Language Centres at a Crossroads

The presentation will briefly describe the general concept of a new multidisciplinary course created by Czech teachers of marketing, corporate law, unfair competition, legal and academic English, which was jointly taught at the Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, Czech Republic twice since autumn 2018. The main aim of the course is to develop students' legal and communicative competences, soft skills in English and creative thinking through solving case studies from Czech law.

First, we will describe our motivation and experience with creating a team of teachers, who developed materials and activities and delivered the course. Since the team was built on mutual trust and recognition, it was a learning experience for all of us, in methodology and the use of ICT, materials development, tasks development, assessment, and team building.

Based on the needs analysis among the first time employers and law graduates, we have become aware that students need more practice in soft skills and communication during their studies. Students also ask for more opportunities to apply legal theory and knowledge of law on specific real life cases in their majoring subjects, law, economics and marketing. Therefore, we will provide samples of activities used in the course with comments on their effectiveness.

Finally, we will share students' feedback and outline a new sociolinguistics research project which arose from the classroom work and which was jointly prepared by all team members.

The effort to create a jointly taught course is in harmony with current trends of developing English for Academic Purposes (EAP) across disciplines, e.g. Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998), Jordan (1984, 1993 and 1996), Swales and Feak (2001). The multidisciplinary course thus enhances theoretical knowledge and its practical application on specific cases.

Prezentace popíše nově vyučovaný multidisciplinární kurz, který připravily vyučující obchodního práva, finančního práva a CJV, jenž v sobě zahrnuje složku jazykovou, s důrazem na rozvoj měkkých manažerských dovedností, a stránku odbornou – právní. Na základě průzkumu mezi absolventy práv, kteří zmiňovali potřebnost měkkých manažerských dovedností v praxi, i mezi současnými studenty fakulty, kteří zmiňovali potřebu aplikovat teorii a poznatky z právních disciplín na konkrétní případy, jsme měly pádný důvod takový kurz vyvinout.

Prezentující zmíní, jakým způsobem připravovaly materiály a vyvíjely úkoly, cvičení a další aktivity v kurzu. Budou sdílet zpětnou vazbu od studentů a načrtnou sociolingvistický průzkum, který vytvořily a zpracovaly.

Kurz vznikl na základě skutečných potřeb praxe a snoubí v sobě rozvoj právního myšlení při aplikaci teorie v řešení skutečných případů i požadavky od zaměstnavatelů a absolventů.

References:

• Bhatia, V.J. (1993, 2008, 2010, 2017)
• Dudley-Evans & St .John (1998)
• Hasan, L., Abuelrub, E. (2011). Assessing the quality of web sites. Applied Computing and Informatics. 9(1), 11-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aci.2009.03.001
• Jordan (1984, 1993 &1996)
• Swales & Feak (2001)
• Waite, K., Harrison, T. (2002). Consumer expectations of online information provided by bank websites. Journal of Financial Services Marketing. 6, 309-322. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fsm.477006.

PhDr. Hana Kallus, M.A., Ph.D. is an assistant professor of legal English, her research areas are teacher - student motivation, intercultural communication and soft skills development.

Prof. JUDr. Jarmila Pokorná, CSc. is a professor of business law, specializing in corporate law and unfair competition.

Ing. Eva Tomášková, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of marketing and economics.

JUDr. Eva Večerková, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of business law, specializing in unfair competition.