5. Vocabulary issues
a. Low frequency fluency/High frequency struggles
Latin language speakers may impress and perplex their instructors with their ability to toss around low frequency words such as, cathartic, and their near inability to put together a simple expression, such as, "An Illinois court will likely find..."
Low frequency English vocabulary is often the same or very similar to its Latin language equivalent.
Common language is often expressed differently. Students accustomed to general success in translating lower frequency vocabulary need to develop a consciousness for how ideas are expressed in English.
The mastery of common expressions demands that students review many texts, and, if need be, scripts, and note the expressions used. Additionally, purchasing a box DVD set for a television series can be a great way to study how language is used. One can watch the same scenes over and over again and note the expressions used by the characters. Moreover, watching these series may add to your pop culture knowledge. Some shows are available on network websites. For example, "The Office" has enjoyed great popularity and is available at NBC's website.
b. Legal Vocabulary
Students may want to know how they can quickly build their legal vocabulary. Vocabulary is best learned in context. Students should spend a lot of time reading and listening. There is no easy way to acquire vocabulary. Many students memorize word lists for the TOEFL and GRE. This takes less time, but is much less effective than learning vocabulary through context.
You are fortunate at the Summer Legal Institute to have two instructors with law degrees. It is rare to find someone with a Juris doctor (J.D.) teaching ESL. The J.D./MATESOL combination is about as common as yeti sightings in the Himalayas. Most ESL teachers working with the professions are challenged by a lack of experience with the vocabulary used in those professions. Most J.D.s have never studied second language acquisition, educational psychology, neurolinguistics, or curriculum planning. Thus, you generally end up with instructors who know a lot about teaching language but little about the law or little about teaching but much about law.
However, no matter who may be your legal English instructor, they and you may well acknowledge that the law is often learned through blood, sweat, and tears (at least in this country). For ESL students, the acquisition of any specialized vocabulary is no different. You learn it best the way that we had to learn it: read a lot; listen a lot; make some mistakes; read a lot more.
c. Overuse of stock phrases e.g. frankly, and so on, etc.
ESL texts and some teachers, whether native or non-native speakers often teach students a common set of words and phrases for use in writing. Students tend to overuse or inappropriately use these stock words and phrases. Examples of these stock words and phrases include: frankly, and so on, etc., starting sentences with "And."
6. Organization
Not all cultures share conventions of organization for formal writing and speech. Review academic outlining. A basic, five paragraph essay model is shown here. Purdue's online writing lab (OWL) shows examples of outlines and offers a number of resources for ESL students, college students, and professionals.
Aside from help with formal speech organization, Purdue's ESL section offers help with common grammar concerns for ESL writers.
Your language and culture may not follow the same organizational system as does English.
Latin language speakers are known to organize their writing and speech in a zigzag pattern, shifting from one important idea to another and back again. Asians have circular organization that starts broad and obtuse and works its way slowly to the main idea. Germanic and Eastern European language speakers tend to have similar organizational patterns and traditions as English academic writing.
English readers need the main ideas out front, repeated, and at the end. In grad school assignments, and in legal cases, you can save time by reading only the beginning and the end. They will state the main ideas. In English discourse, details are in the middle, but always attached to sub-organizer main ideas. For basic writing or speech tasks, we refer to this system of organization as the sandwich method. The bread, the introduction and the conclusion, contains the main ideas. The supporting ideas and examples are in the middle.
7. Spelling
Many Latin language speakers rely on their existing native language vocabulary and do not bother to write the English language version. ESL students generally have a relaxed attitude about spelling. Spelling errors impact a reader's ability to understand the communication; distract the reader; and make the writer look unprofessional.
8. Sentence Fragments and Run ons
a. Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are incomplete thoughts, often missing either a subject or a verb. They can also be introductory or concluding clauses that contain both a subject and a verb, but do not express a completed thought.
Examples of sentence fragments:
1. A constitutional system with a bicameral government.
2. While in Spain the commercial code has been slow to evolve in pace with the growth of internet business.
b.Run on sentences
Run on sentences are sentences with multiple subjects and verbs that are so lengthy that the reader loses the thread and also loses her focus. As a general rule, if your sentence extends beyond three lines ( as this is the law, usually it would be a two line rule) it is too long. It is likely that the same ideas could be expressed in several shorter sentences.
Example of a run on sentence:
With the evolution of employer agent vicarious liability in Canada, there has been a corresponding adjustment in the insurance market, where insurers have responded to broader court interpretations of respondeat superior by imposing narrower restrictions upon insured parties seeking coverage for just these tort actions, leaving the Canadian people between the proverbial "rock and a hard place," they want employers to be held liable for negligence in hiring and supervision, but they also want jobs to remain available in spite of rising insurance costs for employers.
9. Not enough or way too much support for an idea
In both speech and writing, most ESL speakers and writers commonly fail to provide enough support for their main ideas, or, provide excessive support.
In writing, this is often easier to spot, as one can usually see on paper that there is an imbalance of space devoted to sub-areas. In formal speech tasks, this imbalance becomes apparent not only by reviewing the written copy and outlines, but by timing practice runs. For example, a ten minute speech may devote six minutes to part I, but only two minutes are allotted for parts II and III.
NASDAQ
18 years ago
