Publication details
What Do ESP Students Learn when "Interviewing a Client"?
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | HUMANISTIC FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING I: Innovative methods and approaches, Conference Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Pedagogy and education |
| Keywords | ESP; legal English; communication skills; classroom practice |
| Attached files | |
| Description | The paper presents the author's experience from introducing a complex activity of interviewing a client into the lessons of Legal English. The original aim was to develop the students' communication skills and to practice vocabulary in an authentic context, nevertheless, monitoring the activity showed a number of noteworthy moments of how the learners approach the task. The first part of the activity concerned preparation for the interview: brainstorming necessary skills, watching and discussing motivational video, and revising vocabulary and language functions. The middle part consisted of roleplaying lawyer-client interviews and selfreflexion. The activity was completed by a letter to the client. Even though the students enjoyed the motivation part which was supposed to stress the importance of soft skills, their roleplaying sometimes resembled a "good chat". It was only when many "lawyers" identified the "client" as the most difficult aspect of the interview that the students realized the significance of effective communication. Interviewing a client is important in many professions and practising interviews in LSP classes need not be only a way of revising vocabulary, but it can increase the students' awareness of their interpersonal skills. |