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COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH
(Code No. 101) (2022 – 2023)
I. Introduction :
Acquiring a language means, above all, acquiring a means to communicate confidently and naturally. In other words, in order to communicate effectively in real life, students need more than mere knowledge about the language. In addition, they must be able to use the language effectively, with confidence and fluency. Therefore, the course in English Communicative has been designed to develop the practical language communication, skills needed for academic study and subsequent adult life.
The course brings together a number of ideas about the nature of language and language learning.
Knowledge and Skill
One of the tenets of the communicative approach is the idea that Language is a skill to be acquired, not merely a body of knowledge to be learnt. Acquiring a language has been compared to learning to drive. It is not enough to have only theoretical knowledge of how an engine works: you must know how to use the gears and (crucially) how to interact with other road users. Similarly, simply knowing parts of speech or how to convert the active into the passive does not mean you are proficient in a language. You must be able to put knowledge into practice in natural use. Of course, we do not expect a novice driver to move off without preparation: the driver has rules of the highway which he/she must learn by rote. But there is no substitute for learning by doing, albeit in the artificial conditions of a deserted road at slow speeds. Equally in language learning there are some ‘rules to be learnt’ but there is no substitute for learning by doing. In good teaching, this experience is supported by carefully-graded, contextualized exercises.
Structure and Function
Language can be described in different ways. Obviously we can label an utterance according to its grammatical structure. Another approach is to decide what function it performs. Consider the following:
a) “Can I open the window?”
b) “Can I carry that care?”
we could say that a) and b) have the same grammatical structure: they are both interrogative. We should also recognize that they perform different functions: a) is a ‘request’ b) is an ‘offer’.
The course aims to recognizes the use to which language is put and encourages pupils to be aware of the relationship between structure and function.
The overall aims of the course are to:
(a) enable the learner to communicate effectively and appropriately in real-lifesituations;
(b) use English effectively for study purposes across the curriculum;
(c) develop and integrate the use of the four language skills, i.e., listening,speaking,
reading and writing;
(d) develop interest in and appreciation of literature;
(e) revise and reinforce structures already learnt.
To develop creativity, Students should be encouraged to think on their own and express their ideas using their experience, knowledge and imagination, rather than being text or teacher dependent. Students should be encouraged to monitor their progress, space out their learning, so they should be encouraged to see language not just as a functional tool, but as an important part of personal development and inculcation of values.
II. Objectives
READING
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
1. read silently at varying speeds depending on the purpose of reading;
2. adopt different strategies for different types of text, both literary and non-literary;
3. recognise the organization of a text;
4. identify the main points of a text;
5. understand relations between different parts of a text through lexical and
grammatical cohesion devices;
6. anticipate and predict what will come next in a text;*
7. deduce the meaning of unfamiliar lexical items in a given context;
8. consult a dictionary to obtain information on the meaning and use of lexicalitems;*
9. analyse, interpret, infer (and evaluate) the ideas in the text;
10. select and extract, from a text, information required for a specific purpose (and
record it in note form);
11. transcode information from verbal to diagrammatic form;
12. retrieve and synthesise information from a range of reference materials usingstudy
skills such as skimming and scanning;
13. interpret texts by relating them to other material on the same theme (and totheir own
experience and knowledge);
14. read extensively on their own.
WRITING
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
1. express ideas in clear and grammatically correct English, using appropriate
punctuation and cohesion devices;
2. write in a style appropriate for communicative purposes;
3. plan, organise and present ideas coherently by introducing, developing and
concluding a topic;
4. write a clear description (e.g., of a place, a person, an object or a system);
8. convey messages effectively in person or by telephone;
9. frame questions so as to elicit the desired response, and respond appropriately to
questions;
10. participate in spontaneous spoken discourse in familiar social situations.
