This course develops spoken English for interpreting students and incoming Erasmus students. Using current affairs and authentic sources, students practice evidence-based briefings, interviews, discussions, and storytelling. Thirteen thematic units cover European institutions, international relations, economics, science, artificial intelligence, and culture, with each activity addressing a real audience and communicative purpose. Accuracy, collocations, idiomatic language, register, and prosody are developed through practice and reassessed in repeated tasks. Guided activities, recordings, feedback, and simulations of public communication consolidate B2 proficiency and develop selected C1 skills, strengthening students’ ability to speak and interact effectively in English across a range of current affairs topics.

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Synthesize information on current affairs from at least two authentic sources, distinguishing facts, opinions, predictions, intentions, and uncertainty, and explicitly attributing information to its sources.
2. Deliver a clear, structured five-minute oral overview supported by evidence and ending with a conclusion, using a brief keyword cue card rather than a full script.
3. Participate in interviews, discussions, and roundtables by asking relevant questions, responding spontaneously, managing turn-taking and disagreement, and acknowledging the limits of their knowledge.
4. Analyze speakers’ positions, arguments, expressions of modality, underlying assumptions, metaphors, and the features that establish credibility in public discourse.
5. Use natural collocations, established expressions, and idiomatic language, adapting their register to the audience, purpose, and context.
6. Accurately use grammatical features that affect meaning, including tense, mood, negation, affirmation, and modality; maintain intelligible pronunciation; organize speech into meaningful units; and self-correct without substantially interrupting communication.
7. Explain technical concepts to nonspecialists, reformulate information for different audiences, and identify the background knowledge needed to understand humor or irony.
8. Communicate in multicultural settings with speakers whose native or first language is not English, providing sufficient context for references to times, places, and local circumstances without resorting to stereotypes.
9. Document their sources and language choices in source files and language logs, recording each item’s provenance, meaning, style, register, communicative function, and neutral paraphrase.
10. Use feedback, compare recordings, and demonstrate improvement by following specific steps.
11. Critically use approved digital environments for preparation and practice, assessing the reliability of their outputs and complying with the course policy on artificial intelligence.

Weekly Course Content

Week 1 — Current Affairs, News, and Public Discourse

Skills: The course begins with a brief assessment of students’ spoken English. Students present a news item in 90 seconds without reading from a script and exchange questions in groups of three. They compare two sources, distinguishing facts, commentary, and speculation. They organize their presentations around the questions “who,” “what,” “when,” and “why,” and identify the sources of their information.

Students practice attentive listening and requests for clarification. They then adapt their presentations for an Erasmus student unfamiliar with local circumstances. Language work focuses on question formation, narrative tenses, word stress, and pauses that help listeners follow the meaning. Students compare a neutral news briefing with an informal account of the same event.

Week 2 — European Institutions, Democracy, and Representation

Skills: Students give visitors a two-minute presentation on the main responsibilities of the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Council, the Council of the EU, and the Council of Europe. They use a cue card containing no more than ten words and answer questions about institutional responsibilities and procedures.

They examine what makes a speaker credible and whom a speaker represents when using “we.” They learn to disagree politely with a procedural choice while stating their argument clearly. They repeat the presentation for first-year students, simplifying the language while maintaining clear distinctions between institutions. Language work focuses on modal verbs expressing institutional powers and obligations, articles used with institutional names, and contrastive stress.

Week 3 — European Policies, Rights, and Mobility

Skills: Students participate in a simulated public consultation on a European policy. Topics may include education and the Erasmus program, social policy, migration, equality, enlargement, or youth participation. Students rotate through the roles of institutional representative, student, and civil society representative.

They present their position in two and a half minutes, offering two arguments and one piece of supporting evidence. They distinguish policy objectives from measures and outcomes, and proposals from measures already in force. They respond to objections without misrepresenting another speaker’s position and revise their proposals when new evidence or funding constraints arise. They practice acknowledging valid points in an opposing argument, expressing real or possible conditions, and explaining the same idea in different words. They avoid unnatural expressions resulting from literal translation from another language.

Week 4 — International Relations, Security, and Defense

Skills: In a simulated meeting, students act as representatives and deliver a three-minute statement. They then respond to challenging questions about the precise commitments they are making and the sources supporting their statements.

They identify euphemisms, qualifications, and wording that implies a commitment without stating it explicitly. They distinguish claims, intentions, and verified facts. They also learn to answer questions containing assumptions without accepting those assumptions uncritically. They express the same position in formal and everyday language and consider which nuances are lost when diplomatic language is oversimplified. Language work focuses on reported speech, expressions of certainty and qualification, and emphasis on words that limit a commitment.

