Empowerment through knowledge pooling in mixed ability legal English classes
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | While undergraduates in Legal English classes tend to form largely homogeneous groups, the situation is decidedly more complex with extramural students. Thus, in courses such as Public Administration and International Trade Law, the participants may include experienced practitioners and full time students, ranging in their proficiency from confident C1 to self-conscious A2 speakers. These are then supposed to work alongside each other in order to improve their specialized English. Inevitably, such situations present teachers with considerable challenges. One way of addressing the issue is for the teacher to prepare activities involving knowledge pooling. In this way, all participants can contribute: experts with lower level of English as well as students with good language skills but insufficient world of work/life experience. For instance, instead of individual tasks, students in groups may produce written assignments in Google Disc environment, with the teacher providing instant feedback while the work is being created. Such activities present less of a face threat: they can boost learner confidence and improve learning outcomes by allowing students with lower level of language proficiency to participate in producing texts that may, thanks to the collaborative nature of their origin, be of good quality and be used as resources for exam preparation or even in actual real-life situations. Clearly, while the method of knowledge pooling places some specific demands on the teachers, it serves for the empowerment of students and can help to overcome the challenges arising from classes consisting of students with variable levels of professional expertise and language proficiency. |