The role of academic writing in teaching ESP to the future lawyers

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The role of academic writing in teaching ESP to the future lawyers

academic writing professional cours english future lawyers

Оксана Диндаренко,

Роль академічного письма при навчанні англійської мови професійного спрямування майбутніх юристів

Стаття присвячена дослідженню ролі академічного письма, як одного з невід'ємних компонентів навчання іноземноїмови(англійської) за професійним спрямуванням студентів нефілологічних спеціальностей, зокрема майбутніх юристів. Проблема розглянута як під кутом використання інтернет-ресурсів при дистанційному, он-лайн навчанні іноземних мов у сучасний період, так і в контексті доцільності застосування ситуативно рольової гри під час проведення аудиторних занять з іноземної мови за професійним спрямуванням. Особлива увага приділяється аспектам навчання різних видів академічного письма: анотації, есе, відгуку, наукового огляду до статті, рецензії на різні види творів, підбір матеріалів та складання курсового чи дипломного проекту, публікації наукової статті тощо. Здійснюючи підготовку майбутніх фахівців, необхідно розвивати в них навички використання іншомовної професійної й наукової лексики, навчати їх спілкування в контексті спеціальності, розвивати вміння академічного письма. Викладачеві іноземної мови доводиться опановувати новий для нього аспект роботи - приділяти особливу увагу проблемі дипломного проектування, навчати цього студентів, формувати в них навички підбору матеріалу, логічної організації ідей, вибудовування ясного й зв'язного тексту. На увагу заслуговує розвиток навичок академічного письма й ефективного використання матеріалів і вправ для написання анотації іноземною мовою, які допоможуть студентам немовних спеціальностей набути впевненості у викладі своїх думок та ідей при написанні дипломних робіт, підготовці до публікації наукової статті. Мета навчання академічного письма - сформувати у студентів уміння писати комунікативно, значимо, оригінально, інформативно, зв'язно, логічно, виразно, з позначенням особистісного ставлення до предмета висловлювання, відповідно до певної композиційно-мовної форми і відповідно до норм мови. Студентам надається можливість працювати самостійно, для чого є достатньо годин самостійної роботи за програмою курсу англійської мови професійного спрямування у майбутніх юристів. На цьому етапі необхідно приділити увагу розвитку критичного мислення, наслідкам вибору слів, речень, техніки організації тексту, творчого підходу до вибору матеріалу і тематики твору. Це особливо важливо для студентів, які активно займаються науковою діяльністю. Саме тому викладачам, розвиваючи у студентів навички академічного письма, слід приділяти особливу увагу написанню анотацій, що є ознакою не лише культури оформлення наукової роботи, але й показником авторського уміння аналізувати і систематизувати інформацію. Навчання академічного письма сприяє розвитку потреб у спілкуванні студентів англійською мовою, їх прагненням до набуття знань і практичних навичок, підвищенню рівня мотивації студентів-юристів до вивчення професійної англійської мови.

Ключові слова: академічне письмо, анотація, есе, англійська для спеціальних цілей чи англійська мова за професійним спрямуванням, варіативна(профільна) дисципліна, професійна лексика, комунікативна компетенція, вищі заклади освіти(ВЗО).

Stating the problem. The inevitable changes in social life and the education system of both Ukraine and globally, lead to the modernization and reorganization of the education process according to the education standards of the third generation. For the teachers and tutors in order to satisfy the requirements of the new syllabuses and programs, specially designed up-grading courses are proposed in the higher educational establishments, the curriculums of disciplines are being changed, the role of the student individual work is being improved, its proportion is growing. The process of integration of Ukraine into the common European educational sphere, demands high level of the English language command and communicative language competency not only from the part of the tutors and scientists, but from the students as well. Both students and tutors must be aware of the importance of mutual understanding, cooperation with the citizens of Europe and the world in the professional sphere, of representing Ukraine within the world scientific community. This demands the high level of knowledge of English as a foreign language of professional communication, forming the proper level of professional competency among them. To be an active participant of all the globalization processes and cross-cultural communication, every student-lawyer has to possess the professional skills both in professional and situational communication, both in speaking practice and in the written form. So, the professional training and communicative approach principles must be leading while working out the programs of ESP in higher educational establishments, which involves the development among the stu- dents-lawyers the ability of the foreign language communication in the proposed professional, business and scientific spheres and situations. Essential in this case will be the ability to express their own point of view and to prove it, which could be provided only through the use of the colloquial English studied on the basis of the authentic texts and didactic materials, including samples of the published articles, annotations, dialogues. Of course, the use of modern innovative technologies is vital for achieving these goals on the level of higher education training in ESP of the future lawyers, as it integrates the processes, incompatible within the traditional education system: studying, employment, planning the career, continuous learning.

Teaching ESP is gaining more popularity in the system of higher education and training students' non-philologists, particularly, lawyers. From one side, it's studied as a compulsory humanitarian discipline and on the other side it's being introduced in a number of educational institutions as a variable discipline of the professional cycle. Hence, teaching and training the future specialists in different fields of knowledge, the skills of the use of professional terms and scientific vocabulary are required to be developed, including professional communication skills and academic writing skills. Henceforth, the ESP teachers have to deal with the new aspect of work: emphasizing the problem of thesis-paper projecting and drafting, designing it and teaching students the skills of selecting carefully the material, logical organization of ideas, completing the clear and logical view of the text.

