O n f e r e n c e

participants have progressively learned the reading, vocabulary and study skills 
indispensable to work independently on legal materials of their own choice.
As such, the
 English for Lawyers Intensive
participants have learned upon the completion 
of the course to demonstrate: 1) language proficiency in legal context and 2) professional 
presentation when speaking as a professional using English as a second or third 
language.
English for Lawyers Intensive
course is intended for lawyers and those 
interested in international business. It teaches legal vocabulary and structures, with 
additional work on public speaking, writing, and pronunciation. In light of the above, the 
course material has been tailored to serve the needs of participants who would like to 
enhance their oral and written legal English skills in order to be promoted in the 
workplace. The course consisted of 48 instructional hours distributed among 12 weeks. 
Both, the experimental and control groups were taught by the same instructor. 
To examine the first hypothesis, a pre-test and a post-test were conducted on both 
groups. The instruction was then carried out for 12 weeks. The instructor used legal 
texts, word banks, and role playing.
To investigate the second hypothesis, a questionnaire was distributed among the 
participants in both the control and experimental groups. The aim of this questionnaire is 
to collect data on whether the participants were motivated to write in legal English or 
not. At the end of the instructional period, another questionnaire was distributed to the 
experimental group to determine whether the use of blog increased their motivation to 
write in legal English or not. Each item in both questionnaires was measured on a 5-point 
likert scale including strongly agree as (1) to strongly disagree as (5). At the end of each 
questionnaire there was an open-ended question to leave some room for the participants 
to comment.
The statistical computations of the pretest and posttest scores and the two 
questionnaires revealed that there was a significant difference in the participants’ written 
performance in legal English and that using the English for Lawyers Intensive blog 
motivated Lebanese lawyers to write using legal English.
In conclusion, blog posts and comments on blog posts can be used as forms of social 
media to discuss written ESL Legal English. The blog stands out as a fine example of the 
way in which the Web enables individual participation in the marketplace of ideas. 
Teachers have put the blog to work in the classroom.
Postings are often short and frequently updated. They appear in reverse chronological 
order and can include archived entries.

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-43- 
2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
Blogs are:

Highly motivating to students, especially those who otherwise might not become