Week 5 — The Environment, Climate, and the Energy Transition

Skills: Students deliver a three-minute speech supporting a local environmental policy proposal. They use a single chart without reading from slides. The audience considers whether the data support the proposal.

Students distinguish correlation from causation and predictions from recorded findings. They consider when a measure is expected to produce results and how much uncertainty surrounds scientific estimates. They compare a slogan, a metaphor, and an evidence-based argument. They repeat their speech for nonspecialists with different environmental priorities and respond to a cost-related objection by acknowledging its valid points. They also turn a slogan into a specific, testable proposition. Language work covers cause-and-effect expressions, the passive voice, quantities, the spoken presentation of numbers, and environmental metaphors.

Week 6 — The Economy, Inflation, and Social Development

Skills: Students deliver a three-minute economic briefing and participate in a simulated interview between a journalist and an economic analyst. They use two economic indicators from a verified data table, presenting the main trend before giving the figures, reference period, and source.

They distinguish an indicator’s value from a change in that value or a forecast, and percentages from percentage points. They identify evaluative language in economic reporting. When presenting a forecast, they identify who issued it and avoid treating it as a certainty. They explain economic terms to nonspecialists through simple comparisons without distorting the meaning or using circular definitions. They answer unexpected questions about implications for everyday life. Language work focuses on articles, uncountable nouns, expressions of increase, decrease, and stability, comparisons, and clear delivery of essential numerical information.

Week 7 — Financial Markets and Financial Risk

Skills: Students explain two financial concepts, such as liquidity, volatility, or risk diversification, through a short briefing and interview. They use a small number of appropriate examples and distinguish information about markets from personalized investment advice. They identify metaphorical expressions and exaggerated promises.

The midterm assessment uses a shared, brief source packet. Following ten minutes of preparation, each student delivers a three-minute presentation and participates in a further three minutes of discussion, using a keyword cue card. An ungraded repeat task follows, using a different risk example. Students identify their next steps for improvement based on individual feedback. Language work covers the active and passive voice, countable and uncountable uses of financial terms, comparisons of risk, and the selection of metaphors appropriate to the level of formality.

Week 8 — Public Administration, Development, and Social Cohesion

Skills: Students explain a change in an administrative procedure to the public in four minutes, presenting the steps and requirements in the correct order. Through public service role-play, they practice both making and handling a complaint.

They learn to turn bureaucratic language into clear spoken explanations without omitting important conditions. They replace difficult wording with sentences that make clear who does what. They request specific clarification when something is ambiguous and use open-ended questions to check understanding. They repeat the explanation for a new resident or Erasmus student unfamiliar with local procedures. The group then describes the steps it has understood. Language work focuses on polite requests, phrasal verbs used in administrative interactions, and pauses and emphasis that clarify the sequence of actions.

Week 9 — Biomedical Research, Health, and Scientific Innovation

Skills: Using a short, evidence-based announcement, students participate in a simulated interview with a researcher. They explain what the research found, which population was studied, which method was used, and which questions remain unanswered. They then present the finding to nonspecialists in four minutes.

They distinguish the finding itself from its interpretation and potential applications, and laboratory research from applications involving humans. They identify exaggeration in headlines and metaphorical descriptions without presenting results as more certain than the source warrants. They rewrite an exaggerated headline and try two different analogies to explain a scientific term. They respond to audience concerns without making unsupported causal claims, promising treatments, or offering personal medical advice. Language work focuses on hedging, uncountable nouns such as evidence and research, stress in scientific terminology, and explanations that use technical vocabulary selectively.

Week 10 — Astrophysics, Space, and Cutting-Edge Research

Skills: Students present a scientific topic in four minutes, using a single image, and answer questions. They explain the research question, how it was investigated, what was found, and why it matters. A listener then summarizes what they understood without looking at the image.

Students practice defining unfamiliar terms simply and accurately and using analogies while explaining their limitations. They distinguish observation, scientific models, and hypotheses. They check whether an image represents an observation, a simulation, or an artist’s impression. They adapt their presentation for a funding organization and explain the research’s social value without promising applications unsupported by the source. Language work covers definitions using relative clauses, the spoken presentation of large numbers, pauses before introducing new concepts, and brief, restrained humor.

Week 11 — Artificial Intelligence, Digital Society, and Public Debate

Skills: Students participate in a graded roundtable in groups of three. Each member presents their position in two minutes, supports it with evidence, and identifies a specific limitation to their argument. A nine-minute group discussion follows.