Analysis of the latest researches and publications. Teaching ESP to the students of higher educational establishments in Ukraine is among the leading problems of attention and of priority issues of the modern tendencies in the development of Ukrainian science and education, as it is the global feature of the international social development and integration. Hence, according to the Ukrainian President's ordinance № 641/2015, “2016 was declared the year of English language in Ukraine”. And this has been the priority issue in education since that time on. So, no wonder that the problem of teaching academic writing in the course of ESP in the universities, training students to annotate and to write references and summaries of different texts has become one of the most popular topics of the scientific research both of Ukrainian and foreign scholars, such as: О. К. Yehorova, S. І. Kalinina, N. N. Ryabova, О. О. Radziyevska, N.V Rotova, N. А. Frolova, Y. V. Shkurko in the spheres of both foreign and native language. Writing references and annotating are judged as the essential components of the student activities, trained and educated, instructed in the course of ESP for the students non-philolo- gists in the higher educational establishments, being included in the syllabuses, curriculums and programs of studies both in the junior and senior courses.

The aim of the research. The research should stress the development of the academic writing skills and effective use of the stuff and exercises for combining an essay, an annotation, a summary of the article in English for the future lawyers. The aim of teaching academic writing in the ESP course - to form the Law student skill of communicative writing, to write informatively, originally, creatively, logically and expressively, with expressing the special attitude to the problem, topic of discussion, corresponding to the set compositional-language form and the norms of speech. The main aim of the course has to be the development among the students-lawyers of the professionally-based cross-cultural competency, forming and perfecting the phonetic, lexical and grammar competencies, within their field of study (major), and the language competencies in audition, reading, speaking and writing. The course of ESP for the future lawyers must correspond to the requirements for their possible professional activity, motivate towards learning English as means of raising up their educational, cultural, professional level, competency in the field of their major, Legacy or Law. The course of ESP and academic writing will include training skills in writing scientific articles and annotations in English, peculiarities of the scientific style, the use of most commonly used cliches. Teaching academic writing in the course of ESP will be aimed at forming, improving and perfecting the student knowledge and skills of business letter writing for exchanging both studying and research experience.

Representation of the main points of the research. At the primary stage the tutor has to introduce the basic elements of the written work to the students, using the typical vocabulary structures and word combinations in varied reproductive and productive vocabulary drill exercises, and only then to practice it on their own creative writing works. Students are inspired to work independently over the problem, both individually and in the group, at home or in class, provided there is enough time designed in the curriculum for the student individual work and self-education in the course of ESP for the future lawyers. Essential in this way is to pay special attention to the development of critical thinking, consequences of the choice of vocabulary, construction of sentences, the technique of building up the text, creative approach to selecting the material and topic for discussion in the text. When it comes to the choice of topic, the tutor gives the task to the students, using the brain-storm approach. This method is effective both for generating the ideas and for the consolidation of information. After putting down the text, it has to be abridged, considering the sequence of represented facts, the efficiency of the given information, ideas, suppositions, thoughts, beliefs and points of view. The group of students is proposed to exchange their created works, express their thoughts and attitudes, correcting the mistakes, perfecting the skills of adopting and abridging texts. It's vital to develop this skill for the students involved in scientific research activity, preparing to write articles to the scientific journals, theses for the conferences and speeches to participate in them, working over the course-thesis project and the diploma research work. Scientific journals require writing an annotation to the article, so the translation task has to be fulfilled by the student perfectly. For this reason, tutors in the higher educational institutions, developing the students' skill of academic writing, ought to stress the problem of annotation combining. The annotation helps to reveal the use of the article, its main ideas, content, the essence of the research work. The task of the tutor is to explain all the peculiarities of annotation writing, perfecting the knowledge of the English grammar and enlarging the professional and scientific vocabulary. So, the points to be stressed for the students are as follows: a) annotation is usually placed after the title of the article and the name of the author, so it's no use repeating or paraphrasing the title; b) it's not desirable to include the information not emphasized in the printed material, article or diploma project; c) the potential reader is eager to find the brief presentation of the aim, methods and the main results and conclusions of the article, as it's the general characteristic of the published work; d) avoid using the personal pronouns : I or We (sentences must be impersonal); e) choose active forms of the verb instead of the passive ones (“the research tested” instead of “it was tested by the research”); f) try to avoid using the names of trademarks, acronyms, abbreviations and symbols: they demand explanations, which take much place, but the annotation mustn't be huge; g) use the key-words of the article; h) represent the ideas in a clear and simple way, to make the read material easily understandable. So, from the ideas listed above, the criteria for assessment of an annotation are as follows: 1. The language must be common and understandable to any auditorium or readers. Simple sentences are more preferable. 2. Relevance of information. 3. The use of a certain language style, depending on the type of article or printed material. 4. Annotation deals with the problem, aims, methods and results. 5. The set structure of annotation is required. 6. Lexical and grammar content must be efficient. The main point is not only to study the peculiarities and structure of the scientific texts, but also to practice writing different types of works, analyzing examples and correcting mistakes. The skill of writing an annotation is not only the characteristic of a high level of scientific research work culture, but also the unique author's potential to analyze and systematize the information proposed in the context.

