BUSINESS AND LAW VOCABULARY ACQUISITION IN THE ESP CLASSROOM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.197507Keywords:
reading text, term, idiom, business, economics, law, technologyAbstract
Undergraduates of the University of Economics in Bratislava need to receive decent economic and legal education to be able to work successfully in different areas of the national economy and in the management structures of all levels. The previous research has shown that Slovakia follows a significant negative trend with performance in reading. Online learning platforms like LMS Moodle are ideal for students in higher education. This paper is a part of the KEGA Project carried out at the Department of English Language of the Faculty of Applied Languages. It demonstrates the work of an experimental group of sixty-four first- and second-year students of the Faculty of National Economy in a course “Business English for Advanced Students III” supported by an e-course “Business Communication”. During the semester, students developed reading skills and improved communication by reading and investigating written discourse for unknown words and idiomatic expressions. The rationale for the quantitative research is to compose a corpus of professional articles from English-language periodicals read by “Economics and Law” students. The rationale for the qualitative research is to identify important business, legal and academic vocabulary in them. The method of “Statistical Hypothesis Testing”, T-test, tests the significance of the difference between the knowledge of idioms of the experimental group and the control group (33 students doing a traditional course). The results indicate that LMS Moodle increased students’ motivation to study English. The results prove that “Economics and Law” students enlarged greatly their legal vocabulary and that both groups were interested in learning idiomatic expressions.
Downloads
References
- Brown, G.D., & Rice, S. (2007). Professional English in Use Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Ciprianová, E. & Vrábelová, M. (2015). Slovak students’ comprehension of English figurative idioms containing body parts. Topics in Linguistics, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2015-0003
- Cowie, A.P., Mackin, R., & McCaig, I.R. (1993). Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Crystal, D. (1992). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
- Cotton, D., Falvey, D., & Kent, S. (2011). Market Leader Business English Course Book Upper Intermediate (3rd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
- Donna, S. (2000). Teach Business English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Firth, J.R. (1957). A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930-1955. Studies in linguistic analysis (pp.1-32). Oxford: Blackwell.
- Fernando, C. (1996). Idioms and Idiomaticity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Gillet, A. (2010). Speak Business English Like an American. Ann Arbor, MI: Language Success Press.
- Hrdličková, Z. (2016). Ideational Idioms in Business English Communication. Bratislava, SK: Vydavateľstvo EKONÓM.
- Hrdličková, Z. (2017). Business English Idioms vs. Business Terms. Lingua et Vita, 6(12), 22-29. Retrieved from https://linguaetvita.sk/
- Hrdličková, Z. (2018). Promoting Media, Information and Reading Literacy through a Business Communication e-Course. In Beseda, J., & Rohlíková, L. (Eds.), DisCo 2018: Overcoming the Challenges and the Barriers in Open Education: 13th conference reader (pp.178-198). Prague, CZ: Centre for Higher Education Studies.
- Hrdličková, Z. (2018). Improving Reading Skills Using On-line Newspapers and Magazines. Lingua et Vita, 7(14), 75-84. Retrieved from https://linguaetvita.sk/
- Hrdličková, Z., Rusiňáková, J., & Maierová, E. (2019). Economic Concepts and Idioms in English Business Communication. České Budějovice, CZ: College of European and Regional Studies, z.ú.
- Ignatkina, A. (2018). Frame modelling method in teaching and learning legal terminology. Studies in logic, grammar and rhetoric, 53(66), 81-104. https://doi.org/10.2478/slgr-2018-0005
- Joyce, K. (2003). Newspapers are a useful tool in the ELT classroom for improving reading skills and enhancing students’ knowledge of current affairs. British Council. Retrieved from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/newspaper-reading-activities
- Kontanistova, A., Martynenko, I., Kovrigina, O., & Kreuzova, V. (2016). Legal English for Master’s Programme. Moscow: Kutafin Moscow State Law University.
- Kučerová, M., & Fidlerová, H. (2012). Štatistické metódy. Bratislava, SK: Slovak University of Technology.
- Kvetko, P. (2006). An Outline of English Phraseology (2nd ed.). Trnava, SK: University of Ss Cyril and Methodius in Trnava.
- Kvetko, P. (2014). Anglicko-slovenský frazeologický slovník [English-Slovak Dictionary of Phraseology]. Bratislava, SK: Veda.
- Laufer, B. (1997). What is in a word that makes it hard or easy? Intralexical factors affecting the difficulty of vocabulary acquisition. In N.Schmitt, & M.McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary: Description, acquisition and pedagogy (pp.140-155). NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Law, J. (Ed.). (2015). Oxford Dictionary of Law (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Lea, D., Bull, V., Webb, S., & Duncan, R. (Eds.). (2014). Oxford Learner’s Dictionary of Academic English. Oxford University Press.
- Maierová, E. (2018). Idioms in Marketing Communication. Lingua et Vita, 7(14), 24-30. Retrieved from https://linguaetvita.sk
- Mason, C. (2011). The Lawyer ´s English Language Coursebook (2nd ed.). Birtley, ENG: Global Legal English Ltd.
- McCarthy, M. (1990). Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- McCarthy, M., & O’Dell, F. (2016). Academic Vocabulary in Use (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Mukhametzyanova, L.R., Bezuglova, O.A., & Kuznetsova, A.A. (2015). Specific features of teaching legal vocabulary in foreign language classes. Journal of Language and Literature, 6(2), 117-122. https://doi.org/10.7813/jll.2015/6-2/23
- Nation, I.S.P. (2013). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge Applied Linguistics.
- Nimrita, P. (2016, March). 5 Ways Moodle Improves Higher Education. Lambda Solutions. Retrieved from https://blog.lambdasolutions.net/5-ways-moodle-improves-higher-education
- O’Dell, F., & McCarthy, M. (2008). English Collocations in Use Advanced. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Parizoska, J., & Rajh, I. (2017). Idiom Variation in Business English Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study. ESP Today, 5(10), 46-67. https://doi.org/10.18485/esptoday.2017.5.1.3
- Parkinson, D., & Noble, J. (Eds.). (2005). Oxford Business English Dictionary for Learners of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Pigolkin, A.S. & Chernobel, G.T. (1990). Legal terminology: definition and classification. In A.S. Pigolkin (Ed.), Language of law (pp.62-69). Moscow.
- Rusiňáková, J. (2018). English Idioms – Theory and Practice. Lingua et Vita, 7(14), 48-54. Retrieved from https://linguaetvita.sk/
- Spišiaková, M. (2018). Contemporary Spanish Business Language. Lingua et Vita, 7(13), 42-54. Retrieved from https://linguaetvita.sk/
- Taylor, K. (2006). Fifty ways to improve your Business English … without too much effort! London: Summertown Publishing.
- Thyab, R.A. (2016). The Necessity of Idiomatic Expressions to English Language Learners. International Journal of English and Literature, 7(7), 106-111. https://doi.org/10.5897/IJEL2016.0895
- Using the CEFR: Principles of Good Practice. (2011, October). Cambridge: UCLES EMC/7571/1Y09.
- Walter, E. (Ed.). (2006). Cambridge Idioms Dictionary (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Walter, E. (Ed.). (2006). Cambridge Phrasal Verbs Dictionary (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Zuzana Hrdličková
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).