Integrating language awareness with critical language skills: a legal English experience

Abstract

This paper is about developing first-year law students' reading skills. It argues that this could be achieved through an approach that integrates the teaching of vocabulary and grammar with the teaching of critical language awareness. The teaching of vocabulary and grammar is (in this study) done by analysing lexical and syntactic features of legal English texts, and the teaching of critical language skills by making plain the ideology and power relations contained in legal discourse. Two classes of first-year law students are used as subjects and the content is English for Specific Purposes, which is linked to the study of law. A proficiency and a competency test as well as a short questionnaire are used to measure the efficacy of the input. The results indicate how using the integrated approach in question can facilitate not only second-language learners' acquisition of linguistic competence in English but also their critical literacy.

Bachelor of Laws (LLB) students’ views of their literacy practices: Implications for support in a time of change

“…While six of our participants spoke English as a first language, six engaged with EAL. Within the South African context, several studies have hinted at the gate-keeping effects of English for EAL student writers within the field of law (Greenbaum 2004;Ngwenya 2006). Greenbaum (2004:8) references a survey that sought to access the views of legal educators in South African universities on the language skills of their LLB degree students.…”

Negotiating between past and present discourse values in a postgraduate law course: implications for writing

“…Research conducted within the law discipline has tended to center around first year students' entry into the LLB programme (Diaz et al, 2001;Weber, 2001;Baderin, 2005;Ngwenya, 2006). With the exception of Ngwenya (2006), this research emanates from outside of South Africa.…”

“…Research conducted within the law discipline has tended to center around first year students' entry into the LLB programme (Diaz et al, 2001;Weber, 2001;Baderin, 2005;Ngwenya, 2006). With the exception of Ngwenya (2006), this research emanates from outside of South Africa. In the South African context the transition from social science oriented disciplines into academic law as well as the implications of this transition for the context-specific writing practices with which the student writer is expected to engage remains to a large extent unexplored.…”