) is to develop students’ confidence to respond fluently and intelligently in English during situations where the use of English is imperative. The course offered here will develop strategies to listen with comprehension to spoken English, especially in the context of formal academic discussions, interviews and about career prospects. They will be internationally intelligible during their communicative exchanges so that they can play a range of roles in academic, social as well as in future workplace contexts.
It is suggested that the Speaking and Listening Skills Assessment [20 %], within this curriculum must not, however, affect the reliability or validity of assessment outcomes, nor must they be perceived to give these students an assessment advantage over other students.
Specific objectives of Speaking and Listening Skills:

  • understand conversational English in a natural environment
  • confidence in speaking English with greater fluency
  • using suitable registers /appropriacy
  • using a wider vocabulary to talk about a range of general topics as well as specific subject area.
  • interacting appropriately
  • adopting appropriate strategies to get more information
  • clarifying misunderstood information
  • asking for repetition without losing understood names, terms, numbers, or directions
  • receiving and giving telephonic messages
  • responding to complaints and requests
  • greeting appropriately
  • accuracy and pronunciation
  • efficient interaction

 
Specific Objectives of Listening:
Students are expected to develop the ability:

  • to listen to lectures and talks and to be able to extract relevant and useful information for a specific purpose.
  • to listen to news bulletins and to develop the ability to discuss informally on a wide ranging issues like current national and international affairs, sports, business, etc.
  • to respond in interviews and to participate in formal group discussions.
  • to make enquiries meaningfully and adequately, and to respond to enquiries for the purpose of travelling
  • within the country and abroad.
  • to listen to business news and to be able to extract relevant important information.
  • to develop the art of formal public speaking.

 
Approaches to Writing
The course for two years has been graded in such a way that it leads the students towards acquiring advanced writing skills through integrated tasks that move from less linguistically challenging to more challenging ones. It has been planned on the premise that sub skills of writing should be taught in a context and more emphasis should be laid on teaching the process of writing.
Specific Objectives of Writing

  • to write letters to friends, pen friends, relatives, etc.
  • to write business and official letters.
  • to send faxes, e-mails[formal].
  • to open accounts in post offices and banks.
  • to fill in railway/airline reservation forms.
  • to write on various issues to institutions seeking relevant information, lodge complaints, express thanks or tender apology.
  • to write applications, fill in application forms, prepare a personal bio-data for admission into colleges, universities, entrance tests and jobs.
  • to write informal reports as part of personal letters on functions, programmes and activities held in school (morning assembly, annual day, sports day, etc.)
  • to write formal reports for school magazines/events/processes/ or in local newspapers about events or occasions.
  • to express opinions, facts, arguments in the form of a speech or debate.
  • to draft papers to be presented in symposia.
  • to take down notes from talks and lectures. to write examination answers according to the requirement of various subjects.
  • Summarizing

 
Grammar and Phonetics
The Grammar that supports these skills includes adjectives and adverbs, modals and semi-modals, gerunds and participles, the simple, continuous, perfect [present, past] tense forms, future time, active and passive voice, reported speech, sentence transformation.
The Speaking and listening skills acquisition will be supported by the inclusion of the following: Speech Mechanism, Organs of Speech, Classification of Vowels – Diphthongs, Cardinal Vowels, Phonemes – Allophones and Allophonic Variations, Homonyms and Homophones, Stress and Rhythm, Intonation, Juncture Elision and Assimilation.
Reading
Inculcating good reading habits in children has always been a concern for all stakeholders in education. The purpose is to create independent thinking individuals with the ability to not only create their own knowledge but also critically interpret, analyse and evaluate it with objectivity and fairness. This will also help students in learning and acquiring better language skills.
Creating learners for the 21st century involves making them independent learners who can ‘learn, unlearn and relearn’ and if our children are in the habit of reading they will learn to reinvent themselves and deal with any challenges that lie ahead of them.
Reading is not merely decoding information or pronouncing words correctly, it is an interactive dialogue between the author and the reader in which the reader and the author share their experiences and knowledge with each other which helps them to understand the text and impart meaning to the text other than what the author himself may have implied. Good readers are critical readers with an ability to arrive at a deeper understanding of not only the world presented in the book but also of the real world around them. They not only recall what they read but comprehend it too. Their critical reading and understanding of the text helps them create new understanding, solve problems, infer and make connections to other texts and experiences. Reading does not mean reading for leisure only but also for information, analysis and synthesis of knowledge. The student may be encouraged to read on topics as diverse as Science and Technology, Politics and History. This will improve his/her critical thinking skills and also help in improving his/her concentration.

Class XI (English Elective)

SECTION A
1. ADVANCED READING SKILLS

Two unseen passages (including poems) with a variety of questions including vocabulary such as word formation and inferring word meaning.

1) Note-making and summarizing
2) Vocabulary

The passages or poems could be of any one of the following types

(a) Factual passages e.g. instructions, descriptions, reports
(b) Discursive passages involving opinion e.g. argumentative, persuasive
(c) Literary passages e.g. poems, extracts from fiction, biography, autobiography, travelogue etc.

SECTION B
2. EFFECTIVE WRITING SKILLS
3. Writing tasks as indicated below :

Short writing tasks such as composing messages, notices, e-mails and factual description of people, arguing for or against a topic

4. Writing letters based on given verbal/visual input

a) Official letter for making inquiries, suggesting changes/ registering complaints, asking and giving information, placing orders and sending replies
b) Letters to the editor on various social, national and international issues

5. Long and sustained writing tasks such as writing a speech or writing an article based on or verbal or a visual input
SECTION C
APPLIED GRAMMAR

Grammar items such as modals, determiners, voice and tense forms.

