English for Education

Topics for the state exam written test are based on areas covered and discussed in lectures and linguistics seminars taught during the bachelor studies. The written exam in linguistics checks both the theoretical knowledge of the students and their ability to apply it in practical language use. The test contains tasks of a similar nature as administered in individual courses in years 1-3.

You can look at a mock test with an answer key.

Students are expected to have studied from the following sources:

Compulsory Reading

Students are expected to have read the following reference books, to be aware of the definitions, views and approaches presented, and to be able to discuss them critically.

• Dontcheva-Navrátilova, O. (2005) Grammatical Structures in English: Meaning in Context. Brno: Masarykova univerzita.
• Greenbaum, S., Quirk, R. (1991) A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
• Hladký, J., Chovanec, J. (2002) Úvod do studia anglického jazyka pro učitelské studium. Brno: Masarykova univerzita
• Roach, P. (2000) English Phonetics and Phonology. A Practical Course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Svartvik, J., Leech, G. N. (1994) A Communicative Grammar of English. 2nd Edition. London: Longman.
• Gethin, H. (1992) Grammar in Context, Proficiency Level English. Nelson Collins Ltd.
• Yule, G. (1996) The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Further Reading

Students are expected to have scanned the following reference books and to be aware of the scope of issues discussed there.

• Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., Finegan, E. (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
• Brown, G., Yule, G. (1983) Discourse Analysis. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Cruttenden, A. (1994) Gimson’s Pronunciation of English. Arnold.
• Crystal, D. (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Dušková, L. (1994) Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. 2nd ed. Praha: Academia.
• Halliday, M. A. K., Hasan, R. (1992) Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
• Hladký, J., Chovanec, J. (2002) Úvod do studia anglického jazyka pro učitelské studium. Brno: Masarykova univerzita
• Leech, G. N., Deuchar, M., Hoogenraad, R. (1982) English Grammar for Today. A New Introduction. Macmillan Press Ltd.
• McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Štekauer, P. (ed.) (2000) _Rudiments of English Linguistics. Prešov: Slovacontact.
• Urbanová, L. (1998) A Handbook of English Phonetics and Phonology. Brno: Masarykova univerzita.

The Bachelor State Examination in British and American History, Culture and Literatures seeks to review the student’s concise knowledge of British and American history, culture and literatures from the beginning till approx. 1945.

The exam takes the form of a computer-assisted test in which:
• 20 points are earned for British history and culture related questions;
• 30 points are earned for British literature and culture related questions;
• 20 points are earned for American history and culture related questions;
• 30 points are earned for American literature and culture related questions.

The points ratio is correspondent with the distribution of the classes taught in the programme. The test questions take form of e.g.:
• multiple-choice questions;
• TF questions;
• short answer/gap fill;
• matching.

The total time limit for the test is 30 minutes. For a sample test questions, see below.

The exam philosophy stems from the assumption that in the respective classes, the student has built upon their Maturita (or parallel-level exam) acquaintance with key historical periods and events, cultural and literary movements, main literary genres, authors and works and, via active engagement with the respective areas via class input, discussions and activities as well as independent study and extensive reading, has arrived at a better understanding of how these landmarks and artifacts have impacted the English language and cultures in the present.
It is expected that the student displays a keen interest in the Anglo-Saxon cultures and is an avid reader.

In the exam, the student demonstrates their ability to navigate through the following:

I) British Literature, Culture and History
Old English Period: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, Alfred the Great, Edward the Confessor, Viking invasions; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Old English, heroic epic, Beowulf, alliteration, kennings;

Middle English Period: the Norman conquest, Domesday book, Henry II, the Magna Carta, Edward I, Edward II, the Hundred Years War, the Wars of Roses; the cult of chivalry, mystery and miracle plays, ballad, dream vision, Arthurian legends, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Robin Hood, The Canterbury Tales.

Renaissance: English Reformation, Henry VIII, Thomas More, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I., Francis Drake, the Spanish Armada; the sonnet, Elizabethan theatre, the Globe, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Utopia.

The 17th and 18th centuries: James I, Charles I, Restoration of monarchy, English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth, the Glorious Revolution, George of Hanover; Jacobean drama, Metaphysical poetry, John Donne, comedy of manners, the English novel, Classicism, newspaper culture, essay, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Sentimentalism, Pre-Romanticism, Robert Burns, William Blake, the Gothic novel.

