BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE: A POST-LECTURE ANALYSIS OF COMMON-LAW DEFENCES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46763/Keywords:
Legal English; ESP; Application gap; Scenario-based learning; Usage vs. Use.Abstract
Many academics, trainers and professionals often wonder what happens in the crucial space between a lecture's end and a lawyer's first real case. In teaching Legal English, Legal ESP instructors struggle with a persistent dilemma: students can master legal terminology yet not always succeed in correctly applying it. In order to investigate this gap, the author conducted a classroom study with 45 law students learning common-law defences. While students demonstrated excellent command of theoretical definitions (>90% correct), their ability to deal with applied, ambiguous scenarios revealed a significant gap. Most unusual was that only 60% could correctly identify the 'public duty' defines in an emergency medical case scenario, often confusing it with moral necessity. These findings do more than quantifying a learning challenge because they expose a critical flaw in assuming that teaching the language of the law equips students to think with the law. The author argues that closing this gap requires a fundamental pedagogical shift in Legal ESP such as from knowledge transmission to the deliberate cultivation of professional reasoning through complex, ambiguous scenarios that mirror the true texture of legal practice.
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