Speech SPE

3 courses · Palo Verde College · 2026-2027 Catalog

Classes: Fall 2026 · Spring 2027

SPE 101 Introduction to Speech

Units: 3
Hours: 54 hours total, 3 hours lecture weekly
Transfers to: CSU, UC

Student Learning Outcomes: Evaluate the purposes, content, and manner of constructive criticism of presentations. Analyze, select, and apply the appropriate communication skills to effectively present a variety of speeches with and without visual aids.

General Education: Not approved for General Education

Course Duration (Weeks): 18

Introduction to Speech offers a wide variety of reading, application, and speaking assignments designed to expose students to all the basic skills of speech making. Students focus on the following basic elements: ethics, analyzing the audience, visual aids, choosing a topic and specific purpose, and outlining, listening, organizing a speech, delivery, small group communication, informative and persuasive speaking, speaker credibility, effective use of language, library and internet research, communication, and/or speeches to entertain. All students give several speeches both with and without visual aids. This course is designed for students majoring in communications and satisfies general speech/communications requirements. This course is offered online and/or correspondence; students must have the ability to record speeches and send them to the instructor.

Offered: Spring 2027 (1 section, listed as SPE-101)

SPE 103 Argument and Debate

Units: 3
Hours: 54 hours total, 3 hours lecture weekly
Prerequisite: SPE 101 OR SPE 102 (now COMM C1000)
Transfers to: CSU, UC

Student Learning Outcomes: Demonstrate an understanding of how persuasion and argumentation affect our daily lives and influence both private and public decision-making processes. Identify persuasive appeals, systems of arguments and modes of supporting evidence. Analyze arguments for logical conclusions based upon sound reasoning and evidence.

General Education: Not approved for General Education

Course Duration (Weeks): 18

The course focuses on the essentials of argumentation: research, analyses of propositions, tests of evidence, constructions of the brief, preparation for presentation of constructive and refutation cases. Students will prepare and present persuasive speeches and participate in a team debate.

Not on the Fall 2026, Spring 2027 schedules.

SPE 105 Introduction to Intercultural Communication

Units: 3
Hours: 54 hours total, 3 hours lecture weekly
Advisory: ENG 099
Transfers to: CSU, UC

Student Learning Outcomes: Explain the basic elements of the communication process. Identify, examine, and explain the various components of culture. Compare and contrast the values of the dominant United States culture with those of other cultures.

General Education: CalGETC: Transfer General Education Requirements ( 4- Social and Behavioral Sciences )

Course Duration (Weeks): 18

Intercultural Communication is the study of communication between members of differing cultures and asks a series of questions about the nature of Culture, Western ways of thinking in our approaches to other cultures, and the history of relations among West and East. The course focuses on the relationship between culture and communication, emphasizing social psychological variables, verbal and nonverbal language systems, and cross-cultural communication breakdowns. Practical application of intercultural communication principles to contemporary problems of cross-cultural and global communications is stressed, together with an introduction to new and post-colonial redefinitions of our relations with the world.

Not on the Fall 2026, Spring 2027 schedules.

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