In acknowledgment of the situation, legal English classes have been designed and integrated into the syllabus for English majors in Faculty of Foreign Legal Languages, Hanoi Law Universi
The students’ perceptions on the obstacles related to objective factors
Students’ perspectives on the obstacles related to objective factors in making oral presentations in legal English classes, which mainly mentioned about the characteristics of legal English and the impact of Audience and Lecturer, are illustrated in the Table 5 and 6 below
Table 5 The students’ perceptions on the obstacles related to the characteristics of legal English
24 My knowledge about the legal field that I need to| 129 | 4.42 | 588 present is still limited
25 Legal documents contain certain words that I cannot | 129 | 4.56 | 714 find their equivalent meanings in legal contexts
26 There is a lack of reference materials related to legal | 129 | 3.79 | 538 topics for me to research
27 Archaic words (Eg: aforesaid, hereinafter) make it | 129 | 3.64 | 659 hard for me to deliver my presentation clearly
28 I find it hard to understand the French and Latins | 129 | 4.21 | 632 terms (Eg: bona fide, casus fortuitous, etc.) when preparing for my performance
At first glance, it was found that English majors at HLU experienced a lot of difficulties in making legal presentation because of the characteristics of legal English, with a high mean score ranging from 3.64 to 4.56 Item 24 (M = 4.42) occupied the second — highest position in Table 5, indicating that the limitation of students' legal knowledge is such a significant obstacle, which can affect the quality of the presentation in legal English classes When being asked about this problem, students expressed:
"As I major in English, I do not study specific subjects related to law When researching for a presentation, it even takes me a long time to understand the title of the topic." (Student 1)
Or "The topic of the presentation is related to commerce, intellectual property, etc., such legal fields I have never studied before Thus, I do not have enough knowledge to give a presentation" (Student 4)
In terms of reference, the highest mean value of Statement 25, at 4.56, depicts the reality that most students cannot find the equivalent meanings of such legal terms during the preparation for their presentations, which is originated mainly from the limitation of references on terminology interpretation, especially legal English dictionaries in Vietnam Additionally, Statement 26 was designed to figure out the problem about students' lack of research materials About 76%
36 admitted suffering from this trouble when doing research to develop their presented topic, equivalent to the Mean score of 3.79 Clarifying this matter, one respondent shared that, the lack of reference is resulted from a great gap between Vietnamese and other countries’ legal system Some regulations cannot be found in Vietnamese legal framework; meanwhile, there are also some legal terms that are only adopted in Vietnamese law
Last but not least, the difficulty in dealing with complicated legal terms was also emphasized in Statement 27 and 28, as the mean values of these statements stood at 3.64 and 4.21 respectively As analyzed in the literature review, Archaic words as well as French and Latin terms used in the legal documents make it hard for students to understand and deliver its meaning to their peers in the whole presentation in legal English classes A student of K45, who started to get acquainted with Basic Legal English, stressed that these complicated terms reduced her interest in learning legal English, especially during presentation sessions
Table 6 The students’ perceptions on the obstacles related to audience and instructor
29 I feel frightened when making oral presentation in front | 129 | 3.61 | 588 of a lot of people
30 I worry that my peers will laugh at me when I speak | 129 | 4.09 | 763 English
31 I am distracted by audiences’ noises during my oral | 129} 4.13 | 605 presentation
32 The instructor’s interruption with questions or criticism | 129 | 3.86 | 796 affects my performance
33 I try to avoid the instructor’s eyes during oral| 129| 4.34 |.612 presentation
To support the fact that students experience some obstacles in facing a lot of people when presenting orally in legal English classes, a great number of students (57%) reported feeling afraid to present in front of audience (M = 3.61) Such finding echoes with (Alwi, N.F.B & Sidhu, G.K, 2013) reporting that students barely interact with the audience Similarly, (Joughin, 2007) observed students feeling anxious when speaking English in front of their peers Also, the audience’s reactions, such as their noises and laughter, play as the primary reason for the ineffectiveness and hesitance of students when delivering a legal presentation, which is evidently indicated in the considerable mean scores of Statements 30 and 31 (M = 4.09 and 4.15, respectively) Moreover, the ignorance from the speaker’s peers in class also affects strongly to the whole presentation in legal English classes, which is clearly seen in the interview answer
“The atmosphere of the class, particularly the indifference of my classmates towards the presentation, created a great barrier for me to impart knowledge and interact with them.” (Student 3)
As to instructor’s presence, 78.9% of the students said that the instructor’s interrupting of their presentations with questions and criticism affects their performance (Statement 32) This is consistent with (Radzuan, N.R.M & Kaur,
