|
Ten Week Syllabus: Legal English: Current Methodology and Course Design
Instructors
Debra Lee, J.D.
Assistant Professor, Social Sciences and Languages
Nashville State Community College
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Email: debraslee@yahoo.com
Charles Hall, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics
Department of English
The University of Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Email: charleshall@rocketmail.com
Course Content
Weekly Topics
1. Current ESP Methodology
2. The U.S. Court System
3. Legal Authorities and Reasoning
4. The Criminal Justice System
5. Basics in Corpus Linguistics in ESP
6. Genre Analysis in ESP
7. Freedom of Speech
8. Freedom of the Press
9. ESP Assessment
10. Project Presentations
Technology Note: All course materials except discussions, chat, and bulletin board material provided in response to participant
questions or participant comments will be provided on CD-ROMs or audiotapes for each participant. Copies of materials for
the participants will be sent to the appropriate RELO for distribution to participants.
Synchronous discussions will be scheduled at times suitable for most participants. For those unable to take part in the
discussions, transcripts will be placed on the bulletin board/website.
Weekly Lesson Format
* Discussion Readings/Lectures [audiotapes]
* Assignment/Reaction Journals posted to Web [emailed to instructor for posting]
* Legal Analysis/Synthesis Skills Activities
* Review of Collocations and Terms
Weekly Assignments
Week One: Current ESP Methodology
Faculty will provide participants with an overview of current ESP methodology using a combination of online and print
resources. Based on the materials and discussion, participants will analyze the methods used in their classrooms.
Project: Participants will be divided into project teams or decide on individual projects.
Journal: Methodology analysis
Week Two: The U.S. Court System
Faculty will provide an overview of the U.S. court system for participants. In order to better understand the U.S. system,
participants will be asked to do a system comparison in their teams and provide a brief report of their analysis to the instructors
for them to post on the bulletin board (or forward via email) for the entire class.
Project: Brainstorms on possible projects due. Faculty response will be available within three days of submission.
Journal: System comparisons
Week Three: Legal Authorities and Reasoning
Participants will be introduced to U.S. legal authorities and reasoning, including case reading skills, analysis, and
synthesis. The legal skills of analysis and synthesis are the core of legal study in the U.S. Without the ability to analyze
and synthesize, an American law student will not succeed. The better able the participants are to use these skills themselves,
the better able they will be to teach these skills to their students.
Project: Team/individual will provide an outline of project components and responsibilities.
Journal: Case analysis problems
Week Four: The Criminal Justice System
A focus on the criminal justice system in the U.S. focuses on the rule of law, the jury system, and defendant's rights.
Project: Status report due.
Journal: Summary of criminal justice article of current interest and how the article could be used in a legal English
class. For instructors will lower level students, tell us how you could make this material accessible for your students.
Week Five: Basics in Corpus Linguistics in ESP
Instructors will introduce through a tutorial (PowerPoint and web-based) the MonoConc Pro 2.2, a corpus program for beginning
users. Through use of a concondancer and downloadable cases from the internet [a sample legal corpus will be included for
users with limited Internet access], participants will be able to analyze legal language thereby enabling them to focus on
collocations and language that is particularly relevant to law students or legal translators.
Journal: Reaction to use of concordancer for the classroom
Project: Status report due.
Week Six: Genre Analysis in ESP
Instructors will review the basics of Genre Analysis as it relates to ESP, particularly law. Participants will analyze
a short case note introduction, looking for the moves identified by Feak and Reinhart in case note moves.
Journal: Identify moves in case note introduction.
Project: Status report due.
Week Seven: Freedom of Speech
Using the Language and Civil Society website as an example and provide additional specific content through websites such
as www.law.cornell.edu or www.streetlaw.org, as well as American Legal English, participants will explore one of the fundamental
rights in the U.S. and work together as a class to develop a lesson from the content material. Instructors will work with
the participants to ensure that each person has a role in developing the materials.
Participants will also review the Multimedia portion of the Resources for English Language Teachers CD provided by the
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, listening to the quicktime movies on politics in America (Vote for Me: Politics
in America).
Project: Detailed outline/status report on project due.
Journal: Reaction: After watching the movies on CD, what do you think about the election process in the U.S.?
Week Eight: Freedom of the Press
Continuing the freedom of speech unit, the week will focus on freedom of the press with analysis of news articles from
around the world. Participants will analyze differences in press reports on similar issues, look for culture aspects of reporting,
and discuss press freedoms in their own countries. Discussion on development of a lesson plan from press articles will be
held.
Project: Final status report due.
Journal: How does culture influence freedom of the press? Is freedom of the press an essential liberty?
Week Nine: ESP Assessment
As we move into the final two weeks of the course and their projects, participants should start to consider how assessment
measures impact their classes and this project. Following a written lecture on assessment, participants (in teams) will be
asked to provide appropriate assessment measures for this course or one of their current legal English courses. This focuses
attention on assessment and its impact on course design.
Project: Provide summary of the project in email form to instructors for submission to all participants.
Journal: Assessment measure: What do you think is most appropriate for assessing student work in a legal English class?
What skills do you focus on?
Week Ten: Project Presentations
Provide a project summary (on provided outline form) that will be emailed to all participants. Participants will discuss
the summaries in synchronous/asynchronous format and provide a journal critiquing one project summary. The focus on final
projects during the last week of the course reinforces the concept of a learning-centered e-course and provides ample opportunities
for the teams to assist one another in their final projects.
Journal: Critique of one project.
Project: Review critiques, finish and submit final projects for posting on the website.
Course Project
Participants will be asked to work in groups to create a group project. If participants prefer to work individually or
in pairs, they will be given that option. Preference will be for participants to work at least in pairs on the projects.
Participants will choose and create a lesson suitable for a legal English class using ideas and materials from the course
or from their own materials and/or the web. The lesson plans will be posted on the course website. The purpose of the lesson
plans is to provide a set of materials that can be accessed by participants in all E-Teacher English for Law courses to use
in their own classes or as models for further materials development.
Course instructors will work with each group/individual on project design. Templates for the lesson will also be provided
for participants who request them.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the course, participants will have:
* Increased understanding of current ESP methodology
* Improved legal analysis skills in American English
* A better understanding of the U.S. legal system
* Increased understanding and basic use of concordancers for classroom learning
* Enhanced both general and legal vocabulary
* Had the opportunity to network and share views with local, regional and international colleagues on a variety of legal
and ESP issues through email, synchronous, asynchronous discussions and other media formats (audiotapes, CD-Rom).
|
