-47-
2014 CALL Conference
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be
The participants receive twelve four-hour-sessions of English for legal purposes. These
attorneys, due to the emergence of e-contracts and international arbitration centers, are
eager to develop their legal writing and speaking skills so that they become able to
efficiently interpret the international jurisprudence and international law provisions and
to fluently negotiate in writing and in speaking using legal English.
To investigate the first hypothesis, a pre-test and a post-test were conducted on both
groups. The pre-test consisted of writing about a certain legal topic. The instruction was
then carried out for 12 weeks. The instructor used legal texts,
word banks, and role
playing in both the control and the experimental groups. The only difference in
instruction was that the instructor employed the legal terminology videos as the core
material in the experimental group, where as she didn’t use any videos in the control
group. At the end of the instructional period, a post test was administered to both groups
in which the participants were asked to write about a legal topic. The mean scores of the
pretest and posttest were then compared to examine if the
use of legal terminology
videos has a significant effect on the use of legal English or not.
The instructor employed legal terminology videos
followed by word banks and role play
presentations in the experimental group. Writing using word banks can be considered as
a primary step to developing literacy. The practice of writing using word banks allows
participants' language skills to grow. Employing the word banks won't only take place in
oral situations as reading and writing will be a venue for the participants to express their
thoughts while increasing verbal literacy in class while extending digital fluency. Because
role play and employing word banks are a self
–
initiating and self
–
sustaining way to
promote
literacy, their implementation in educational settings is a crucial consideration.
This began when the participants and the instructor discussed the terminology and
phrases relating to a certain legal context conveyed through a specialized video and a
legal text enriched with a legal word bank employed by both the video and the text; the
participants were asked to deliver fluent and well-structured presentations by role
playing situations rooted in legal context. Eventually, the writing assignment, the
cornerstone of the role play, utilized the discussed legal text and the covered legal word
bank. In addition, the participants had been always given the opportunity to logically and
succinctly write anything other than the tailored assignment on condition that they would
employ the legal Word Bank. All the subjects were always
asked to work in groups in
class in order to role play the context and the situations conveyed by the video and the
legal text. With relevant audio-visual aids, the participants did think-pair and square ,
and then they wrote the scenario or the script of their presentations. Afterwards, they
role played the script they prepared. The word banks vary in accordance with the
covered topic. With respect to design and technique, the instructor employed the below
session plan in the experimental group throughout 12 weeks.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: