Syllabus
EACH LESSON WILL FOCUS ON ONE CURRENT AFFAIRS TOPIC RELATED TO CEE. TOPICS WILL INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING AND
ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON CURRENT EVENTS.
Lesson 1
Trust in the EU; Euroskepticism; inequality
Academic writing: What is academic English?; describing trends
Lesson 2
Czech society and politics
Lesson 3
Is populism a threat to democracy? The EU response to rule of law violations in Poland and Hungary
Lesson 4
Ukraine: European security and defence
Lesson 5
United in diversity? economic, social, cultural, North-South
Lesson 6
United in diversity? Are post-communist Member States different than other Member States?
Case study: stereotypes in football
Lesson 7
The European Green Deal: transition from coal in Central Europe
Lesson 8
EU structural and investment funds: purpose, solidarity, impact of Brexit, effectiveness, corruption
Lesson 9
EU enlargement: Ukraine, Moldova, the Western Balkans
Lesson 10
Ageing population as a key economic challenge; immigration
Lesson 11
Comparison of the first and second Czech EU presidencies; analysis; lessons learned
Lesson 12
Neverending Brexit? Potential Polexits, Hungexits?
ACADEMIC WRITING CONTENT WILL INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
Academic English style and grammar conventions
- academic style principles; qualifying and hedging; use of passive voice; nominalisation; use of articles; subject-verb agreement
Essay types and structure; Signposting language; Structuring paragraphs
Critical thinking; Supporting claims with evidence; In-text references
- connectors (conjunctions), e.g. to express cause and effect; punctuation, e.g. colons, semicolons and commas
Content editing and proofreading; Summarizing and paraphrasing; Reporting verbs
- editing for structure, academic style, grammar, supporting claims with evidence
- Reporting verbs and reporting verb tenses
Choosing paraphrase or quotation
Introduction to thesis writing; Seminar papers
Writing about methodology and data; Academic presentation skills
- Explaining methodology and rationale; Discussing and interpreting data in figures, graphs and tables
Writing resources: Seminar paper guidelines; The Manchester Academic Phrasebank
Thesis structure, parts and exercises
Academic presentation skills: presenting a thesis or academic research
Annotation
The course merges academic writing with European current affairs, focusing on East-Central Europe.
Current affairs materials and topics will be used to teach academic English. These will include written and broadcast news and news analyses, academic journal articles and book chapters, lectures, videos and other current affairs sources. The focus will be on academic English use, grammar, vocabulary, style and structure.