2023-2024 / LANG0051-1

English, Standard and legal language

Duration

90h Th

Number of credits

 Bachelor in law6 crédits 

Lecturer

Frédéric Depas, Pierre Geron, Kevin Heyeres, Caroline Hougardy, Estelle Oger, Mercyline Rayola Orodo

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

All year long, with partial in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

This English course is intended for first-year law students and aims both at improving their command of general English and at providing them with the basics of legal English in reading, listening and speaking.
CEFRL levels of the course:

  • listening (B2)
  • reading (C1)
  • speaking (B2)
  • writing (B1)

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

By the end of the term, students will have

  • developed their ability to read and understand legal texts such as legal periodicals, commercial legislation, legal correspondence and other commercial law documents.
  • increased their comprehension of spoken English when it is used to speak about legal topics in meetings, presentations, interviews, discussions, etc.
  • strengthened their speaking skills and become able to engage more effectively in a range of speaking situations typical of legal practice, such as client interviews, discussions with colleagues and contract negotiations.
  • learned how to use the necessary vocabulary and grammar tools .

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

The class is taught in English from the start and is not meant for beginners. Students should ideally have reached level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages before the start of the class.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Additional information:

This 90-hour course is taught all year round in two-hour sessions, twice a week in the first term and once a week in the second term (in-class sessions).
To be able to keep up with the fast pace of the class, students will make sure to prepare actively and regularly at home the exercises from the book and other additional tasks as indicated by the teacher.

Recommended or required readings

The course book "English for Law Students" is available at the "Magasin des Presses", on myULiège and on eCampus.

Students are required to bring a paper version of the course book to class.

Students who wish to improve on their grammar are advised to get hold of the Grammaire Anglaise de Base (ISLV), Editions de l'ULiège

Besides, students will need a good bilingual dictionary (English/French, French/English) such as The New Collins Robert French Dictionary or Oxford/Hachette.

They are also advised to get hold of a monolingual dictionary such as Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners or Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Some of these are also available free of charge on the libraries' website.

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

written exam ( multiple-choice questionnaire ) AND oral exam


Additional information:

There will be a written exam in January and a final exam in June.  The final exam in June will be made up of a written and an oral part.

The written exam in January will test the grammar, vocabulary, and the texts seen in class during the first term. Students who passed the January exam will not have to resit that part of the exam in June/August.

The written exam in June will be composed of true or false and multiple-choice questions about listening and reading comprehension, and about the grammar and the vocabulary seen in class.

The oral exam (June) will assess not only the students' speaking skills, but also their use of the vocabulary and language functions exercised in class as well as the comprehension of texts seen in class.

Part of the oral exam will be about texts selected from a readings file. This readings file, which is available on eCampus, is composed of several texts dealing with different topics covered in class.  A given number of credits is assigned to each text depending on its length and difficulty level.  Each student is required to choose 12 credits' worth of texts.

2nd-year law student whose option is "langue et mobilité" have to prepare another twelve credits' worth of texts to reach a total of 24 credits.

Students are required to submit the ad hoc form on eCampus by May 5th 2024. It will not be possible to do it later on. Failure to do so will lead to a mark of 0 for that part of the oral exam.
2nd session: if you have never submitted the form or if you wish to modify your selection, you are required to submit the form on eCampus by July 31st 2024 at the latest.

Make sure you keep a copy of your selection. The teachers will not remind you of your choice of texts.

For the oral exam, please take your own text file in paper version, with your handwritten annotations.

The points that make up the final mark will be distributed as follows:



  • Written exam in January / resit in June or August : 5 points
  • Written exam in June : 5 points
  • Listening comprehension exam (June) : 2 points
  • Oral exam (June) : 8 points
NB: Students who do not take both the written and the oral parts of the exam will obtain a zero in total (No partial marks can be obtained). The same rule applies for the second session, which means that students who failed the exam in June will have to resit both the oral AND the written parts of the exam in any case. However, students who passed the exam in January or passed the January part of the exam in June do not need to retake that part in August.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

After the information session, students are requested to fill in and validate their program on MyULiège as soon as possible in order to be assigned a group.

Deadline: September 27th
Contact: Ms. Lheureux  (ilheureux@uliege.be) 

After this deadline, students who are still not signed up for a group have to contact Ms. Oger (estelle.oger@uliege.be), and specify the elective course they chose (séminaire de lecture, introduction à la science politique, introduction à l'analyse du phénomène criminel,...)

First class: September 28th

 

Contacts

Teachers:

Frédéric DEPAS (F.Depas@uliege.be)

Pierre GERON (Pierre.Geron@uliege.be)

Kevin HEYERES (K.Heyeres@uliege.be)

Caroline HOUGARDY (C.Hougardy@uliege.be)

Philippe JEUKENNE (P.Jeukenne@uliege.be)

Estelle OGER (Estelle.Oger@uliege.be) - (coordinator)

Mercyline Rayola ORODO (MR.Orodo@uliege.be)

Audrey RENSON (Audrey.Renson@uliege.be)

Association of one or more MOOCs