GRAMMAR
By the end of the course, students should be able to use the following accurately and
appropriately in context:
1. Verbs :-
• present/past forms
• simple/continuous forms
• perfect forms
• future time reference
• modals
• active and passive voice
• subject-verb concord
• non-finite verb forms (infinitives and participles)
2. Sentence Structure :-
• connectors
• types of sentences
• affirmative/interrogative sentences negation
• exclamations
• types of phrases and clauses
- finite and non-finite subordinate clauses
- noun clauses and phrases
- adjective clauses and phrases
- adverb clauses and phrases
• indirect speech
• comparison
• nominalisation
3. Other Areas :-
• determiners
• pronouns
• prepositions
LITERATURE
By the end of the course, students should be able to understand, interpret, evaluate and respond to the following features in a literary text:
1 Character as revealed through
• appearance and distinguishing features
• socio-economic background
• action/events
• expression of feelings
• speech and dialogues
2 Plot/Story/Theme emerging through main events
• progression of events and links between them
• sequence of events denoting theme
3 Setting, as seen through time and place, socio-economic and cultural background,people,
beliefs and attitudes.
4 Form
• rhyme
• rhythm
• simile
• metaphor
• pun
• repetition
III. Role of the Teacher
Unlike a teacher-centred classroom, where the teacher plays a dominant role, speaks most of the time, and interacts with the class as a whole, for the success of this course teachers will need to adopt a variety of roles.
Littlewood^1 sets out these roles as follows:
As a general overseer of his/ her students’ learning, the teacher must aim to coordinate the activities so that they form a coherent progression, leading towards greater communicative ability.
As a classroom manager, he/ she is responsible for grouping activities into ‘lessons’ and for ensuring that these are satisfactorily organized at a practical level.
In many activities, he/ she may perform the familiar role of language instructor: he/ she will present new language, exercise direct control over the learner’s performance, evaluate and correct it, and so on.
(^1) Littlewood, WT (1981) Communicative Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press.
Sometimes it will be necessary to have three working together, but this should not seriously affect their work.
If your class is very crowded, with most students sitting three to a desk, one row may turn to face those behind to form three pairs.
Once students have settled down to work, circulate round the classroom, observing and listening to them, and giving help to those who need it. As with individual work, resist the temptation to interfere too much!
You many find it useful to set a time limit for fair work activity. This can help to focus the students’ attention and provide a challenge, as well as simplifying management of the class. If you wish to do this, tell them the time limit before they begin, and be prepared to extend or reduce it you find you have misjudged the time required.
In many pair work tasks, checking can be carried out in the same way as for individual work by the teacher eliciting answers from the students. Sometimes, though, it may be better for one or more
pairs of students to report back their conclusions to the rest of the class, possibly with class discussion.
Group work
Usually, group work, involves four students but a times it may extend to five or six or even more. Four, however, is a more convenient number or most classroom situations.
The general procedure for group work is the same as for pair work, that is:
- instructions for the whole class
- organization of the groups
- group activity while the teacher circulates
- feedback and checking for the whole class
The major difference is that the organization of the groups needs more care. It is fairly simple to form groups of four by asking students to turn and face those behind.
However, you may feel that some changes are required to achieve a balance in some of the groups. In this case, move only a few students from one group to another. When the groups move over to the feedback and checking stage, you may make it more interesting by asking a student to chair the inter-group discussion.
Whole Class Work
Whole class work, of course, is necessary for maters such as formal instruction (e.g. the format of formal and informal letters), for “warm-up” activities, for class discussion, for “class review” sessions at the close of pair work or group work. During the whole class work, the teacher is in her traditional role.
V. Handling Pair Work and Small Group Work (PW/SGW)
Introducing and Demonstrating
After a brief explanation of what is to be done, always demonstrate the activity. You have these options:
Many teachers view with alarm the prospect of pairwork and small group work with a large number of students. The following are concerns commonly expressed together with the responses of experienced teachers:
VI. Some questions and answers about Pair Work and Small Group Work
For many teachers, the prospect of PW/SGW with large numbers of students in a class is viewed with alarm. To help such teachers, the following are concerns expressed, followed by responses that have been given by other teachers.