S, 2011)’s study in which students reported the evaluation panel’s attacking them with difficult questions and criticism and interrupting them to make comments Following the mean score of 4.34 in Statement 33, many participants felt anxious when their instructors were attending to their presentation; simultaneously, students admitted they “always” tried to avoid looking at the instructor’s eyes
38 during oral presentation What is more, some interviewees reported they “often” got the fear of receiving unfair grades for their presentations This might be due to the fact that every instructor has his/her own criteria, and most of the time students were not informed of the criteria for evaluation (Irvine, 2012) confirms that oral presentations are subjective in that different teachers look for different things
Besides the characteristics of legal English, audience and lecturers, there are some other objective factors creating difficulties for English majors in oral presentation, such as the time constraint and the culture of learning An English — majored senior stated that: “J was obsessed with the time limit for my presentation, so I just focused on how to finish my performance in this period of time.” In addition, the bulk of interviewees (4 out of 5) shared that they were influenced by the culture of learning from their primary, secondary, and high education as they often studied theory in class and took exams for assessment, instead of giving presentations in front of the class
In view of the findings from the ten Likert items, it can be concluded that the English-majored students have confronted some main problems of oral presentation in legal English classes These problems are a paucity of personal traits, academic level and other objective factors.
The methods perceived by the English-majored students for the
RECOMMENDA TIONS -<-<<c<<<<eeseeseseesese 45 4.1 Suggestions for students 45 4.2 Suggestions for Legal English — majored lecturers -.-< 47 4.3 Suggestions for the Faculty of Legal Foreign Languages
On the basis of the findings from the students’ responses, the following section offers some pedagogical suggestions regarding how to help the students overcome difficulties in oral presentation in legal English classes at HLU 4.1 Suggestions for students
Setting up good speaking habits
First and foremost, (Zivkovic, 2014) highlights that students are recommended to take up a habit of presenting the talk three times orally in front of a mirror, with someone listening, or with a video or tape recorder as they can improve themselves such as: Observing their nonverbal communication, deciding which parts of the presentation to emphasize and where to pause, checking how long the presentation will take compared to the time constraints Likewise, other listeners may help them pick up any errors in pronunciation As the result, the English mastery in an oral presentation of students can also be boosted
Moreover, thorough preparation and practice help the students reduce anxiety and also help them respond to any questions and challenges from the audience as (Zivkovic, 2014, p 206) concludes, “The more opportunities you have to practice, the more confidence and skill will increase So, experience and good preparation are the best strategies for overcoming nervousness” Learning from the presentations
Critically, English majors are supposed to learn how to evaluate their own presentations The students have to “step into the shoes of the teacher and judge their own works as objectively as they can” (Scharle and Szabo, 2000) In doing so, they can formulate the idea of their proficiency level, know their weak and
45 strong points and set the targets for their next presentations, which in turn, encourages them to be more likely to feel responsible for reaching those targets Apart from the ability to self-evaluate their own presentations, it is necessary for students to be able to evaluate their peers’ To do this, they can use the checklists given by (Ireland, 2016) in Figure 02 to note their opinions and impressions towards their classmates’ performances
Figure 2 Criteria for evaluating a presentation
Student Evaluation Form for Presentations
The slides built my interest in the presentation
The slides were well designed
The background of the PowerPoint slides was effective
There were only bullets and no paragraphs of prose was well conceived it
The student was well organized
The student's personal presentation style created interest
0 The presentation was well delivered
1 Overall, the presentation was interesting and engaging aA
0010 0ù 0 Ơi Ơi Ơi Ơi Ơ ƠI
Comments and Suggestions for Improvement
Along with the presentation skills, students should develop their legal knowledge by listening to current affairs and keeping up to date with news, especially those related to legal updates In addition, in order to equip a solid foundation for developing the legal presentations, English majors are encouraged to join academic organizations inside and outside the university as well as participating in certain contests about legal research, debate, etc to improve their legal English knowledge and gain experiences related to oral presentation
In addition, doing research is also an effective method to enhance legal English competence Not only legal English, but students can also try other law
46 fields such as Comparative law, Civil law, Commercial law, etc to expand their legal knowledge, and consequently, overcome the barrier of legal knowledge when giving presentations Thanks to this research activity, English reading and writing skills will also be improved
4.2 Suggestions for Legal English — majored lecturers
