Problem Questions for Law Students

Geraint Brown is the Coordinator of English for Specific Purposes and a tutor of English for Academic Purposes at Swansea University. Since 2008, he has taught UK and international students who are about to start their LLMs at Southampton University, as well as master’s and undergraduate law students at Swansea University where he is the Coordinator of the Law Pre-sessional course. He specialises in developing, teaching and delivering medical English, English for Sports, English for Academics, English for International Lecturers in UK universities and, of course, legal English. He is Chair and a panel member of the Academic Integrity Committee deciding on cases where students have been suspected of committing academic misconduct and unfair practice, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

"As a qualified CELTA English teacher and an international PhD candidate studying and teaching world trade law in the UK, it is really a pleasure to witness the publication of such a brilliant book on legal academic English. Owing to the instructive content and the clear structure, Geraint’s book has made not only a practical course material for any English tutors but also an easy-to-follow self-study guidance for law students who are seeking language tutorials. The English learning habits of non-native speakers appear to be well considered by the author. Consequently, I strongly recommend the book to any legal English tutors and international students who are about to be engaged in a law-related course in an English-speaking country."Dr Cherry Kaiyuan Chen"Brown’s book aims to fill this gap in available resources, breaking down the process of unpacking a PQ task and constructing a coherent answer. The writer is an EAP practitioner and therefore this book foregrounds language as integrated in content. This is typically not the case in previously published legal EAP resources, as Candlin et al. noted (2002:302). The book is therefore clearly distinguishable from other available writing guides from law content specialist authors, which often provide only a few cursory, separate notes on language. It also presents law content and sections on referencing and study skills, (e.g., researching law databases). Overall, this book is focussed on academic language and literacy development for law within a process writing approach. [T]he benefit of an EAP practitioner’s specific insights within a specific academic domain is a defining feature of this publication. In conclusion, this book fills a clear gap in the market as a language in content approach to a specific subgenre of academic law writing. Its greatest value derives from how it comprehensively and expertly deconstructs PQ tasks, walking students through the process of writing. Language is integrated and fully contextualised within content, and explanations draw on the EAP author’s insider knowledge about the genre in practice. It is suitable for non L1 students and beginner/returning law students and provides for a range of law study contexts and areas of law."Neil Adam Tibbetts, University of Bristol

• 1. PART A – About Problem Questions; 2. PART B – Researching & Writing; 3. PART C – Good Academic Practice; 4. PART D – Resources; 5. PART E – Answers