Teachers’ concerns about PW/SGW
- It is difficult for the teacher to check whether all students are doing the activity, and (if so) whether they are producing correct and suitable English.
- More proficient pupils are held back by weaker pupils.
- Noise levels are high.
- It is not right for the teacher to withdraw from a position of “central control”
- PW/SGW will be rejected by other teachers, parents and by the students themselves as a waste of time and frivolous.
Responses to these Concerns
- In traditional teacher-led classes, often individual students are not actively participating, but the teacher remains unaware of this, if a sufficient students seem to be ‘following the lesson’.
- Noise is a necessary element of good language learning – as it is in a Music lesson. It is not so much noise itself that some teachers are concerned about, but the amount of noise. There is no easy answer to this question, since a lot depends on the individual teacher’s relationship with the class. Certainly a clear introduction to and demonstration of the task will ensure that PW/SGW gets off to a good start, with no fuss and confusion. And the challenge of the task itself should ensure that students are busily engaged in English. It is for the teacher to make it quite clear to the class what amount of noise is acceptable, and to make sure that noise is kept to that level. If noise levels do get too high for comfcort, the “noisy approach” (i.e. the teacher shouting to get less noise) is unlikely to work for any more than a short while. Instead, try the “quiet approach”, i.e. train your students to recognize that when your hand is raised, they must raise theirs and be more quiet. On occasions, you may have to speak to particularly noisy and excited groups. Please do not let the prospect of some degree of noise put you off PW/SGW. If students are to learn to use English, then they must communicate with each other, not just you. And if they are to communicate, then there will be a certain amount of positive, beneficial noise. Welcome it as a sign that your students are growing in confidence and fluency in English.
- It is perfectly true that in PW/SGW the teacher cannot judge whether all students are producing correct and suitable English. (Of course, this is equally true of a teacher-led classroom where one student is speaking (to you), and all the others are silent.) But we need to accept that making mistakes in language is not only normal, but is actually necessary if a learner is to make progress. Advice on what to do about students’ mistakes when speaking in PW/SGW is given in Section C.6.
- P/SGW encourages all students, even the shy ones, to participate actively. Because they feel they are not “on show” in front of the whole class, they feel to experiment with the language, trying out newly-acquired forms.
- Much research in psycholinguistics in recent years has indicated that peer interaction of this kind in language classes is frequently highly successful. Not all students, even those in the same class, have precisely the same stock of knowledge and understanding of the language. Students can pool ideas and often perform a task better together than they can alone. As they become more familiar with PW/SGW, they learn to handle activities in a mature manner, sensitively correcting each other’s work. In fact research shows that appropriate error correction in well graded activities is just as likely to occur between students as by the teacher in a teacher-led mode.
- If a good student is paired with a less able one, the former is likely to assume the role of a ‘teacher’. This experience is often fruitful for both. The less able student has a ‘personal tutor’, and the good student also improves: having to explain something in simple terms is often an excellent learning experience in itself.
- If a task is well-constructed and the students appropriately prepared, the activity is often ‘peer pressure’ to induce reluctant group members to participate.
- PW/SGW is an attempt to encourage students to accept some of the responsibility for learning themselves. The only truly successful students are the ones who can do this. If the technique is handled well, it will soon become evident that the teacher is working just as hard as she/he does in a teacher-led mode. PW/SGW is one of a number of different techniques which a teacher can employ to accommodate students with different learning styles and for activities with different goals.
COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH (Code NO. 101)
CLASS – IX (2022-23) SECTION-WISE WEIGHTAGE
Section Total Weightage A Reading Skills 20 B Writing Skills 25 C Grammar 10 D Literature Textbook 25 TOTAL 80
SECTION A: READING 20 Marks 50 Periods
The section will have two unseen passages with the maximum word limit of 750 words. The passages can be of any two types out of the following: literary / factual / discursive. Please refer to the Main Course Book. Objective Type Questions (including Multiple Choice Questions), and Very Short Answer type Questions will be asked to test inference, evaluation, analysis and vocabulary in context.
