Language and Literacy (English and Nepali)
Core concepts
Understand the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) and their sub-skills, plus phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Know the difference between skimming (gist), scanning (specific detail), intensive reading and extensive reading. For Nepali, know the Devanagari script, its vowels and consonants, matras, and the difference between spoken and written registers. For English, understand grammar terms examined in primary classes: parts of speech, tense, subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, sentence types, and active and passive voice. Know the stages of writing (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing) and the process-versus-product debate.
Traps
A frequent trap is confusing phonemic awareness (hearing and manipulating sounds) with phonics (linking sounds to letters). Skimming and scanning are often swapped; skimming is fast gist reading, scanning is searching for a fact. Questions about communicative language teaching may wrongly imply that grammar is never taught; accuracy work supports fluency. In Nepali items, watch for confusions between similar Devanagari letters and between matras that change vowel quality. Do not label a decoding error as a comprehension problem.
Worked example
A question asks what a learner does to find a train time in a timetable. Rule of thumb: searching for one specific detail is scanning. If the learner instead reads a short story quickly to decide whether it is interesting, that is skimming. For a comprehension item, always return to the text evidence rather than prior knowledge.
Application
Plan integrated lessons that balance accuracy and fluency, teach vocabulary in context, and use authentic texts with purpose-setting questions.