In the months of January and February, students in India in schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) get busy, preparing for their Board Exams.
These months are for them (and their parents) a time of great stress. Being tense in exam preparation serves no purpose. A more positive approach is to prepare smartly in the time left.
It is true, that there is not much time left for the exam. However, I think, an honest student who recognizes that his preparation has not been sufficient and sincerely wants to remedy the situation, can still hope to be very successful in his Class X CBSE Exam, even if he or she has only a month to prepare.
The toughest part of the CBSE Communicative English Course (Class X) for students is the Writing Section, which tests students' writing skills and currently carries 20 marks.
Students worry not only about HOW to write, but also WHAT to write. They often become aware of this second part only when they actually begin to write.
The 'CODER Principle' is a good guide, but students usually neglect four of those five steps.
Students should be motivated to travel through all the five steps of the C-O-D-E-R process.
The Communicative English syllabus is an excellent piece of work launched in 1993 (for Class IX) and the following year (for Class X). This was after some years of preparation (beginning from 1988-89 according to my recollection) by a team of selected teachers from CBSE schools under the guidance of experts in England.
The aim of the syllabus is to help students use English in real life situations and learn to monitor their own study of the language. A teacher's role is to facilitate the learning process.
It's sensible, I think, for the teacher and student to proceed with the aim of the course in mind!
The text books are well written and are revised from time to time. Careful reading of the Teacher's Manual, can initiate a teacher to fulfil the facilitator's role in the classroom well and help the students to fulfill the aims of the course.
It is not at all a good idea to use the Teacher's Manual only for looking up the correct answers of the exercises. It should be used more for learning about the aims and methods of the Communicative English Course.
One would think that looking up the correct answers should be the least of the purposes of the manual, since a competent teacher would be sure of most of the answers (except perhaps where multiple answers are possible).
Ignorance of what is contained in the Manual leads to deviation in the spirit, aims, and practices involved in the Communicative English course.
Sometimes the Main Couse Book is ignored. The argument is that nothing from it comes in the examination. Is this true? No.
Wouldn't it be strange if the Main Course Book of a course is not a part of the Course!
True, the content of the Main Course Book, does not fully figure in the examination (except in an 8-mark question in the writing section), but the skills taught through that content do. This is true of all language study.
In language study, a passage or a lesson is given in order to study the language points contained in it, such as comprehension, vocabulary, word formation, sentence structure, style, etc and not for its content. This is basic knowledge for any true language teacher.
The Reading and Writing Skills for which students can now get a maximum of 40 marks in their CBSE Exam are in the MCB.
Teaching the MCB...
The Workbook (WB) contains grammar lessons (usually using an inductive method) and exercises.
It is not a good idea to make students complete all the exercises by themselves at home (even the whole WB at the end of the year!) and to tell them to ask any doubts they have.
There are very few students who would be motivated to complete the exercises and ask doubts in such a situation.
For completing the exercises, some students take the help of the Workbooks they had the "foresight" to inherit from their seniors in the beginning of the year; others may altogether "forget" to do the exercises for they rightly guess that they will not be c