Duration
30h Th
Number of credits
| Bachelor in law | 3 crédits |
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
German language
Organisation and examination
All year long, with partial in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
The aim of this course is to provide law students with the reading comprehension strategies needed for understanding legal documents, such as newspaper articles, legal texts, as well as other law-related documents. It will cover a wide range of legal subjects and will focus on :
- the acquisition of reading comprehension skills and strategies
- syntactic and grammatical structures which are particularly relevant in a legal context
- the acquisition of basic legal vocabulary
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
In order to meet the requirements for the final exam as defined by the Faculty of Law, students should, by the end of the class, be able to :
- read and understand effectively legal documents, such as newspaper articles, legal texts, as well as other law-related documents of manageable difficulty.
- translate appropriately extracts from legal texts or other law-related documents.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
As a prerequiste for this course students should have sufficient ability to read general texts.
Ideally, their command of general German should correspond to CEFR-level B1.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
- Reading comprehension exercices of legal documents
- Efficient and effective use of a dictionary
- Study and acquisition of basic legal terms
- Study of relevant language items (linking words, adverbs, prepositions, verbs, particles, particular sentence structures ...) with the aim of enabling students to understand legal texts better
- Study of various grammatical structures that are relevant to both legal and general German
- Various translation exercices
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
Face-to-face course
Additional information:
Students are supposed to prepare activities and exercises on a weekly basis as indicated by their teacher. Regular class attendance is mandatory.
Recommended or required readings
- Course book 'Reading Legal Texts in German"
- H. Dreyer, R.Schmitt "Grammaire allemande avec exercices. Nouvelle édition" (Hueber)
Exam(s) in session
Any session
- In-person
written exam
Additional information:
Written exam of 2 hours. The exam will primarily assess students' reading comprehension abilities through various exercises. To a certain extent students' passive knowledge of important language items will also be tested
The exam will be based on various extracts (multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks questions and translation exercises). It will consist of two parts :
Part 1 will be based on the texts covered in class (10/20)
Part 2 will be based on unseen texts (10/20)
An optional exemption exam will be organised for 2nd year students. It will coincide with the second session exam.
Studets will be allowed to use a bilingual dictionary and/or legal dictionary. However, they are not allowed to use either electronic media or other written media, such as word lists or glossaries. In case of doubt, students should seek advice from their teacher in order to make sure that they have chosen an appropriate dictionary.
Assessment methods may be adapted according to the current health context.
Work placement(s)
Organisational remarks and main changes to the course
Contacts
Françoise Carl (PhD)
fcarl@ulg.ac.be