Teaching students-lawyers the skills and abilities to annotate a foreign language text, as one of the main sources of information, namely, orientation in the foreign language stuff and ability to choose and select, pick up the main important ideas and issues for discussion in foreign language, is one of the most effective methods of and forms of acquiring the practical command of foreign language, which will provide success in the students-lawyers career and professional activities in future. Up to the recent period of time methodologists and psychologists have considered the translation of the text in native language a must for its further comprehension. Modern tutors practice understanding the texts in foreign language without the translation. Comprehending and understanding are the main processes of the subjective reflection of the objective surrounding world. Judging carefully the essence of reference and annotation is worth noticing the following factors. As it was noted above, the most important source of the scientific information and means of its transformation within time and space is the authentic document with true advance information. Speaking about scientific texts it's worth remarking that science represents a system of knowledge about nature, society and way of thinking, with the facts reflecting different methodologies and theories, forming a type of scientific content within the boundaries of knowledge of disciplines and subjects of this field and which are original and fundamental, basic logically-built categories. They define the language structure and format of the scientific context. Lexical choice of the scientific text, is characterized primarily by the great amount of scientific terms of all types, which is conditioned by the semantic-communicative peculiarity of the term, its principle unified meaning, accuracy, economizing, nominative and cognitive function, stylistic neutrality position, more informative content compared to the other commonly used words (Radziyevska, 2013: 154). The aim of the student working with the scientific text in foreign language is easier than the translator's one, as the student only has to give and express the objective cognitive information, omitting the details of the accurate presentation of the text content from the original. While studying the perception of the scientific text, you can't help addressing the works of H. I. Bohin and B. B. Bakhtin, who describe the problems of scientific textual communication, that includes the notion of dialogical speech (Bondar, 2003: 123). The experience of work in the higher educational establishments of the non-philological profile shows that the students have substantial difficulty dealing with the translation of the foreign scientific texts, which is explained by the number of reasons: the lack of hours for the tutorials in ESP course (from 2 to 4 semesters of learning professional English), the low effectiveness of the existing methodologies, that prevents students from getting highly qualified professional training in ESP or individual independent work with the scientific texts in English. While dealing with the post-graduate students, it's vital to teach and train them, providing experience in academic writing, namely in annotating texts, with the adequate, appropriate translation and resume, summary of the texts in their major, Legacy or Law in our case. Though the scientific text is rich in the complicated, complex grammar structures, terms, professionally- oriented vocabulary, non-equivalent lexics, which must be presented using the interpreter's transformations (expanding, reducing, omitting, antonymous and descriptive translation). As a result, the translation of a scientific text might be extremely difficult for the students, future lawyers. To overcome the students' difficulties and drawbacks connected with the work over the scientific foreign language texts, such components of the scientific text should be judged, considered and absolutely taken into account: 1) terminology and realia of the country, which language you study; 2) abbreviations and condensed words; 3) general scientific vocabulary, typical for all the texts, from all the branches of science; 4) the forms of verbs in present simple in active voice; 5) learning and giving the Passive forms of the verbs, etc. (Bezlyudnyi, 2014: 55). Teaching students to work with the foreign language scientific texts, the tutor has also to pay attention both to the objective difficulties and to the individual type of them. No doubt, the process of teaching students the skills of academic writing on the basis of the scientific texts, annotating and referencing them, must be provided in the senior courses of learning ESP in the higher educational establishments as it presupposes the condensing of the text into the logically based variant. As for the basis of academic writing, elements of it, writing essays, annotations, summaries, references should start from the first years of studying English.

Conclusions. Teaching academic writing to the students, future lawyers, is preferable in the senior courses if dealing with the scientific texts, provided the students possess for it the required knowledge of their major, specialization, field of study, skills of selecting and summarizing the information, and can adequately evaluate the information. So, working out the methodology of academic writing in the ESP course aimed at perfecting the reading skills of the foreign language scientific texts for the future lawyers, it's desirable to take into consideration the following factors: the individual psychological peculiarities of students, their style of learning and processing information, simultaneously using the principles of availability, demonstrativeness, activity, systematization, consequent analysis, providing the logical correlated transformation from the direct understanding of the text to its brainstorm discussion, the ability of students to work individually or in a group, the number of hours provided in the course of teaching ESP to the future lawyers, including both written and dialogical and monological speech development tasks, combined with the most advanced techniques of memorizing the information and demonstrative stuff, including the tasks to train all the types of students lawyers' memory, writing and reading the required material, repeating it at every tutorial.

To sum up, teaching academic writing skills to the students non-philologists in the ESP course raises up the level of students' language competence, enforces the communication in foreign language, especially in the field of their Major, particularly Legacy and Law, inspiring them to achieve new goals in ESP education and acquiring more knowledge in the area of study, perfecting the practical skills, raising up the level of self-motivation in learning professional English by the future lawyers.

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