Students distinguish descriptions of how a technology works from predictions and commercial promises. They also distinguish what is technically possible from what is ethically or politically desirable. They examine ambiguous wording, exaggeration, and metaphors surrounding “intelligence.” Before responding to an opposing view, they restate it accurately and without dismissing it. They make room for others to speak and bring the discussion back to the topic when necessary. Ungraded moderation practice follows, including a summary of points of agreement and disagreement. Emphasis is placed on smooth turn-taking, expressions that connect contributions, and polite but clear disagreement.

Week 12 — Culture, the Arts, Literature, and Humor

Skills: Students deliver a four-minute oral review of a cultural work, distinguishing description from personal judgment. They also prepare an original humorous story or joke lasting 60–90 seconds, without being required to disclose personal experiences.

They consider what an audience needs to know to understand irony, wordplay, or a cultural reference. They explain how a joke works while avoiding literal translation. They retell the story for a multicultural audience, adding only the necessary context. They work on timing and pauses and choose a neutral version when humor is inappropriate to the situation. Language work covers narrative tenses, evaluative adjectives and expressions, understatement, and ironic intonation. Students also examine which informal expressions are appropriate in formal, everyday, or personal conversations.

Week 13 — Synthesizing Current Affairs and Communicating with the Public

Skills: The course concludes with an ungraded simulated press conference. Each student presents a new current affairs issue in five minutes, bringing together two evidence-based perspectives, and answers unexpected questions. Students clearly distinguish what is known from what remains unknown.

They then explain the same topic in everyday language in two minutes while preserving essential information. They justify their decision to use or avoid an idiomatic expression for the particular audience. Students compare their final recording with their initial recording, considering organization, naturalness, and clarity. They identify three areas of improvement and set two further goals. This final practice combines accurate tense use, natural expressions, smooth transitions, self-correction, and register adaptation in preparation for the final examination.

Bibliography

Works in Other Languages

Bell, N. (2015). We are not amused: Failed humor in interaction. De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501501586

Carless, D., & Boud, D. (2018). The development of student feedback literacy: Enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1315–1325. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354

Council of Europe. (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment – Companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing. https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/cefr-companion-volume-and-its-language-versions

Cutting, J., & Fordyce, K. (2021). Pragmatics: A resource book for students (4th ed.). Routledge.

Ellis, R., Skehan, P., Li, S., Shintani, N., & Lambert, C. (2020). Task-based language teaching: Theory and practice. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108643689

Goh, C. C. M., & Burns, A. (2012). Teaching speaking: A holistic approach. Cambridge University Press.

Hughes, R., & Szczepek Reed, B. (2017). Teaching and researching speaking (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-and-Researching-Speaking-Third-Edition-3rd-Edition/Hughes-Reed/p/book/9781138911758

Luoma, S. (2004). Assessing speaking. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511733017

Lyster, R., & Saito, K. (2010). Oral feedback in classroom SLA: A meta-analysis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32(2), 265–302. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263109990520

Newton, J. M., & Nation, I. S. P. (2021). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203891704

North, B., Piccardo, E., Goodier, T., Fasoglio, D., Margonis-Pasinetti, R., & Rüschoff, B. (Eds.). (2022). Enriching 21st century language education: The CEFR Companion volume in practice. Council of Europe Publishing. https://book.coe.int/en/education-and-modern-languages/11052-pdf-enriching-21st-century-language-education-the-cefr-companion-volume-in-practice.html

Róg, T. (2026). The interaction between task repetition and oral task enjoyment: Effects on speech complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Language Teaching, 59(4), 539–557. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444825100840

Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/formulaic-language-and-the-lexicon/446F05E215BDE1348CBDCD6184E32487

Relevant Scholarly Journals

Applied Linguistics. https://academic.oup.com/applij

ELT Journal. https://academic.oup.com/eltj

Journal of Pragmatics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pragmatics

Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. https://benjamins.com/catalog/jslp

Language Teaching. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-teaching

Language Testing. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ltj

Sources for Teaching Materials and Language Research

Bank of England Speeches: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches

British Film Institute: https://www.bfi.org.uk/

Cambridge Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/

Council of the European Union Video: https://video.consilium.europa.eu/

European Commission Audiovisual Service: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/

European Environment Agency: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en

European Parliament Multimedia Centre: https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/

European Space Agency: https://www.esa.int/

France 24 English: https://www.france24.com/en/

GOV.UK Cabinet Office: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/cabinet-office

