Legal English Teaching And Learning In China: Current Situation And Strategies

At present, legal English courses have been offered in many universities in China fornurturing compound talents accomplished in both English and law. Recently, most of theresearches on legal English teaching and learning lie in the orientation of legal English course,teaching methods and modes of legal English, teaching materials of legal English, legalEnglish learning approaches. However, the defects of the researches can be found as follows:1) researches on legal English teaching and learning are out of balance severely, scholars havepaid much more attention to teaching than learning;2) researches on teaching methods andmodes still remain on the surface of transferring language, while ignoring legal system andlegal culture. Discussion about teaching contents stresses teaching materials;3) explorationson legal English learning concentrate on language learning methods, and little interest isshowed to learning motivations and strategies;4) most of the previous researches arequalitative rather than quantitative, resulting to the insufficiency of objectivity and accuracy.This thesis, based on ESP (English for Specific Purpose) theories and employing theinstrument of questionnaire, attempts to answer the following questions:1) What are thecurrent situation of legal English teaching and learning in China?2) Can the current situationfulfill students’ needs, if not, how to improve?This study finds, at present1) the traditional grammar-translation method is still adoptedin legal English teaching in most cases, while less attention is paid to cultivate students’application ability;2) the teaching contents are mainly reading and translating of the teachingmaterials. Moreover, legal English teaching materials are not unitary;3) most of the legalEnglish teachers are from English departments, and teachers majoring in law take a small part;4) students’ learning motivations are not on a high-level;5) students do not use learningstrategies frequently;6) The current legal English teaching and learning can not fulfill thestudents’ needs.