Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Research in Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Interdisciplinary Teaching / Learning Approach in English for Legal Purposes
Halina Sierocka
ABSTRACT:
As numerous scholars point out teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP), also English for Legal Purposes (ELP) poses many challenges the instructors have to face. Even though they might have significant experience in teaching and are familiar with academic texts and/or the skills involved they might, from the outset, have far less subject-matter knowledge or have less conscious knowledge of a particular specialism than their students. Researchers cannot agree on how far ESP teacher’s subject matter knowledge should extend. Some scholars believe that language teachers do not have to acquire specialist subject knowledge and the knowledge of the fundamental principles of the subject area will suffice, others remark quite vaguely that understanding the nature of the material of the ESP specialism is adequate. Moreover, some academics strongly believe that effective ESP instruction requires an interdisciplinary cooperation between language and subject specialists. This presentation endeavours to provide some insights into interdisciplinary cooperation in teaching English for Legal Purposes. After presenting some theoretical background information on cooperative teaching the author analyses one of its forms i.e. team teaching in more detail. Linguistic seminars provided for European judges and prosecutors, which have been organised by the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) for over twelve years now, serve as the practical context of the abovementioned analysis. In this light, the presenter also hopes to offer some recommendations for actions which might enhance ELP instructions, curriculum planning, and/or material development.
keywords: English for Specific Purposes; interdisciplinary cooperation; language specialist; subject specialist; team teaching