English was probably the easiest subject on the timetable and the one we took least seriously. Years into a career, it turns out to be the one we use most: every pull request description, incident report, design document, interview answer and email to a client is English. This article revisits the five units of the JNTUK English course, with the part that matters most in each.
Unit 1: Reading, vocabulary and comprehension
Reading well
Reading comprehension is a skill with a few repeatable techniques:
| Technique | What you do | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Skimming | Read headings, first and last lines of paragraphs | Getting the gist of a long document quickly |
| Scanning | Hunt for a specific word, number or name | Finding one answer in a log, spec or RFC |
| Intensive reading | Read slowly, line by line | Contracts, exam questions, error messages |
| Extensive reading | Read widely for pleasure and general knowledge | Building vocabulary over time |
A good habit while reading: identify the main idea of each paragraph, separate facts from opinions, and notice the author’s tone (formal, persuasive, critical, neutral).
Building vocabulary
Words are easier to learn in families than one at a time.
- Root words, prefixes and suffixes: un- (not), re- (again), pre- (before), -able (can be done), -tion (act of). Knowing transmit gives you transmitter, transmission, retransmit.
- Synonyms and antonyms: increase / decrease, expand / contract. Useful for avoiding repetition.
- Homophones and commonly confused words: affect / effect, principal / principle, complement / compliment, its / it’s.
- One-word substitutes: one precise word for a phrase. Autobiography is the life story written by oneself; orphan is a child without parents.
- Idioms and phrases: meanings that do not follow from the words. A blessing in disguise means a good thing that seemed bad at first.
Today: your team’s vocabulary grows the same way. Words like idempotent, deprecate and orchestrate are ordinary English words given a technical meaning, and the prefix and root trick still decodes them.
Unit 2: Grammar that actually matters
You do not need every rule. You need the ones that change the meaning of a sentence.
Parts of speech
Noun (name), pronoun (replaces a noun), verb (action or state), adjective (describes a noun), adverb (describes a verb, adjective or another adverb), preposition (relation: in, on, at), conjunction (joins: and, but, because), interjection (oh!).
Tenses in one table
| Tense | Simple | Continuous | Perfect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present | The server restarts. | The server is restarting. | The server has restarted. |
| Past | The server restarted. | The server was restarting. | The server had restarted. |
| Future | The server will restart. | The server will be restarting. | The server will have restarted. |
Use the present perfect (has restarted) when the past action matters now. Use the simple past (restarted) when it is finished and tied to a time: it restarted at 3 a.m.
The errors that show up most
- Subject-verb agreement: the verb matches the subject, not the noun nearest to it. The list of failed jobs is long. Neither the client nor the vendors are ready (the verb agrees with the nearer subject).
- Articles: a before a consonant sound, an before a vowel sound (an hour, a user). The for something specific and known.
- Prepositions: depend on, different from, interested in, capable of.
- Active and passive voice: active is direct (The script deleted the logs). Passive hides the actor (The logs were deleted), which is useful when the actor is unknown or unimportant but weak when you want to show ownership.
- Direct and indirect speech: “I will deploy today,” he said becomes He said that he would deploy that day. Tense shifts back, and pronouns and time words change.
- Conditionals: zero (If you heat ice, it melts), first (If the build fails, we will roll back), second (If we had more nodes, we would scale out), third (If we had tested, we would have caught it).
- Punctuation: a comma separates items and clauses; a semicolon joins two related full sentences; an apostrophe shows possession (the server’s disk) or contraction (don’t), never a plural.
Today: grammar mistakes in a ticket are rarely fatal, but ambiguity is. “The service stopped after the deploy that we fixed” leaves a reader unsure which thing was fixed.
Unit 3: Writing skills
Paragraphs and sentences
A good paragraph has unity (one idea), coherence (sentences flow in logical order) and completeness (the idea is fully developed). It usually opens with a topic sentence, then supports it with reasons or examples, then closes or links to the next paragraph. Linking words keep the flow: however, therefore, moreover, for instance, as a result.
Letters, emails and memos
| Document | Purpose | Key parts |
|---|---|---|
| Formal letter | Official communication | Sender address, date, receiver address, subject line, salutation, body, closing, signature |
| Everyday professional communication | Clear subject line, short opening, one request per paragraph, closing and name | |
| Memo | Internal notice inside an organisation | To, From, Date, Subject, then the message |
| Application letter and CV | Applying for a job | Letter introduces and motivates; CV lists education, skills, experience, achievements |
The letter styles in the syllabus (block, modified block) differ only in how lines are aligned. The content rules are the same: state the purpose in the first line, keep to one subject, end with the action you expect.
