Teaching Legal English for Company Law: A Guide to Specialism and ELP Teaching Practices and Reference Books

Abstract

This article discusses one of the less mainstream areas of ESP teaching, that of legal English for students of company law. The author begins by analysing the approach used by subject-domain specialists themselves and the current criticism regarding the conservative textbook approach which continues to dominate teaching theory in this area. To this effect, she presents the results of a study carried out from October 2014 to March 2015 regarding subject-domain textbooks most used in Law Schools in Australia, Britain, Canada and the USA. The paper then addresses the question of teaching legal English to students of company law. After a brief outline of the three main theories underlying language teaching –behaviourist, cognitive and communicative– the author provides a critical guide to the main course books available to teachers in this rarefied area of specialised language learning, listing the types of exercises proposed, and evoking their overall strengths and weaknesses. To conclude, she suggests means of supplementing course book material.