Telangana: Inter students to JAM in English practical in forthcoming exams

It is one of the three oral evaluation techniques in English language assessment

Hyderabad: The first year intermediate students will JAM (Just a Minute), speaking on a wide range of topics from favourite teacher, sport etc., for a minute as part of the English language assessment in the forthcoming English practical exams.

Students will be given a list of 30 topics from which they have to pick up one slip and speak on the same. The JAM is one of the three oral evaluation techniques in English language assessment for the first year intermediate students in the practical exams.

---

The other oral assessments are role play and communicative functions. As part of the role play, two students will be given a situation on which they have to converse for about a minute or two.

For example, students will be asked to enact a conversation between a shopkeeper and customer. As for communicative functions, a student’s oral response will be recorded in a given situation for about one or two minutes.

To hone and enhance English communication skills among intermediate students, the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TS BIE) introduced English practical exams from the present academic year 2023-24.

To begin with, first-year students will have English practicals this academic year followed by second-year students in the next academic year i.e., 2024-25. The three-hour theory examination will be for 80 marks and the practical exam conducted for three hours has a maximum of 20 marks.

The passing mark for theory and practical exams is 28 and seven respectively. Apart from oral skills, focus has also been laid on assessing written skills of students via listening comprehension and practical record books.

“As part of listening comprehension, for example, the examiner makes a railway announcement. Students have to carefully listen to the announcement and write the response on the answer sheet,” a TS BIE official explained.

Each section – communicative functions, JAM, role play, listening comprehension and practical record book – will have a maximum of four marks.

“Apart from honing skills, the idea behind introducing English practical exams is to lay the foundation for the TOEFL and IELTS,” the official said. Further, the TS BIE discontinued the Ethics and Human Values exam as part of the intermediate public exams from this academic year. The move comes as the ethics and human values topics were integrated into the English. It will also be included in other languages as well in the next academic year.