Publication details
Pragmatic issues and soft skills in English for law
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Language for specific purposes education at university level has experienced a shift from traditional vocabulary and the 4-skill-based (reading-writing-listening-speaking) language teaching towards incorporating pragmatic issues and “soft skills” elements into classroom activities. Such activities aim at preparing students for their future careers in terms of good professional as well as social practices. This paper will offer an insight into a joint international programme for students of law which is run between the University of Helsinki (Finland) and Masaryk University (Czech Republic). The language centres of the two universities cooperate on English for law courses that are partly run together, via videoconferencing, in a virtual classroom. In addition to practicing professional English in an international environment, the students are encouraged to practice negotiating, arguing, persuading, being polite, presenting, video conferencing and intercultural skills. The paper aims at introducing the course structure, giving examples of soft skills and pragmatics based activities, and discussing relevance of such activities in modern language for law training. |