Five Short Answer type Questions out of six from the Literature Reader to test local and global comprehension of theme and ideas (30-40 words each) 5 x2 = 10 Marks One out of two Long Answer type Questions to assess how the values inherent in the text have been brought out. Creativity, imagination and extrapolation beyond the text and across the texts will be assessed. This can also be a passage-based question taken from a situation/plot from the texts. (150 words). 8 marks
Prescribed Books: Interact in English Series by CBSE (Available on www.cbseacademic.nic.in)
• Main Course Book (Revised Edition)
• Literature Reader (Revised Edition)
• Workbook (Revised Edition)
NOTE: Teachers are advised to:
i. encourage classroom interaction among peers, students and teachers through
activities such as role play, group work etc.,
ii. reduce teacher-talk time and keep it to the minimum,
iii. take up questions for discussion to encourage pupils to participate and to marshaltheir
ideas and express and defend their views.
Assessment of Listening and Speaking Skills: 50 Periods Guidelines for the Assessment of Listening and Speaking Skills are given at Annexure I.
Question Paper Design (2022-23) English Communicative (CODE NO. 101) CLASS IX TIME: 3 Hours Max. Marks: 80
S.No Competencies % Weightage
1 Demonstrative Knowledge + Understanding (Knowledge based simple recall questions, to know specific facts, terms, concepts, principles or theories, identify, define, or recite, information, Comprehension – to be familiar with meaning and to understand conceptually, interpret, compare, contrast, explain, paraphrase information)
Upto 30%
2 Conceptual Application (Use abstract information in concrete situation, to apply knowledge to new situations; use given content to interpret a situation, provide an example or solve a problem)
Upto 35%
3 Formulation Analysis, Evaluation and Creativity Analysis & Synthesis- classify, compare, contrast, or differentiate between different pieces of information; organize and/or integrate unique pieces of information from a variety of sources.
Upto 35%
Total 100%
For the details of Internal Assessment of 20 marks, please refer to the circular no.
Acad-11/2019, dated March 06,2019.
Fluency & Coher ence
1.
Noticeably/ long pauses; rate of Speech is slow Frequent repetition and/or self- correction Links only basic sentences; breakdown of coherence evident
2.
Usually fluent; produces simple speech fluently, but loses coherence in complex communication Often hesitates and/or resorts to slow speech Topics partly developed; not always concluded logically
3.
Is willing to speak at length, however repetition is noticeable Hesitates and/or self corrects; occasionally loses coherence Topics mainly developed, but usually not logically concluded
4.
Speaks without noticeable effort, with a little repetition Demonstrates hesitation to find words or use correct grammatical structures and/or self- correction Topics not fully developed to merit
5.
Speaks fluently almost with no repetition & minimal hesitation Develops topic fully & coherently
Vocabulary &
Grammar
Demonstrates almost no flexibility, and mostly struggles for appropriate words Uses very basic vocabulary to express view- points.
Communicates with limited flexibility and appropriacy on some of the topics Complex forms and sentence structures are rare; exhibits limited vocabulary to express new ideas
Communicate s with limited flexibility and appropriacy on most of the topics Sometimes uses complex forms and sentence structures; has limited vocabulary to describe/ express new points
Can express with some flexibility and appropriacy on most of the topics Demonstrates ability to use complex forms and sentence structures most of the time; expresses with adequate vocabulary
Can express with some flexibility and appropriacy on a variety of topics such as family, hobbies, work, travel and current events Frequently uses complex forms and sentence structures; has enough vocabulary to express himself/ herself iii. Schedule: The practice of listening and speaking skills should be done throughout the academic year. The final assessment of the skills is to be done as per the convenience and schedule of the school.
