“Ask a law student from another country:” a project supporting authentic communication

BILOVÁ, Štěpánka and Agnieszka PAWLIKOWSKA. “Ask a law student from another country:” a project supporting authentic communication. In Language and Law Conference: traditions, trends and perspectives. 2021.

Basic information

• Original name: “Ask a law student from another country:” a project supporting authentic communication
• Authors: BILOVÁ, Štěpánka and Agnieszka PAWLIKOWSKA.
• Edition: Language and Law Conference: traditions, trends and perspectives, 2021.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60202 Specific languages
• Country of publisher: Poland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Language Centre
• Keywords in English: English for Specific Purposes; legal English; international cooperation; presentation skills; authemtic activities
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

The presentation introduced a project in which students of legal English courses from two universities, Masaryk University in the Czech Republic and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland, cooperated and helped each other develop their language and professional skills in a more authentic way. The project comprised of a task-based activity in which the main goal was to produce a team presentation on a legal topic while implementing information and/or opinions from the students of the other country. The presenters of one team came from the same university, however, the presentation was recorded and made available to all students. The seminar groups of students from both universities were paired into a closed Facebook group in which they interacted, both individually and as a presentation team. Within the project activity, the students practiced not only language skills, but mainly communication and professional skills, e.g. social media interaction, posing and answering questions, researching legal information, mediating and/or translating legal regulations, giving opinions, providing feedback. In our paper, we presented an overview of individual tasks, examples of learning outcomes, the summary of feedback from students, and the benefits and drawbacks identified by the teachers.