Investor.gov: https://www.investor.gov/

NASA News: https://www.nasa.gov/news/

National Institutes of Health News and Events: https://www.nih.gov/news-events

NATO: https://www.nato.int/

OECD: https://www.oecd.org/

Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/

The Alan Turing Institute: https://www.turing.ac.uk/

UN Web TV: https://webtv.un.org/

YouGlish: https://youglish.com/

Teaching Methods

The course is taught in person as an interactive, weekly two-hour oral communication workshop. The instructor briefly introduces the topic and provides examples of expressions suitable for different situations. Students then practice in pairs, groups of three, and whole-class activities. In groups of three, they rotate through the roles of speaker, conversation partner, and observer. Each activity addresses a specific audience and has a clear communicative purpose: informing, presenting a proposal, explaining, negotiating, or telling a story. Teaching is organized around these communicative tasks, following the approach described in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Companion Volume.

Each activity begins with preparation using authentic sources. Following the initial presentation or discussion, two difficulties are selected for focused practice. The activity is repeated with a different question, audience, or piece of evidence so that students apply what they have learned under new conditions. Difficulties identified during practice inform short exercises on grammar, pronunciation, and appropriate collocations.

Feedback focuses on two specific excerpts from each recording. Peers first comment on whether the message was understood and whether the activity achieved its purpose. The instructor identifies one priority for improvement. Students then make a new recording to establish whether they have acted on the feedback. Independent speaking practice outside class is divided into three separate sessions each week.

The course welcomes incoming Erasmus students and does not require knowledge of Greek. Based on the initial assessment, students receive either additional support or more challenging extension activities. All graded assignments follow the same requirements and assessment criteria.

Groups include both students enrolled at the institution and Erasmus students. Brief contextual explanations are provided whenever local events or circumstances are mentioned. Current affairs materials are updated each semester. Assessment considers how effectively students communicate and how well they support their statements with sources and arguments. It does not depend on their political views, memorization of information, or specialist knowledge acquired before taking the course.

Use of Information and Communication Technologies

The course eClass page is used to post teaching materials, instructions, and deadlines; submit assignments and recordings; and provide feedback. Recordings are stored within the course’s protected environment in accordance with institutional policy. Codes are used to identify roles in group files. Personal narratives and third-party data are not made public.

Teaching draws on authentic video and audio excerpts from institutional and news websites, a projector, recording equipment, and headphones. Transcripts are provided after the first listening so that students practice listening comprehension first. Students use online dictionaries and language corpora to check the meaning, register, and use of words and expressions.

Oral presentations use PowerPoint or Google Slides with short headings, keywords, images, charts, and brief audiovisual excerpts. Students learn to select the information the audience needs to see and explain it orally without reading from slides. They also try different presentation formats, including speaking from a single image or chart, telling a story through a sequence of photographs, comparing conflicting headlines, and revealing information gradually to encourage the audience to formulate and reconsider assumptions. QR codes provide access to sources, questions, and short activities, while visible timers help students stay within the allotted time.

Audience participation is supported through Slido quizzes, polls, and questions, as well as Mentimeter word clouds and ranking activities. These tools are used before, during, and after presentations to explore prior knowledge and opinions, check understanding, and collect questions. Anonymous question submission encourages participation by students who may hesitate to speak. Students practice discussing poll results, explaining their choices, answering questions, and adjusting their explanations when comprehension difficulties arise.

Collaborative digital boards, such as Padlet, are used to collect and organize sources, images, questions, and arguments. Groups develop the material together and use it in presentations and discussions. Specialized digital practice environments, or workbenches, and H5P-compatible tools also support interactive activities combining text, audio, and images. Activities may involve timed preparation, presenting the same topic to a different audience, responding to a new question, or repeating a speech with specific changes. Tools are used under the instructor’s close guidance and supervision and are selected to serve each activity’s communicative purpose.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is used exclusively for specified educational purposes and under the instructor’s strict supervision. The instructor uses AI to create and adapt speaking practice materials, including listening and vocabulary activities, collocation and register exercises, activities combining different media, tasks of increasing difficulty, and multiple-choice questions. AI may also support the development and integration of digital practice environments into eClass and the use of H5P-compatible tools. The instructor checks all materials before they are used in the course.

AI may not be used to write student assignments or reflective texts. Its use for research and preparation is limited to exercises within the specialized digital environments or searches accompanied by cross-checking information and verifying sources. Any optional use of AI for practice must be declared. In graded speaking activities, students speak and respond independently, without ready-made answers supplied by AI tools or third parties.

AI may assist with the initial identification of collocations, established phrases, and idiomatic expressions. Each suggestion is checked against authentic sources, reliable dictionaries, or language corpora, with its provenance, register, and use documented. AI suggestions do not constitute evidence in themselves and do not replace students’ own research and writing. Subtitles and automatic transcripts are checked against the original audio.