6. Drafting questions/questionnaires based on given input
7. Composing a dialogue based on the given input
8. Testing Pronunciation, Stress and Intonation
9. Error correction in sentences
SECTION D
LITERATURE

Comprehension at different levels and of different kinds local, global, interpretative, inferential, evaluative and extrapolatory.

10. Different poems to test local and global comprehension of ideas and language used in the text.
11. Different poems to test theme, setting and literary devices. It may or may not be based on an extract.
12. Plays to test comprehension and drawing/evaluating inferences.
13. Different prose texts from the Literature Reader to test global comprehension of usage & lexis and meaning.
14. Different prose texts in the Literature Reader to test global comprehension and for extrapolation beyond the text.
Prescribed Books

1. Language Skillsbook – Functional English published by Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi.
2. Literature Reader – Functional English published by Central Board of Secondary Education. Delhi.

Class XII (English Elective)

SECTION A
1. ADVANCED READING SKILLS

1) Word formation and inferring meaning.
2) Note-making and summarising
3) The passages or poems of any one of the following types Factual passages e.g. illustrations, description, reports

Discursive passages involving opinion e.g. argumentative, persuasive .
Literary passages e.g. poems, extracts from fiction, biography, autobiography, travelogue etc.
SECTION B
2. EFFECTIVE WRITING SKILLS
4. Writing tasks such as notices, advertisements, factual description of people arguing for or against topics, places and objects, drafting posters, accepting and declining invitations.
5. Writing letters of any of the following types based on given verbal/visual input.

a) Official letters for making inquiries, suggesting changes-registering complaints asking for and giving information, placing orders and sending replies
b) Letters to the editor on various social, national and international issues.
c) Application for a job including CV (Curriculum Vitae) /Resume.

6. Writing task such as writing a speech, a report or writing an article based on verbal/visual input.
SECTION C
APPLIED GRAMMAR

Grammar items such as modals, determiners, voice and tense forms have been dealt with in class XI. However, other items such as prepositions, verb forms, connectors which have been learnt earlier would also be included.

7. Reordering of words and sentences
8. Composing a dialogue based on the given input
9. Error correction in sentences
10. Drafting questions/questionnaires based on given input
SECTION D
LITERATURE

Comprehension at different levels and of different kinds local, global, interpretative, inferential, evaluative and extrapolatory.

11. Different poems to test local and global comprehension of ideas and language used in the text.
12. Different poems to test theme, setting and literary devices. It may or may not be based on an extract.
13. Plays to test comprehension and drawing/evaluating inferences.
14. Different prose texts from the Literature Reader to test global comprehension of usage & lexis and meaning.
15. Different prose texts in the Literature Reader to test global comprehension and for extrapolation beyond the text.
Prescribed Books:

1. Language Skillsbook- Functional English published by Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi.
2. Literature Reader – Functional English published by Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi.

Class XI (ENGLISH CORE)

SECTION – A

Reading unseen Passages for Comprehension and Note-making.

1. The passages could be any of the following types:

Factual passages, e.g., illustrations, description, reports
Discursive passages involving opinion, e.g., argumentative, persuasive
Literary passages e.g. extracts from fiction, biography, autobiography, travelogue, etc.

SECTION B
Advanced Writing Skills
2. Factual description of any event or incident, a report or a process based on verbal input provided.
3. Compositions based on a visual and/or verbal input. The output may be descriptive or argumentative in nature such as an article for publication in a newspaper or a school magazine or a speech.
4. Letter types include

(a) Business or official letters (for making enquiries, registering complaints, asking for and giving information, placing orders and sending replies) ;
(b) Letters to the editors (giving suggestions, opinions on an issue of public interest)
(c) Application for a job.

SECTION C
GRAMMAR

The grammar syllabus will include the following areas:

5. Determiners, Tenses, Clauses, Modals and Error Correction
6. Editing Task
7. Reordering of sentences
SECTION D
LITERATURE AND LONG READING TEXTS/NOVELS
Comprehension at different levels: literal, inferential and evaluative based on the following prescribed text books:

1. Hornbill : Text book, published by NCERT, New Delhi.
2. Snapshots : Supplementary Reader, published by NCERT, New Delhi.
3. Long Reading Text/Novel

i) The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde (unabridged 1906 Edition)
ii) Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington (unabridged 2000 Edition)

CLASS XII (ENGLISH CORE)

SECTION-A

Reading unseen Passages and Note-making

1. Factual Passages e.g. instructions, descriptions, reports.
2. Discursive passage involving opinion e.g. argumentative, persuasive or interpretative text.
3. Literary passage e.g. extract from fiction, drama, poetry, essay or biography
SECTION B
Advanced Writing Skills
4. Short compositions e.g. advertisement and notices, designing or drafting posters, writing formal and informal invitations and replies.
5. A report or a factual description based on verbal input provided.
6. Lettes:

(a) Business or official letters (for making enquiries, registering complaints, asking for and giving information, placing orders and sending replies)
(b) Letters to the editor (giving suggestions on an issue)
(c) Application for a job.

7. Compositions based on visual and/or verbal input. Output may be descriptive or argumentative in nature such as an article, or a speech.
SECTION C
Literature
8. Comprehension at different levels: literal, inferential and evaluative based on the following prescribed text books:

1. Flamingo : English Reader published by National Council of Education Research and Training, New Delhi.
2. Vistas : Supplementary Reader published by National Council of Education Research and Training, New Delhi.
3. Long Reading Text/Novel

i) The Invisible Man (unabridged) , H.G. Wells
ii) Silas Marner (unabridged) , George Eliot