Course details
Conversation through Hot Current Issues
JA3 Acad. year 2025/2026 Winter semester 3 credits
- The conversation class opens opportunity to talk about social and scientific controversial issues occurring daily on TV and in newspapers, and makes students think more deeply about these matters.
- The aim is to bridge the gap between the artificial classroom conversation and the natural, real-life discussion, and encourage students to talk about things which really matter to them on a personal, political and moral level.
- Students are expected to give presentations providing basic information on the topic. They are intended to be used as springboards for the discussions.
Guarantor
Language of instruction
Completion
Time span
- 26 hrs exercises
Assessment points
- 60 pts final exam
- 40 pts mid-term test
Department
Instructor
Learning objectives
- The aim of the English conversation class is to involve students effectively and in a stress-free way in discussions so they could feel more confident when engaged in more sophisticated debates.
- We want students to practise a range of speaking skills such as negotiating, persuading, expressing and defending opinions, giving presentations, and also proper using stress and intonation.
- Vocabulary including slang and idiomatic expressions will be constantly extended and revised.
- The key aspect is to motivate students to create the content of the classes by themselves.
Active participation in classes along with passing a written exam will show that a student is able:
- To communicate with greater confidence when engaged in more sophisticated debates,
- to use wider vocabulary based on the topics discussed including slang, phrasal verbs and idioms,
- to apply smoothly and carefully all common grammar rules during conversation (grammar tenses, relative clauses, time clauses, conditionals, passive voice, modal verbs)
- to use proper stress and intonation,
- to give well-structured, attractive presentation
- to negotiate, persuade, express and defend opinions.
Recommended prerequisites
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
The student signed up for the class is expected to be able:
- To use general vocabulary from all common areas (family, home, food, jobs and career, health and sickness, travelling and transport, sports, hobbies),
- to apply carefully grammar rules during conversation (grammar tenses, relative clauses, time clauses, conditionals, passive voice, modal verbs),
- to speak clearly with certain error tolerance,
- to understand very well classes taught in English
Recommended prerequisite: New Headway Intermediate 2
Study literature
Syllabus of language exercises
- FINANCE: Shaking the Magic Money Trees.
- CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND (FAKE) NEWS: Secrets and Lies.
- FUTURE: Next Giant Leaps.
- LAW: The Code of Silence.
- GENDER ISSUES: Can We Go Gender Free?
- IMMIGRATION AND RACISM: We All Bleed the Same Colour
- SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: Mastering a Servant
- RELIGION: Who Controls the Clicker?
- NOVEL VIEWPOINTS: Forget the Box. Think.
- MARKETING: Hacking the Unconscious.
Progress assessment
- Semester tests ... 40 points.
- Final exam ... 60 points.
The content and forms of instruction in the evaluated course are specified by a regulation issued by the lecturer responsible for the course and updated for every academic year.
Schedule
| Day | Type | Weeks | Room | Start | End | Capacity | Lect.grp | Groups | Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu | exercise | lectures | T10/N 3.27 | 09:00 | 10:50 | 15 | 1MIT 2BIA 2BIB 2MIT 3BIT | xx | Walek |
| Thu | exercise | lectures | T10/N 3.27 | 11:00 | 12:50 | 15 | 1MIT 2BIA 2BIB 2MIT 3BIT | xx | Walek |
Course inclusion in study plans