Curriculum Development for Legal English Programs

This book provides a systematic introduction to the issues involved in designing and implementing courses of English for Legal Purposes. Each chapter highlights a different aspect of the curriculum development process, including syllabus design, taking into account the special role of needs analysis, materials development, and the question of assessing and testing languages for special purposes. In addition, the book provides a brief outline of key concepts in the methodology of English for Specific Purposes, in the context of Legal English in particular. Factors such as the specificity of legal discourse, the roles of ESP teachers, subject-knowledge dilemma, cooperative teaching or language issues are taken into account. The book concludes with a model syllabus for a course of English for Legal Purposes developed by the author as the outcome of a three-year action research programme conducted at the Faculty of Law at the University of Bialystok, Poland. The book is informative and reader-friendly, and will serve as a resource and reference book for anybody involved and interested in teaching or researching into English for Legal Purposes.