Advanced Aural Comprehension (AAC)

This is a course for advanced students designed to improve and hone listening (aural) skills. It is meant to be a practical course so there will be little or no theory. You will listen to and watch audio-visual recordings and presentations, answer questions, learn new vocab, do exercises, complete tasks, etc. If you want credits, you will also have to give a presentation and pass the final test.


Advanced Discussion and Essay Writing

In this course we will be reading certain essays and stories in class and comparing them to other art forms - namely sculpture, painting, etc. Thus the course will enable the students through comparative analysis of these mediums to better understand literary and ar- tistic criticism (interpretation).


Advanced Public Speaking

This course is designed to help those who wish to practice giving formal speeches or presentations in English. Although most students have had experience giving classroom presentations, most have had no training in formal oratory. In this course we want to take things a step further than what typically happens in a classroom setting: do you need to give a formal introduction to someone? Are you a guest speaker at a conference? Do you need to deliver a paper? Do you have to speak - in English! - in front of dozens or even hundreds of people? We will work on strategies of formal public speaking, and we will listen to speeches and give speeches, and at the end of the course the student should feel much more confident about speaking in English in public in a formal situation.
The student's grade will depend upon two oratorical exercises: 1., a formal introduction of a speaker, and 2., a formal speech.


Advanced Translation

This course provides practice in the translation of a variety of texts on an equally broad range subject matters.


Advanced Recitation

"Wait, there's one I remember from when I was at school. How did it go...?" Who does not know the unfortunate attempts to recall a poem by actually trying to say it? With the speaker's eyes turned upwards and the verses rattled, hardly any more is left over of a poem than of Mozart or Vivaldi in a ringtone.
In theory and practice, we will address the question of how to recite poetry to an audience with basically two goals to be achieved: the audience is to remember what they have just heard, and they are to receive an impression of a poem's aesthetic quality and artistic content. We will first analyse a poetic text as to its meter, prosody, syntax, content and emotion, and will then, in a second step, develop an appropriate form of performance. The class will be concluded with a public performance, presumably at the ThOP.
The course aims at students who wish to improve their ability to speak in front of audiences and have an interest in poetry and its recitation. They should be prepared not only to analyse poems but also to memorize and recite them.


Vocabulary Training

The areas to be covered in this course and the methods to be employed will be presented and explained at the first meeting, which you are required to attend. Registration is through StudIP. There will be no limit on attendance.