Course detail

Conversation through Hot Current Issues

FEKT-XPC-KATAcad. year: 2025/2026

- 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.

Language of instruction

Czech

Number of ECTS credits

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

Mgr. Agata Walek, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Foreign Languages (UJAZ)

Entry knowledge

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)
- apply carefully grammar rules during conversation (grammar tenses, relative clauses, time clauses, conditionals, passive voice, modal verbs)
- speak clearly with certain error tolerance
- understand very well classes taught in English

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

written test (40 points), it contains vocabulary
presentation (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.

Aims

- to involve students effectively and in a stress-free way in discussions so they could feel more confident when engaged in more sophisticated debates.
- to include and practise a wide range of speaking skills such as negotiating, persuading, expressing and defending opinions, giving presentations
- to work with stress and intonation
- to practise and extend constantly vocabulary including slang and idiomatic expressions

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
- use wider vocabulary based on the topics discussed including slang, phrasal verbs and idioms (science and technology, religion, money, weapons, space exploration, telling lies, death penalty, addictions, art, immigration, racism)
- apply smoothly and carefully all common grammar rules during conversation (grammar tenses, relative clauses, time clauses, conditionals, passive voice, modal verbs)
- use proper stress and intonation
- give well-structured, attractive presentation
- negotiate, persuade, express and defend opinions

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Gammidge, Mick: SPEAKING EXTRA (A resource book of multi-level skills activities).
Haines, Simon: ADVANCED SKILLS (A resource book of advanced-level skills activities).
Koebecses, Z., Extended contextual metaphor theory, ISBN 978-110-849-0870 (CS)
MacAndrew, Richard and Martínez, Ron: TABOOS AND ISSUES.

Type of course unit

Language exercise

26 hod., optionally

Teacher / Lecturer

Mgr. Agata Walek, Ph.D.

Syllabus

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.

VUT

Faculties

University Institutes

Parts

Conversation through Hot Current Issues

Type of course unit