Reports, précis and essays
- Report: a structured account for a decision-maker. Typical sections: title, summary, introduction, findings, conclusion, recommendations. Types include progress, incident and feasibility reports.
- Précis: a shortened version of a passage, about one third of the length, in your own words, keeping the main ideas and dropping examples and repetition.
- Essay: introduction (state the topic), body (arguments with evidence), conclusion (what follows from them).
Today: a postmortem is a report, a pull request description is a précis of a code change, and a runbook is a formal set of instructions. The same rules apply: state the purpose first, then the facts, then the action.
Unit 4: Listening and speaking
Listening
Hearing is automatic; listening is active. The barriers are noise, distraction, prejudgement and thinking about your reply while the other person is still talking. Better listening means:
- Focus on the speaker and avoid interrupting.
- Listen for the main point, not every word.
- Note key words, then ask a clarifying question or paraphrase back (So the release moves to Friday?).
Speaking
- Pronunciation and stress: English is stress-timed. Stress on the wrong syllable changes intelligibility (PHO-to-graph, pho-TOG-ra-phy). Intonation signals meaning: rising for yes/no questions, falling for statements.
- Everyday functions: introductions, requests, apologies, asking for and giving directions, expressing opinion, agreeing and disagreeing politely.
- Telephone and meeting etiquette: identify yourself, speak clearly and slowly, confirm key details, and summarise before ending.
Group discussion and presentations
| Skill | What counts |
|---|---|
| Group discussion | Start with a clear point, listen to others, build on their points, stay calm, close with a short summary |
| Presentation | Structure of opening, 2 to 3 main points, closing; one idea per slide; eye contact; practised timing |
| Interview | Know your resume, answer in a structured way (situation, action, result), ask one or two questions at the end |
Body language supports the words: posture, eye contact, gestures and a steady voice. In a call with no video, only your voice and your pacing carry the message.
Today: stand-ups, incident calls and design reviews are group discussions with a time limit. The people who are understood most easily are not the ones who talk most, but the ones who structure what they say.
Unit 5: Technical communication
Technical writing differs from literature. The goal is not style but being understood by the intended reader, once, without effort.
The 7 Cs of effective communication
| C | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Clear | One idea, one meaning |
| Concise | No extra words |
| Concrete | Specific facts and numbers instead of vague claims |
| Correct | Accurate facts, grammar and units |
| Coherent | Logical order and linking |
| Complete | Everything the reader needs to act |
| Courteous | Respectful, reader-focused tone |
Style rules for technical writing
- Prefer short sentences and plain words (use, not utilise).
- Use active voice and present tense for instructions.
- Define abbreviations at first use, and keep terminology consistent.
- Put the most important information first.
- Use lists for steps and tables for comparison.
- Say what, where, when and how much. The pod ran out of memory at 14:02 with a 512 MiB limit beats the pod had memory problems.
Technical documents
- Instructions and manuals: numbered steps, one action per step, warnings before the step they apply to.
- Technical reports and proposals: problem, objective, method, results, recommendation, cost and timeline.
- Data interpretation: describe a chart or table by naming the trend, the highest and lowest values, and the conclusion.
- Visual aids: every chart or diagram needs a title, labelled axes with units, and a sentence in the text that tells the reader what to notice.
Communication barriers
Barriers can be physical (noise, bad connection), semantic (jargon, ambiguity), psychological (stress, bias) and cultural (idioms and assumptions that differ between regions). Writing for a mixed audience, such as a client in another country, means avoiding slang and idioms and being explicit about dates and times.
Today: a README is a user manual, an architecture decision record is a short proposal, and an alert message is a micro-instruction. Alert text such as “Disk 92% on node-3, will fill in about 6 hours, see runbook” is the 7 Cs in a single line.
One-minute recap
| Unit | Key idea | You meet it in |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Reading and vocabulary | Skim, scan and read intensively; learn words in families | Specs, RFCs, release notes |
| 2. Grammar | Tense, agreement, articles, active voice, conditionals | Tickets, PR descriptions, emails |
| 3. Writing | Unity, coherence, topic sentence; report, précis, letter | Postmortems, status updates, resumes |
| 4. Listening and speaking | Active listening; structure what you say | Stand-ups, interviews, incident calls |
| 5. Technical communication | The 7 Cs; short, active, concrete, reader first | READMEs, runbooks, alert messages |
Next in Engineering Revisited: Basic Electrical Engineering.
Written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, as part of Engineering Revisited, a quick refresher of the B.Tech subjects one at a time.