BSHS1002 · 4 credits · Foundation
English 2
Not English 1 again. Three weeks on sentence structure, then listening, speaking, reading, writing and social skills — the half of language you cannot revise for the night before.
- Lectures
- 89 · 42 h
- Prerequisite
- English 1
- Assessed by
- 2 quizzes + end term
- Bonus marks
- none
Week 11 · social skills
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What this course actually asks
A skills course wearing a grammar course's nameEnglish 2 is taught by Rajesh Kumar, the same instructor as English 1, and the first thing to understand is that it is not a repeat. English 1 was mostly the system — sounds, word classes, tenses. English 2 spends three weeks on clause patterns and then nine weeks on using the language: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and finally the social register that decides whether a correct sentence also lands well.
That last part is the genuinely useful bit, and the bit people dismiss. Weeks 11 and 12 are about how to say something to a stranger, a senior, a team — and those are the sentences you will write for the rest of your career, in every project report and every email to a course team.
The lectures open with figures of speech — similes, metaphors, alliteration, irony — which tells you the register of the course. It is a literature department's view of communication, not a grammar drill.
English 1 is a hard prerequisite. Nothing in the Diploma requires English 2 directly, but it is one of the eight you must finish before any Diploma course opens.
The twelve weeks
Topics quoted from the official course pageSix blocks of two or three weeks each. Only the first block is testable in the way a grammar course is testable; the rest reward practice over revision.
Patterns in sentences.
Patterns in sentences (continued).
Patterns in sentences (continued).
Listening skills.
Listening skills (continued).
Speaking skills.
Speaking skills (continued).
Reading skills.
Writing skills.
Writing skills (continued).
Social skills.
Social skills (continued).
Weeks 1 to 3, in seven shapes
Every English clause is one of theseThree weeks of "patterns in sentences" comes down to seven arrangements of subject, verb, object, complement and adverbial. Pick one and see it labelled. The exam asks you to identify the pattern, so practise labelling rather than rewriting.
The test that separates SVA from SV: take the adverbial away. "The meeting is" is not a sentence, so the adverbial is obligatory and the pattern is SVA. "The audience applauded loudly" survives losing loudly, so that one is plain SV with an optional extra.
How it is graded
May 2026 grading document · confirm against your course pageThe standard Foundation formula, with no bonus activities:
Seven chances, not eight
Like English 1, this course's eligibility rule is the average of the best 5 of the first 7 weekly assignment scores, plus attendance at one quiz. Mock Quiz 1 is not in the list the way it is for the maths, statistics and computing courses.
There is also no bonus activity here, so there is nothing to make up a weak exam with. The three components in the formula are all you have.
Weeks 11 and 12 — the social skills block — sit outside the eligibility window and inside the end term.
Where the marks actually go
My read, from this course and from what people ask aboutAssuming it repeats English 1
It does not. English 1's phonetics and tenses do not reappear; sentence patterns and the four skills are new content with their own vocabulary.
Confusing SVC with SVOC
Both end in a complement. In SVC it describes the subject; in SVOC it describes the object. Ask "what does this word describe" before naming the pattern.
Treating listening as unexaminable
Two full weeks go to it. It is tested through comprehension questions, and it is the one skill that genuinely cannot be crammed — ten minutes a day from week 1 is the whole strategy.
Skipping the social skills weeks
Outside eligibility, inside the end term, and the most quotable content in the course. Register and politeness questions are easy marks for anyone who watched the lectures once.
Everything worth opening
Official first, then the free things that genuinely helpEvery link here was opened and checked on 23 September 2026.
Official
- Course page BSHS1002 on study.iitm.ac.in The week list, the instructor, and the additional learning support download.
- Lectures English II — full playlist All 89 official lectures on the programme's own channel.
For listening (weeks 4–5)
- Practice BBC · 6 Minute English One six-minute conversation a day, with a full transcript. Listen once without it, once with it. That is the whole method.
- Practice VOA Learning English Slower-paced news with transcripts and level grading. Useful if the BBC's pace is still too quick.
For speaking and presenting (weeks 6–7)
- Video TED Talks Every talk has an interactive transcript. Read a good speaker's opening ninety seconds as text and you can see exactly how a presentation is built.
- Practice British Council · Speaking Workplace conversations by level, with exercises on the phrases themselves — close to what weeks 6, 7, 11 and 12 are teaching.
For writing (weeks 9–10)
- Tool Hemingway Editor Paste a paragraph and it marks the sentences that are too long and the passive constructions. A blunt instrument, but it teaches you your own habits fast.
- Notes Purdue OWL The reference for professional writing conventions — letters, emails, reports. Weeks 9 and 10, written out properly.
What to do in week one
Term starts 2 October 2026- Learn the seven patterns firstThey run for three weeks and appear in both quizzes. The widget above is the whole block.
- Start listening from day oneOne 6 Minute English episode a day. By week 4 you will be ahead of the course instead of behind it.
- Do all seven early assignmentsEnglish 2, like English 1, does not count Mock Quiz 1 toward eligibility.
- Record yourself onceNinety seconds explaining something you know. Painful, and the fastest feedback you will get before weeks 6 and 7.
- Keep a phrase book, not a word listWhole polite formulations — "would you be able to", "I'd like to check whether" — are what weeks 11 and 12 are actually about.
- Check your course page's grading sectionEverything here is from the May 2026 document. The September 2026 one was not published when this was written.