In consideration of the aforementioned situation, suggestions for lecturers are that they ought to teach students the nonverbal skills necessarily for effective public speaking (Gilakjani, 2012) offers instructors some teaching tips to teach nonverbal behaviors They can, first, demonstrate for students such concepts as eye contact, gestures, stance, and facial gestures Additionally, lecturers can provide students with a videotape of a famous speech being delivered and ask them to watch and note the nonverbal behaviors that the presenter uses After that, it is suggested to supply students with a copy of the speech and invite them to read the speech with the presenter in chorus and then work in groups to deliver the speech, mimicking the presenter’s nonverbal communication
To raise the students’ consciousness about the importance of being effective and confident presenters, it is advisory that lecturers provide students with as much practice as possible because of the fact that presentation skills are largely developed by practice It may be more effective to introduce more opportunities for students to develop their oral communication skills in a series of short and informal exercises, which is also regarded as a short assessment test For instance, the lecturers can ask students to give a short talk on a legal topic or set the task of discussing issues or problems in small groups, provided that students adopt such legal terms related to legal English lessons in their
47 performances After individuals have practiced giving presentations to a small group, they are allowed to deliver their final presentation, in brief, to the whole class Students, in fact, are likely to become more confident when they are presenting collective opinions, rather than their individual thoughts Lessening the difficult characteristics of legal English
As previously analyzed, the characteristics of legal English is a great obstacle for students’ oral presentations Therefore, creating a positive and open learning atmosphere by combining stimulating mini-games and sharing legal English knowledge in practice proves to be a beneficial and realistic approach to this subject Regarding the students' legal knowledge base, to facilitate for an efficient transfer of knowledge, lecturers should require students to research a specific law field in the Vietnamese legal system in advance, then give an explanation and comparison to other legal systems in the theory class As a result, students can avoid the situation of being confused towards the legal topics they are assigned to present orally Ultimately, qualified references are expected to be introduced by legal English lecturers, which can help orient students correctly for their preparation stage of the oral presentations in legal English classes
4.3 Suggestions for the Faculty of Legal Foreign Languages
To improve the quality of English majors’ oral presentations, it is suggested for the Faculty of Legal Foreign Languages that there should be more professional training programs as well as more workshops organized for learners to gain deeper insight into the crucial influence of oral presentation in legal English classes The training programs are not only limited in the legal English lessons, but also can be launched by some other practical ways, such as: creating specialized groups for English — major students to share methods to get over
48 such obstacles in oral presentation as well as exchange the legal references; organizing legal English presentation contests to encourage students to demonstrate their presentation skills As for the curriculum, the Faculty should increase the seminar periods with various themes such as rhetoric, debate, group presentations based on practical cases, etc to create a stimulating English- speaking environment for Legal English-majored students
1 Summary of the main findings
On the whole, this research paper has comprehensively explored the English — majored students' perceptions towards the obstacles in making oral presentation in front of legal English classes at HLU through a questionnaire survey and interview Subsequently, the results and statistics were analyzed via IBM SPSS and Microsoft Office Excel and displayed in figures and tables On grounds of the key findings, valid conclusions could be drawn so as to shed light on the matters of the current study
First and foremost, most third — year and fourth year learners fully perceive the importance of oral presentation to their legal English proficiency In particular, the bulk of students have a good grip on the direct correlation between the quality of their oral presentations and the development of their soft skills, as well as the desirable impacts of oral presentation on the audiences’ benefits Secondly, it is revealed that learners have a generally high perception towards their obstacles in making oral presentations in legal English classes as they show their agreements with some typical problems of presentation related to psychology, academic skills, and other objective factors Specifically, “anxiety when presenting in front of others” and “failure” are widely agreed among students to be the most common psychological matter they experienced in making oral presentation Students further acknowledge other problems such as lack of presentation skills and low language mastery The explanation for this phenomenon is that students frequently relied on materials and Vietnamese speaking habits; as the result, their flexibility in oral performance in legal English language is limited Additionally, the characteristics of legal English as well as audiences and lecturers are highly concurred to be problematic for