Педагогические науки/ 5.Современные методы преподавания

К.п.н. Говорун А.В., к.ф.н. Мищенко В.Я.

Национальный университет “Юридическая академия имени Ярослава Мудрого”, Украина

Communicative Activities in the Legal English Classroom

Learning legal English is not just a matter of memorizing different sets of legal terms, reading and analyzing authentic legal texts and documents, having some writing practice. An essential part of any legal coursebook is its emphasis on speaking. To provide a far greater variety of experience than any textbook exercise, to enable students to engage more effectively in a range of speaking situations typical of legal practice, such as client interviews, discussions with colleagues and contract negotiations, to accelerate learning in general teachers can use various communicative activities, such as games, role – plays and some other techniques during their class period.

It is accepted that games help teachers create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful. A useful interpretation of ‘meaningfulness’ is that the learners respond to the content in a definite way. If they are amused, angered, intrigued or surprised the content is clearly meaningful to them. Thus the meaning of the language they listen to, read, speak and write will be more vividly experienced and, therefore, better remembered. Games can introduce new vocabulary or grammar, practise recently taught language or recycle previous material. A game can be a good way to start a lesson, to fill a spare five minutes at the end, or simply to change the pace whenever students are looking tired.

When choosing activities for law students some key factors should be taken into account:

1. The aim of the lesson in general and the role of the particular activity, sequence continuity and link in a chain.

2. The task should be within the scope of linguistic competence. If students need too many vocabulary items or grammar structures to perform the activity successfully, they experience a lot of difficulties, the process of communication is impeded and the activity isn’t effective.

3. The principle of gradation is to be observed: from easier to more complex activities, from lockstep teaching to open – ended situations.

4. Cost – effectiveness of activities.

Let’s analyze some of activities which can be applied to many different exercises. (As a rule, they require little or no preparation)

Buzz game

This can be done with any text that has already been studied. Read the text aloud slowly, pausing after each line. In each line substitute a ‘buzz’ for one of the words. Students should work in teams to substitute the missing word. The team with the most correct answers at the end is the winner. The positive emotions that students enjoy makes them relax and feel more confident.

First – use game

When you set up role – plays, it is important to encourage students to use new target language (e. g. the useful functional phrases studied in a particular unit). One way to do this is to award a point for the first student to use each phrase from a list (either on the board or on cards). It is essential that the phrase is used naturally and appropriately, so you should not award points if students use several phrases simply to get points. After the first good use of a particular phrase, cross it off the list and write the student’s initial next to it. This phrase may no longer be used during the role – play. At the end of the role –play, the student who has used the most phrases is the winner.

Clients and Lawyers

This technique is useful for turning any exercise into a game, especially those with a large number of questions. Students should work in teams. Prepare cards with a dot (in the middle of the card) on the half of them and a question mark on the other half. Distribute the cards between students. Those who chose ‘dots’ are lawyers, those who took ‘question marks’, are clients. The aim is to force students to use relevant vocabulary through making appropriate questions (by “clients”) and answering them (by “lawyers”). The team with the least amount of mistakes at the end is the winner. This game can help teachers transform senseless repetition into sensible, active and cooperative learning.

Stake game

This game works best with an exercise containing around eight or ten challenging questions (e.g. reading/listening questions). Tell students to work in teams to answer the questions, perhaps with a time limit. Draw a grid on the board, with the question numbers down the first column and the team names along the first row. Before checking the answer to the first question, ask each team to place a stake of between 10$ and 100$ on the question, depending on how sure they are of their answer. Write the stake in the appropriate place in the grid. Then elicit an answer from each team for the question. For those teams which answer correctly, write ‘+’ next to their stake, and for those answering incorrectly, write ‘-‘. Repeat the procedure for each of the remaining questions. At the end, add together all the winnings for each team (i.e. those marked ‘+’), and subtract any losses (i.e. those marked ‘-‘) to find out which team has won the most money.

Noughts and Crosses

It is altered slightly to accommodate for team play, but the traditional objective of three-in-a- row remains the same. Students must work together to correctly answer questions in order to gain a chance to place an X or O (based on their team) and each person on the team gets a chance to answer for their group. Questions may correspond with certain topics or grammar points or whatever you choose to review with students. The team that succeeds in placing three respective marks in horizontal, vertical or diagonal row wins the game.

These activities are established for group work, so it:

- generates more student talking time than any other technique;

- encourages creative and spontaneous use of language;

- is learner – centered and actively involves all learners;

- is beneficial to the development of the group dynamics;

- promotes healthy competition;

- helps bonding between students themselves and with the teacher and makes the classroom atmosphere more supportive for learners.

A lot of activities are designed to provoke spoken communication between two students, in pairs. Pair work allows students to use relevant language (depending, of course, on the task set by the teacher) and also encourages their co-operation which is itself important for the atmosphere of the class and the motivation it gives to learning with others. For example,

Role-play: Nerds vs. truants

Students work in pairs. One of them gets the card of “truant”, the partner gets the card of a “nerd”.

A “truant”: Imagine you have missed a lesson or lecture on (for example) negotiable instruments – types, functions, requirements. Ask as many questions as you can to get an idea of the theme.

A “nerd”: You attended the lesson and have your notes. Answer your partner’s questions using relevant vocabulary.

Advantages of this work are that students learn more effectively because the activity grabs their attention and interest so naturally they make more effort to concentrate and retain language.

Teachers and pupils

This type of activity is especially good for mix – ability classes. Pair strong students with weak ones. Strong students will be “teachers” and weak – “pupils”. This dividing can be used for variety of learning tasks: to check how well students memorized relevant vocabulary, to provide practice of a particular language structure/area. It’s a good idea to experiment with mixing up the strong and weak students whilst also giving time for stronger students to work together so they work to their full potential.

Oral matching

It can be a fun way for English learners to mingle and practice conversation. Each student is given a slip of paper with either a question or an answer on it. They should read their questions and answers to their fellow students in order to decide which ones go together. Once each student has found his or her matching pair, you can have the students put it back together in the original order and read it together.

Mind Mapping

Mind Maps are an effective method of note-taking and useful for the generation of ideas by associations. To make a mind map, one starts in the center of the page with the main idea, and works outward in all directions. For example, if you study theme persons in court you can draw a bubble on the board with the category entitled court. Students then brainstorm words that fit into this category, such as claimant, defendant, bailiff, judge, advocate, witness, clerk, for example, to produce a growing and organized structure composed of key words and key images. With legal students you may also choose to use a map indicating documents in court, a career in the law, company formation and management and many others. Students use the maps as a starting point for indicating vocabulary associated with each feature. Later they can use this vocabulary to make meaningful sentences.

The above – mentioned activities are efficient ways to help students develop communicative skills. Trough collaborating learners become more motivated and their time and energy in class is well spent.

Литература:

Jeremy Day, International Legal English., Teacher’s Book., Cambridge University Press, 2007., 294p.