Foundation in Law students’ reading awareness of the case law genre

Background: A text of different genre might pose a different problem to students and different genre requires different approach in understanding and comprehending it. Developing the expertise in reading legal texts at an early stage of learning will be very beneficial to the students of law. This study examines the level of pre-university/foundation in law students’ awareness for the case law genre, and the aim of this study is to investigate the extent of awareness of the case law genre among the foundation in law students. Methods: Five students who were pursuing their study in the foundation/pre-university level were selected as the subjects in this study. Qualitative data were obtained through the think-aloud procedure and questionnaire which was administered after the think-aloud procedure. The transcription of each student’s verbal reports was scrutinised for evidence of genre awareness while the answers given in the questionnaire were used to support the findings of the study. Genre analysis of 4-Move structure was used to identify the students’ level of awareness. Results: The findings indicate that the students were aware of the case law genre. However, they displayed a mixed-level of awareness. Conclusion: It is hoped that this study can provide some insights into the reading behaviour of law students especially when reading case law. Knowing and understanding the case law structure is integral for law students, and analysing students understanding of reading case law can help both the students and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) educators.

Exploring Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Genre-based Pedagogy Developed in Persuasive Writing Teaching: The Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Previous studies in genre-based pedagogy mainly concerned with its teaching effects, few studies involved with students’ perceptions and attitudes which is actually playing a role in teaching and learning activities. The present study intends to make some explorations in this aspect. A quasi-experimental study to designed to answer the research question “What are students’ perceptions and attitudes towards the genre-based pedagogy developed in Chinese university students’ persuasive writings?” Thirty-four students participated in the study and a four-point Likert scale questionnaire and an interview were applied to collect the data. After the quantitative and qualitative analysis, the study find that most participants hold positive attitudes towards every item of the questionnaire and think highly of the genre-based teaching pedagogy from the following six aspects: the mastery of textual features, the genre-awareness of persuasion, confidence in writing an effective persuasion, attitudes towards group writing in the teaching instruction, interests in the application of the curriculum cycle to other genres and other program instruction related comments such as being difficult to master certain required language features and following the teaching patterns involved in the textual construction of persuasion. However, the general indication is that the curriculum cycle can help and enhance students’ understandings of each of the textual features of persuasion. Finally, the study provides implications for future teaching: the genre-based approach could be effectively and widely applied in Chinese university students’ genre writing as the apprenticeship involved allows the students to be more creative as their writing skills develop.

Exploring Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Genre-based Pedagogy Developed in Persuasive Writing Teaching: The Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Previous studies in genre-based pedagogy mainly concerned with its teaching effects, few studies involved with students’ perceptions and attitudes which is actually playing a role in teaching and learning activities. The present study intends to make some explorations in this aspect. A quasi-experimental study to designed to answer the research question “What are students’ perceptions and attitudes towards the genre-based pedagogy developed in Chinese university students’ persuasive writings?” Thirty-four students participated in the study and a four-point Likert scale questionnaire and an interview were applied to collect the data. After the quantitative and qualitative analysis, the study find that most participants hold positive attitudes towards every item of the questionnaire and think highly of the genre-based teaching pedagogy from the following six aspects: the mastery of textual features, the genre-awareness of persuasion, confidence in writing an effective persuasion, attitudes towards group writing in the teaching instruction, interests in the application of the curriculum cycle to other genres and other program instruction related comments such as being difficult to master certain required language features and following the teaching patterns involved in the textual construction of persuasion. However, the general indication is that the curriculum cycle can help and enhance students’ understandings of each of the textual features of persuasion. Finally, the study provides implications for future teaching: the genre-based approach could be effectively and widely applied in Chinese university students’ genre writing as the apprenticeship involved allows the students to be more creative as their writing skills develop.

The Contribution of Genre Awareness and Reading Habits Towards Students' Reading Comprehension

Previous studies revealed that genre awareness and reading habits partially correlate with reading comprehension. This article reported the results of a study aiming to find out the contribution of genre awareness and reading habits towards the development of students’ comprehension of reading English texts. The participants of this study were 68 students of the Department of English of a state-owned university in East Java, Indonesia, in the 2020/2021 academic year. These students took the three reading courses (Intensive Course, Basic, and Intermediate Reading courses) and were assumed to have been familiar with genres and have developed some reading habits. This research employed a correlational design, involving two predicting variables (genre awareness and reading habits), and one response variable (comprehension). The data were gathered using three instruments: an objective test to measure students’ genre awareness, an online questionnaire to identify students’ reading habits, and an objective test to measure students’ reading comprehension. The data were analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis aided by SPSS/PASW Program. The results showed that the data are normally distributed so that conclusions can be drawn accurately that genre awareness and reading habits partially and significantly contribute to reading comprehension. The results also indicated that genre awareness and reading habits simultaneously and significantly contribute to reading comprehension, as shown by the results of the analysis that genre awareness and reading habits contributed 0.203 or 20.3% to reading comprehension. The rest (79.7%) was attributed to other variables outside the variables under study. This study concludes that good genre awareness and good reading habits help students develop good reading comprehension. The results provided in this paper can be used by English teachers as an alternative to help their students improve their genre awareness and cultivate good reading habits.