AI is not used to assess student performance except in specific cases for which the instructor has established clear parameters and criteria. Any such use remains under the instructor’s control. Final assessment decisions and grading are the instructor’s sole responsibility.

Throughout the course, students examine the capabilities and limitations of digital tools. They check the accuracy of outputs, identify omissions, distortions, and biased wording, and assess their suitability for the activity. They learn to select tools according to the needs of the presentation and audience and to use them responsibly while protecting personal data and recordings.

Assessment

During the first week, students complete an initial, ungraded assessment. Each student presents a news item in 90 seconds without reading from a script; the presentation may be recorded. Questions are then exchanged in groups of three or with the whole class. By reviewing their recordings, students identify difficulties and set two personal improvement goals, using specific examples to explain their choices.

Progress is monitored throughout the semester through weekly assignments. Each week, students submit a one-page source summary, two recordings of the speaking activity—before and after feedback—a log of eight words or expressions, and a brief reflection on their efforts and difficulties. These assignments are not graded separately. The instructor provides specific feedback, while students assess their own work and their peers’ work in groups of three against the weekly objectives.

Source and Language Resource Files — 10%

Students submit two files, respectively due 24 hours before the classes in Weeks 4 and 9. Each file accounts for 5% of the final grade and includes two fully referenced sources, 16 selected words or expressions from previous weeks, and a one-page speech outline.

Assessment is based on:

• Quality of documentation: 40%.
• Accuracy of meaning and appropriateness of expressions for the intended register: 40%.
• Usefulness of the material for oral communication: 20%.

Speaking Portfolio — 20%

The portfolio is submitted in two stages, each worth 10% of the final grade. The first submission is due seven days after the Week 6 class and includes work from Weeks 2 and 5. The second is due seven days after the Week 13 class and includes work from Weeks 8, 10, and 12, together with a final 400-word reflection.

Each piece of work includes the initial and repeated recordings, a brief keyword cue card, and a 200-word analysis. In the analysis, students explain what they notice in their recordings, which changes they made, and which areas still need work.

The assessment criteria are:

• Speaking performance: 70%.
• Analysis of performance using specific examples: 20%.
• Implementation of the agreed steps for improvement: 10%.

Midterm Oral Assessment — 20%

The midterm assessment takes place in Week 7 and is completed individually. All students use the same brief source packet, which they have not seen beforehand. Following ten minutes of preparation, they present the topic for three minutes and answer questions or participate in discussion for a further three minutes. A keyword cue card is permitted.

The topic and assessment criteria are announced 48 hours before the assessment. Each student receives individual feedback within seven days.

Roundtable Discussion — 15%

The roundtable takes place in Week 11 in groups of three. Each member presents their position in two minutes, followed by a nine-minute group discussion. Students are graded individually. Assessment considers how well each participant listens to others, responds to their contributions, and advances the discussion. Speaking for longer or dominating the discussion does not result in a higher grade.

Final Assessment — 35%

The final assessment consists of a group presentation by at least three students on a topic agreed upon in advance with the instructor.

The presentation lasts 15 minutes in total and includes:

• Presentation of the topic: 5 minutes.
• Questions and discussion: 5 minutes.
• Presentation of the same content in a different register: 2 minutes.
• Explanation of the sources used and language choices made: 3 minutes.

The broader topic area and assessment criteria are announced 48 hours before the assessment. One cue card containing no more than 20 words and one chart supplied for the assessment are permitted.

Speaking Assessment Criteria

The midterm assessment, roundtable discussion, and final assessment use the same rubric, with a maximum total of 100 points:

• Content and supporting evidence: 15 points.
• Organization and argumentation: 15 points.
• Vocabulary, natural phrasing, and appropriate register: 20 points.
• Grammatical accuracy and precision of meaning: 15 points.
• Intelligibility, appropriate stress, intonation, and pausing: 15 points.
• Fluency and management of speech: 10 points.
• Interaction and responsiveness: 10 points.

Each criterion is assigned a performance level from 0 to 4. Points are calculated by multiplying the maximum points for the criterion by the performance level and dividing the result by 4.

Pronunciation is assessed according to how easily the speech can be understood. A native-speaker accent is not required. The same error is not penalized under more than one criterion.

Overall, speaking performance accounts for 84% of the final grade, including the relevant component of the speaking portfolio. Neither the number of contributions nor the political views expressed is graded. All assessment criteria and deadlines are posted on eClass before the relevant graded assignments and assessments.