ACADEMIC ORACY, Spring 2010

Location and time: Mon 4:40-6:10, G31. Facilitator: Kateřina Tomková, tomkat@phil.muni.cz. Office
hours: Tue 3-4 and 6-7, Wed 3-4 and Thu 4-5. Assessment: active attendance 3pts a session;
*assigned presentation up to 10pts; *students’ own initiative presentations up to 20pts; final test
max. 50 pts.

                                       Preliminary Syllabus

                                               Date

                                             AWARENESS

                                              SKILLS

                                              Feb. 22

                                   Delimitation of the subject.

                                        Academic contexts.

                                               Mch 1

                                Tomková: Perceptions of Non-Native

                           Pronunciation of English by Native Speakers.

                   Tomková: The most frequent mistakes made by Czech academics.

                                               Mch 8

                      *Presentation technicalities and skills (M.Burianová).

                    Consistent accent. Segmental sounds. Pronunciation errors.


                                              Mch 15

                   *M.Ježek: Upton’s Model of RP (Master’s diss.) (Pšeničková).

                *I.Headlandová-Kalischová: Intonation Centre (PhD. diss.)(Ságlová).

 Stress, rhythm, intonation, collection of errors and singing: Our Mark is good for nothing. Love
                                              letter.

                                       *TV talk (Nováková).


                                              Mch 22

                               *Mathesius: Řeč a sloh. (Klementová)

                         *Relevant pts in grammar, lexis, idiom.  Svoboda

                                              Mch 29

                           *Katie Fox: Watching the English (Markosová).

                            *Crystal&Davy: Investigating English Style.

                                  *Academic debate (Ječmínková).

                                              Apr. 5

                                              EASTER

                                              MONDAY

                                              Apr. 12

                               *L.Urbanová: Pragmatics (Kaletová?).

                            *****Creating a chant, rap, skit or sketch.

                                              Apr. 19

                       **A.Launer: Social Dialects (Obermajerová, Jakubčík).

                                      Finalizing the sketch.

                                              Apr. 26

                              *Political correctness (Chovančíková).

                                      Practising the sketch.

                                               May 3

                              *Rhetorics; figures of speech (Blecha).

                             *Puns and Perception of Humour (Pokorná).

                                      Practising the sketch.

                            *****Performing it at the Creativity Night.

                                              May 10

                                          MOCK EXAM TEST.

                                             VISITORS.

                                              May 17

                                     EXAM TEST (max. 50 pts).

                                           ASSESSMENTS.



                                        From Mediocre Mark


It’s wonderful, it’s marvellous

To be a clever diplomat, oh yes

It’s wonderful, it’s marvellous,

Much better than lie on a mat like Mark.


It’s wonderful, it’s marvellous

To be on the linguistic team, oh yes

It’s wonderful, it’s marvellous,

It enhances your self-esteem, oh yes!



Our Mark is good for nothing, we don’t know what to do

Apart from playing computer games all he does is chew and chew

Our Mark is good for nothing, still uncouth at 22

He slurps his soup like a hungry wolf, never says please or thank you


Take out the rubbish, help me clean, do some exercise, don’t be so mean


Well if you think that I’m an idiot, well I’m sure you do me wrong

I’ve developed my computer skills which now are pretty strong

If you treat me like a dummy I’ll go out into the world

There’ll be plenty of opportunities to prove I’m not a nerd.




SUGGESTIONS FOR CREATIVITY NIGHT:


1 The Cambridge oral test.

2 A commercial to study at the English Dept.

3 A musical on FSP or something known to everybody.