Annotation
OBJECTIVES This course aims to improve first-year students' reading comprehension, writing and oral presentation skills.
Students will write and present film and book reviews, complete exercises in paragraph writing and linking ideas, write descriptions and opinion pieces. They will also study and practise the correct use of articles and punctuation and how to avoid fragments and run-together sentences. Students will be expected to complete regular assignments outside class.
MATERIAL Students will be given handouts taken from various sources (see below). ASSESSMENT Credit is granted on the basis of: a) attendance (minimum of 70%) and active class participation; b) successful completion of graded written assignments plus one oral presentation each semester; c) an end-of-term test (zápocet) on the use of articles and punctuation in the winter semester. Students will have one attempt only to pass this test, i.e. there will be no resits. There will be no credit test at the end of the summer semester but there will be a written examination (zkouška). Students who have successfully obtained credits for the winter and summer semesters will be expected to write one essay in a two-hour examination. The use of monolingual English dictionaries will be permitted in the examination.