Collaborative Multimodal Writing via Google Docs: Perceptions of French FL Learners

In spite of the growing integration of computer-mediated collaborative writing and multimodal composition in second language (L2) classrooms, research on collaborative multimodal writing, as an innovative writing pedagogy, is still underway and largely underrepresented particularly in non-English learning contexts. To bridge this research gap, the author of this study implemented a multimodal writing task in which seven French FL learners jointly created digital postcards describing their vacation activities in groups of two or three over the period of eight weeks. The study sought to explore learners’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of this type of pedagogy and the factors mediating their writing processes. The analyses of a post-task questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews, triangulated with the finished products, indicated that overall, collaborative multimodal writing was a motivating learning experience. Several themes emerged regarding the perceived benefits (i.e., improvement in their writing skills, genre awareness and semiotic awareness, mutual learning through peer assessment and easy synchronous writing and revising via Google Docs), as well as challenges (i.e., tensions between partners largely due to frustrations over unequal participation, lack of control over the joint text and technical glitches). This paper provides significant implications for collaborative multimodal writing research and pedagogy.

Review of Recent Research on L2 Digital Multimodal Composing

This article reviews 26 empirical studies on digital multimodal composing (DMC) published in well-established journals between 2010 and 2020. It provides a holistic overview of these studies in terms of context and participants, multimodal tasks, technology, and research data. Research strands and themes are also identified. This review shows that most studies on DMC were conducted in tertiary ESL/EFL contexts. The research was informed by various theoretical/pedagogical frameworks across multiple disciplines. The multimodal writing tasks included digital storytelling, digital video production, and multimodal presentation. Data were analyzed to address three main strands: 1) L2 students' DMC process, 2) students' perceptions of DMC, and 3) effects of DMC. Of note, DMC practices were reported to have benefited L2 students, such as enhancing audience and genre awareness, learner autonomy, language learning investment, identity development, multimodal communicative competence, and L2 competence. This article ends with pedagogical recommendations and directions for future research.

Action Research for Exploring Genre Approaches to Writing in Real-World ESP Classrooms

This paper investigates how action research can be used to develop genre-approaches to teaching using a case study of teaching research article (RA) abstract writing on a course in Japan for science and technology students. This study involved two pedagogies placed within genre-awareness approaches, with moves being taught at different stages for each classroom. In addition to the teacher’s observations and a questionnaire to evaluate students’ perceptions, written drafts from both groups were analysed at two stages. Our analysis reveals that earlier intervention in teaching moves helped students to better construct their abstracts and that language-based activities played a role in improving students’ abstract writing without moves-based instruction. Moreover, the exercise of conducting this study in an action research framework highlighted the advantages of using a cyclic framework which allows for timely intervention based on teacher observation and critical evaluation of the teaching and learning context as the task progresses.

Arabic Legal Phraseology in Positive Law and Jurisprudence: The Historical Influence of Translation

The present study examines Arabic legal phraseology formation from the standpoint of positive law and jurisprudence. It claims that phraseological constructions in Arabic legislative and statutory texts are largely influenced by the translation process of Roman law texts. However, scholarly literature still relies to some extent on formulae used in the Islamic jurisprudence. To illustrate this, three examples of legal principles anchored in Islamic jurisprundence, known as legal maxims, are subjected to a comparative analysis and discussed along with their corresponding expressions in positive law in modern-day Arabic. Ultimately, the purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to demonstrate that the phraseology present in many Arabic positive laws is fully adapted to corresponding formulations in the Roman law, steming from a historical translation process that accompanied the codification movement in the beginning of the 20th century; secondly, to emphasize the significance of textual genre awareness in legal translation. Concretely, the introductory section provides an overview of recent studies that have addressed legal phraseologisms. It is followed by a section on the historical role of translation in the construction of certain phraseologisms. The general legal principles of (a) burden of proof, (b) presumption of innocence, and (c) the pacta sunt servanda principle are then examined in order to shed light on the influence of both the Civilist tradition and Islamic jurisprudence on the use of legal Arabic today, as well as to demonstrate how the translation of phraseologisms is dependent on the parameters of genre. The analysis leads to the conclusion that proper use of phraseologisms, whether in drafting or translation, is closely linked to knowledge of phraseology formation and the historical influence of translation.