Syllabus
Course Schedule:
Week 1 Cizinec na CESTĚ
Personal information. Social rituals and habits.
Czech - My God, what is that? Čeština, český, česky, česká, Češka, Čechy, Čech. /Basic information about Czech grammar./
Week 2 CESTA městem.
Around the town. Information about events and asking for directions.
Notes, signs and posters in town.
Week 3 Na CESTĚ do obchodu.
In a store. Where to get "stuff". Are shopping malls universal?
Week 4 CESTA Evropou.
Where have you been? Activities and verbs. Towns and places. Places in Europe./
Week 5 "CESTA" v restauraci
Restaurant: Dinning, feasting, drinking and eating
Week 6 Budu CESTOvat.
Activities and verbs. What will you do?
To do or to make? Borrow or lend? Czech verbs
Week 7 Na CESTĚ
Post office, station, transport
May I sit in a tram at all?! Being polite.
Week 8 Review
Week 9 CESTA do ČR
Where are you from?
Am I stranger or foreigner? Misunderstanding caused by translation. False friends
Week 10 Rok na CESTĚ
Calendar
Czech habits and traditions
Week 11 CESTOVAT
Verbal aspect. Verbs.
How come they have only 3 tenses? Are they able to express EVERYTHING?!
Week 12 ČESKÁ CESTA
Typical Czech. Adjectives. Qualities.
"That is typical!" But what does it actually mean?
Week 13 AMERICKÁ CESTA
The same like. - Different from.
The Czech Republic and the U.S.A.
Week 14 Rok na CESTĚ 2.
Calendar.2
Czech habits and traditions. 2
Week 15 Review
Tests / quizzes: final orientation test midterm test final semester test occasional quizzes on topics vocabulary / phrases / memory quizzes
Annotation
Česká cesta is a special language course. It is partly a course of language as such, partly a course about Czech language and partly also a course about our ways of thinking, the world of language per se and reflections on English language.
Personal experience with the language and space forms the basis of the syllabus. The course teaches language through comparison, observation and data collection, and requires active involvement from the students.
We will compare Czech and English; observe Czech as a system, living organism, means of communication among Czechs and between Czechs and foreigners. We will observe and analyze the language surrounding us (in various messages, street signs, posters, news, etc.).
Last but not least, we will collect data, and based on them create "memory" of our course and we will trace our language learning and thinking. The syllabus has double structure - first - language as such, syllabus is organized by social situations and lexical topics (incl. grammar) second - thinking about the language, these topics are always connected to general linguistic questions.