Professional English for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 1/2

• 26 hrs exercises

Speaking: giving a presentation, giving descriptions and explanations, seminar skills-indicating non-comprehension, asking for clarification, questioning, disagreeing. Interacting: participating in discussions and meetings, interviewing, telephoning, socializing, expression of request, agreement, and disagreement, surprise, doubt, opinion. Listening: taking notes; following presentations, lectures or talks; following instructions. Writing: formal letters, faxes, memos, C.V., letters of job application, abstract, improving basic translation skills.

Development of professional speaking and listening skills. Development of specific writing skills (characteristic features of written communications, curriculum vitae, job application, abstract etc.). Czech-English translations: recurrent errors of language. Note: This is a two-semester course.

A knowledge of the upper-intermediate English or higher level.

• Jeremy Comfort: Effective Presentations. Oxford University Press 1995
• Sada učebních materiálů vytvořená vyučující

• Leo Jones, Richard Alexander: New International Business English. Cambridge University Press 2000
• Jeremy Comfort: Effective Presentations. Oxford University Press 1995
• Acy L. Jackson: Prepare your C.V. NTC Learning Works 1997
• David Jolly: Writing tasks. Cambridge University Press 1991
• Vicky Hollet: Business Objectives. Oxford University Press 1993
• Robin Macpherson: Základy anglické stylistiky. Academia 1997
• Petr Janata: Překládáme do angličtiny. Fraus 1999

• Letters, faxes and memos (layout and style).
• Students' qualifications. Translations: word order.
• Curriculum Vitae. Agreement and disagreement.
• Translations: long subject followed by short predicate; concord of the verb \"to be\".
• Telephoning, answer phone. Numbers.
• A Letter of Job Application.
• Expressing a request. Translations: verbal noun, gerund.
• Socializing. Translations: imperative, compound nouns.
• Making arrangements. Czenglish: verbal phrases I.
• Instructions. Czenglish: verbal phrases II.
• Seminar skills.
• Meetings: to discuss problems and decide what action to take.
• Autumn semester test written.
• Making notes. Punctuation.
• Employment policy, company's activities. Contrasting ideas.
• Participating in Interviews: background information.
• Conducting an Interview. Words that join ideas.
• Key features of an effective presentation.
• Making a good introduction of a presentation.
• Ways of organizing a presentation.
• Visual aids.
• Effective ending to a presentation.
• The research article abstract (functions, content and organization, grammar and style, vocabulary).
• Academic reading: prediction, skimming, scanning, deducing unknown words.
• Writing a report.
• Course evaluation student questionnaire.

• Needs Analysis Questionnaire. Writing a formal letter.
• Speaking about family background, qualifications, other special skills and hobbies.
• Writing C.V. Agreement and disagreement in practice.
• Presenting C.V. Translation activities. Listening: locating objects.
• To make contact and exchange information over the phone. Numbers-practice.
• Practice of single parts, phrases and expressions used in a letter of application.
• Distribution of newspaper job advertisements and writing a letter of job application. Translation activities. Expressing a request.
• Holding social conversations with business contacts; interests and routines. Translation activities.
• Arranging and re-arranging a schedule.
• Following instructions. At the Airport. Translation activities.
• Seminar skills:indicating non-comprehension, asking for clarification, questioning, disagreeing.
• Taking part in a meeting: solving a problem, recommending an action, justifying decisions, making suggestions.
• Autumn semester test written.
• Making notes; using notes to write a report. Punctuation marks.
• Getting to know the workplace; different kinds of companies; company organization. Contrasting ideas-practice.
• Participating in interviews. Areas interviewers focus on: past, future, worth, personality. Useful phrases and expressions.
• Participating in interviews. Advice before attending an interview; difficult questions at an interview; extracts from two interviews-assessment. Words that join ideas-practice.
• Effective presentations: presenting background information. Review of time expressions and tenses.
• Effective presentations: preparing and giving an introduction; introducing yourself and your talk.
• Effective presentations: key words and phrases for linking ideas; giving a presentation on a subject of student's choice.
• Showing how to design and use visual aids. Describing graphs, charts and trends.
• Effective presentations: the language of ending it. Preparing and giving the ending of a presentation on a subject of student's choice.
• Activating and sharing students' knowledge on an abstract. Exploiting various semi-technical abstracts.
• Reading a journal article; writing an abstract for it.
• Planning and editing a report.
• Spring semester test written. Course evaluation student questionnaire.

Winter semester: typed or printed Curriculum Vitae (10 points) and an oral presentation of information contained in C.V. (10 points). Summer semester: test in writing (the translation of a semi-technical text into English; listening; vocabulary and language use). The maximum number of points possible from each semester test is 20 points. If a student obtans 90% or above in his/her semester test, he/she receives the full number of points. For a mark between 70%-89%, 15 points are allocated; and for a mark between 50%-69%, 10 points are allocated. A student has to receive at least 10 points of the possible 20 points in each of two semesters if he/she wants to enter his/her name for the final exam.

• Self assessment-grading the following things related to students' effort and attitude: participation in class, use of English in class, homework, working in groups.
• Vocabulary achievement test.