The 19th century: Industrial Revolution, Regency period, George III, Queen Victoria, Victorian period, Napoleonic wars, strikes and riots of the early 19th century, the Reform Acts, urbanisation, slums, Great Famine, Chartism, Florence Nightingale, the British empire, Scramble for Africa, Charles Darwin; Jane Austen, domestic novel, English Romanticism, Lake School of Poetry, Mary Shelley, the Second-Generation Romantics (the “Rebels”), G. Gordon Byron, P. B. Shelley, John Keats, Victorian novel, condition-of-England novel, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, R. L. Stevenson, Wilkie Collins, Dracula, Aestheticism, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Naturalism, Thomas Hardy., detective fiction, A. C. Doyle.

The 20th century: Edwardian period, Voting rights, the Labour Party, Irish Free State, the Great War, Munich Agreement, the Battle of Britan, the Western front (WWI and WWII), Winston Churchill, the BBC; Modernism, The Bloomsbury Group, stream of consciousness, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, E. M. Forster, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot; G. B. Shaw, John Galsworthy, Aldous Huxley, W. H. Auden, George Orwell.

II) American Literature
Colonial Period and Early National Period (17th century - 1830): British colonies in North America, Thanksgiving, American War of Independence, Declaration of Independence, Missouri Compromise, and the Monroe Doctrine; captivity narrative, William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, slave narrative, H. Jacobs, Benjamin Franklin, J. Smith, J. Hector Saint John de Crevecoeur (The Letter III).

The Romantic Period (American Renaissance) (1830-1870): Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Civil War, the 13th and 14th Amendments; W. Irving, J. F. Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans), N. Hawthorne, H. B. Stowe (Uncle Tom´s Cabin), Herman Melville (Moby-Dick), E. A. Poe, Ch. P. Gilman (The Yellow Wallpaper), Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson. Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, H. D. Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, The Southern Gothic, Reformers: F. Douglass, E. C. Stanton, The Declaration of Sentiments.

Realism and Naturalism (1870-1910): Plessy v. Ferguson, segregation, the Spanish-American war, immigration, Mark Twain (picaresque novel), S. Crane, B. Harte, T. Dreiser, K. Chopin, Henry James, Jack London, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis. Regionalism (local color): Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Mark Twain.

The Modernist Period (1910-1945): the Roaring Twenties, Great Depression, New Deal, War World I and the World War II, American Modernism, The Lost Generation, F. S. Fitzgerald, E. Hemingway, G. Stein, The Harlem Renaissance, L. Hughes (Jazz poetry), W. E. B. du Bois, Z. N. Hurston; W. Cather, W. Faulkner (stream of consciousness), J. Steinbeck, T. S. Eliot, e. e. cummings.

Recommended study sources:
It is strongly recommended that students use concise study sources, preferably outlines and histories as listed in the IS syllabi of individual courses, rather than Google information.

Sample recommended sources:
Granville Calland Thornley, Gwyneth Roberts. An Outline of English Literature. Longman, 1984.
High, Peter B. An Outline of American Literature. Longman, 1994.
McDowall, David. Illustrated History of Britain. Longman, 1989.
O'Callaghan, Bryn. Illustrated History of USA. Longman, 1990.

These sources are available in the faculty library as well as downloadable e.g. at Academia.edu or Archive.org.

Topics for the state exam written test are based on areas covered and discussed in seminars of didactics taught during the bachelor studies. The written exam in didactics checks both the theoretical knowledge of the students and their ability to apply it in situations they could encounter in their future teaching practice. The test contains tasks of a similar nature as administered in individual courses of Didactics.

The majority of questions included in the test are based on multiple-choice and matching; there will also be several open-ended questions.

The students are expected to have read the following books:

• HARMER, J. (2012). Essential teacher knowledge: core concepts in English language teaching. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
• SCRIVENER, J. (2005). Learning teaching: a guidebook for English language teachers. Oxford: Macmillan.

Topics for the state exam

1. Motivation in foreign language learning and teaching
2. Foreign language teacher and learner (roles, relationship, feedback)
3. Lesson planning (goals, format)
4. Organization and management of a lesson
5. Selection, modification and use of teaching materials
6. Teaching and practising vocabulary
7. Teaching and practising grammar
8. Teaching and practising pronunciation
9. Teaching reading comprehension
10. Teaching listening comprehension
11. Teaching speaking and interaction

You can look at a mock test with an answer key.