WPG Englisch

Main goals

• Improvement of fluency
• Critical approach to various media
• Use of basic academic methods
  
  

Methods

• Discussion and debate (if possible with an English/American assistant teacher)
• Literary analysis (media texts, books, movies, TV or radio programmes….)
• Research work in the library and on the internet
• Presentations
• Group and project work
• Translations
  
  

Topics

Topics are chosen in accordance with the interests of the respective students and teachers. Topics in recent courses were:

• Cultural Studies

Christmas in Britain and the US (Spotlight Magazine)

• Countries

Australia: Aborigines, History, Geography and Wildlife, Economy, Political Parties, Present Day Life (group work, research work in library, presentation) Canada: Flora and Fauna, Geography, History, Famous Canadians, Politics, Economy (group work, research work in library, presentation)

• History

The History of the United States from the Colonial Period to the Civil Rights Movement (with DVD)

• Literature

The Development of the American Short Story. Reading and analysis/interpretation of selected American Short Stories of the 19^th and first half of the twentieth century

Washington Irving: “Rip van Winkle”

Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown”

Ambrose Bierce: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

Edgar A. Poe: “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Francis S. Fitzgerald: “The Rich Boy”

Ernest Hemingway: “Old Man at the Bridge”; “Soldier’s Home” (video); “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”

Short Story Theories: E.A.Poe’s review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Twice Told Tales”

Methods of text analysis

• Movies

Soldier’s Home

A Beautiful Mind

• Politics

Basic principles of government in the US (the system of “checks and balances”)

• Newspaper articles

Reading and analysis of selected newspaper articles