The English curriculum for class 12 has been prepared in such a way to ensure maximum proficiency in English for the students leaving their higher secondary stage and entering a university or some professional domain. The English Core Course is framed to cater to the language skills required for academic study as well as the language skills required for the workplace. It aims to develop greater confidence in the use of language skills which will prove to be essential for social and academic purposes such as participating in group discussions, interviews etc. Several activities are also included in the curriculum apart from theory and writing. They are brought forth in the academic forum to promote and support the students in improving their listening, speaking and communicating skills and the activities include debates and discussions, speeches, role-plays and many more.
Amongst the other core subjects, English core is a subject that helps the students to explore beyond their specific stream and think out of the box. The poems and proses included in the curriculum are interesting and thought-provoking and thus reduce the hassle of learning. The key to making learning English core easier comes at the first stage of reading and comprehending the lessons. Reading through the sentences attentively and understanding the main idea presented in the lesson saves a lot of time spent on pondering over the question and answer section. Proper comprehension of the theme, writing style and the ideas conveyed are important. The themes and sub-themes in all the lessons are often ignored by most students but are one of the most frequently asked questions and the answers for many questions can easily be found in it if the main idea behind the lesson is well understood.
English, unlike most other subjects, is less time consuming to learn and therefore demands only limited time but requires maximum focus. With respect to the poems, students should first read through the poem and try to interpret what the poet may be trying to express. After an initial reading and interpretation, students may look through the internet that finds appreciations and reviews of the poem by experts. This way one can find different meanings hidden in the lesson they might have missed to notice by themselves. Writing these down as notes to refer to later will help immensely for the final revision before the exam. When it comes to the prose put together in the prescribed books, students would have to take the effort to read carefully each lesson and underline sentences they find important. Trying to find questions by oneself from the lessons and attempting to answer them by quoting excerpts from the chapter helps tremendously.
The NCERT books for class 12, Flamingo and Vistas have a section after each lesson where several questions concerning the chapter can be found. These questions are framed in such a manner that they assist students in thinking beyond the surface level understanding of the lesson and thereby come to a deep and underlying apprehension. This helps with a much more clear, moral understanding of the lesson which will ultimately make the students capable of forming better answers for any questions from the book. Once students are thorough with the lessons from both the books, they may move on to studying for the writing section. This section aims to test the creative writing skills of the students and as per the curriculum, students are to learn how to compose a notice, poster, advertisement, Formal/Informal invitation and Reply, Article, Report, Business or Formal letters, letters for Job application etc.
To ace this section of the English paper, students are required to first familiarize themselves with the unique format of each of the above mentioned writing tasks. Once the formats are clear, practice composing and writing at least two questions for each of these writing exercises. Engaging in more such questions will genuinely increase the overall language and thereby help students score better marks in the subject. Students can read through some general topics before the final exams and get some idea on recent relevant topics as well, to create a writing piece with required and apt content. After students are done with an exhaustive study of the core lessons and the writing exercises, it is best to move on to solving sample question papers and they are easily obtainable from different websites and books.
Many times students who score relatively better marks try getting hold of previous years’ question papers and try solving them before the exams. This puts the students in an advantageous position as they will be able to understand the question patterns and accustom themselves to how questions usually come from each portion prescribed. With the answers keys provided with these question papers, they get to analyze the answers and recognize the specific points that will get them more marks in various kinds of questions.
In the final month of preparation, students are mostly advised to cater to solving question papers and referring to the already prepared notes. There are also different kinds of guides that are available today and they help students get a better idea of how to write exams in the best way to score maximum marks. They analyze previous evaluations and give a very detail-oriented account of each lesson and also the questions that follow. They are very much helpful for any last-minute preparations and proves to be of best use when you don’t have much time to go through the entire syllabus within a limited time.
The English core course is a relatively easier subject when learned by acknowledging its due importance. It is one of the few subjects that can be learnt with ease within one month if there is a proper foundation for the student in the subject. The students will just have to read through both the prescribed textbooks, that is ‘Flamingo’ and ‘Vistas’, and be systematic in learning them along with practising comprehension passages and sharpening their writing skills.
