Alan M L Jones - English teaching for lawyers

	NEEDS ANALYSIS APPENDIX 1 Example of a “Programme for Week 1” APPENDIX 2 Example of a Report at end of Course NEEDS ANALYSIS email template A bit of background. I worked at Clifford Chance as a solicitor for over 20 years. I did a wide range of company, commercial and financing work. I was a “generalist” and I often had to liase with lawyers working on other aspects of deals. I understand enough about all the areas of law practised by international law firms to be able to discuss them intelligently and introduce a student to the specialist vocabulary he / she wants. I worked mainly in London but I also worked in Tokyo (2+ years), Amsterdam (6 months) and Luxembourg (4 months). I am now also qualified to teach English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL, also known as TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language). Most of my work has been teaching adults on a one to one basis and most of my students have been lawyers. Before starting to teach a student, I carry out a Needs Analysis. In your case, this consists of various questions. The answers will help me plan our lessons. The questions fall under 3 headings - Experience, Aims and Practical Arrangements. 2 things before asking the questions. I appreciate that you are busy. If you have time to answer the questions in writing, great. If not, it doesn't matter. You can arrange to telephone me and we can spend 10 minutes going through the questions. If neither of these is convenient, we can do it in the first lesson. Secondly, I understand the importance of confidentiality in a lawyer's work and that when discussing / looking at examples of your work I may become party to confidential information about your firm and its clients. Please be assured that I will keep this confidential. 1. Experience A) Please give brief details of your previous experience of studying English? Are you studying English at present? B) What is your mother tongue? Do you speak any languages apart from your mother tongue and English? C) Apart from holidays / business trips, have you ever spent time in an English speaking environment? D) Please give brief details of how you use English at present (e.g. daily emails with clients / their lawyers, occasional telephone calls with colleagues outside your office, frequent business meetings with English speaking clients / lawyers etc). Is it likely that the pattern of your use of English will change? Do you want it to? I assume that your use is all work related but if not again please give brief details. E) What do you consider to be the strengths and weaknesses in your use of English? F) Please briefly describe your job. For how long have you worked 1) as a lawyer and 2) in your current job? What sort of transactions / disputes do you usually work on? 2. Aims A) In your course of language study with me in London , what do you hope to achieve? B) Probably related to A), are there any language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) on which you wish to concentrate? If you want, specify X % reading, Y % listening etc. Of course, there is considerable overlap. For example, let us say that I ask you to read an article from a newspaper or from a magazine for lawyers and answer some questions. This would give you practice at reading and comprehension, speaking (giving your answers to me) and listening (when I reply to or comment on your answers). All the time, I would give you feedback (if needed) on pronunciation and language used. If you wanted to practise your writing, you could then answer the questions in writing and again I would give you feedback. Please bring with you examples of any contracts you work on often, memos/letters of advice or exchanges of emails which are either typical or which you want to discuss. With emails, even short ones of just 2 or 3 lines can reveal errors which can usefully be worked on. If you think about it, for every long piece of advice, you probably write 20 or 30 short emails. If you don't know, I have some ideas for the first couple of lessons and we can talk about the lessons in more detail when we meet. We could have an outing. For example we could go to the courts, sit in the public gallery and afterwards discuss what we had seen and heard. Believe me, there are many ways of learning English without going anywhere near a classroom or grammar book! In fact, unless it is something you particularly want, I tend to avoid looking at points of grammar and concentrate on conversation during the course of which you will make errors which I will correct. 3. Practical Arrangements See email 4.. and finally How easy or difficult have you found it to read and understand this email? You may have read through it once and understood everything, it may have taken you an hour and much use of a dictionary or the answer may lie somewhere in between. What about ease / difficulty of writing a reply? I look forward to meeting you and to teaching you.

NEEDS ANALYSIS
APPENDIX 1 Example of a “Programme for Week 1”
APPENDIX 2 Example of a Report at end of Course

NEEDS ANALYSIS email template

A bit of background. I worked at Clifford Chance as a solicitor for over 20 years. I did a wide range of company, commercial and financing work. I was a “generalist” and I often had to liase with lawyers working on other aspects of deals.

I understand enough about all the areas of law practised by international law firms to be able to discuss them intelligently and introduce a student to the specialist vocabulary he / she wants.

I worked mainly in London but I also worked in Tokyo (2+ years), Amsterdam (6 months) and Luxembourg (4 months).

I am now also qualified to teach English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL, also known as TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language). Most of my work has been teaching adults on a one to one basis and most of my students have been lawyers.

Before starting to teach a student, I carry out a Needs Analysis. In your case, this consists of various questions. The answers will help me plan our lessons. The questions fall under 3 headings - Experience, Aims and Practical Arrangements.

2 things before asking the questions.

I appreciate that you are busy. If you have time to answer the questions in writing, great. If not, it doesn't matter. You can arrange to telephone me and we can spend 10 minutes going through the questions. If neither of these is convenient, we can do it in the first lesson.

Secondly, I understand the importance of confidentiality in a lawyer's work and that when discussing / looking at examples of your work I may become party to confidential information about your firm and its clients. Please be assured that I will keep this confidential.

1. Experience

A) Please give brief details of your previous experience of studying English? Are you studying English at present?

B) What is your mother tongue? Do you speak any languages apart from your mother tongue and English?

C) Apart from holidays / business trips, have you ever spent time in an English speaking environment?

D) Please give brief details of how you use English at present (e.g. daily emails with clients / their lawyers, occasional telephone calls with colleagues outside your office, frequent business meetings with English speaking clients / lawyers etc). Is it likely that the pattern of your use of English will change? Do you want it to?

I assume that your use is all work related but if not again please give brief details.

E) What do you consider to be the strengths and weaknesses in your use of English?

F) Please briefly describe your job. For how long have you worked 1) as a lawyer and 2) in your current job? What sort of transactions / disputes do you usually work on?

2. Aims

A) In your course of language study with me in London , what do you hope to achieve?

B) Probably related to A), are there any language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) on which you wish to concentrate?

If you want, specify X % reading, Y % listening etc. Of course, there is considerable overlap. For example, let us say that I ask you to read an article from a newspaper or from a magazine for lawyers and answer some questions. This would give you practice at reading and comprehension, speaking (giving your answers to me) and listening (when I reply to or comment on your answers). All the time, I would give you feedback (if needed) on pronunciation and language used. If you wanted to practise your writing, you could then answer the questions in writing and again I would give you feedback.

Please bring with you examples of any contracts you work on often, memos/letters of advice or exchanges of emails which are either typical or which you want to discuss. With emails, even short ones of just 2 or 3 lines can reveal errors which can usefully be worked on. If you think about it, for every long piece of advice, you probably write 20 or 30 short emails.

If you don't know, I have some ideas for the first couple of lessons and we can talk about the lessons in more detail when we meet.

We could have an outing. For example we could go to the courts, sit in the public gallery and afterwards discuss what we had seen and heard.

Believe me, there are many ways of learning English without going anywhere near a classroom or grammar book! In fact, unless it is something you particularly want, I tend to avoid looking at points of grammar and concentrate on conversation during the course of which you will make errors which I will correct.

3. Practical Arrangements

See email

4.. and finally

How easy or difficult have you found it to read and understand this email? You may have read through it once and understood everything, it may have taken you an hour and much use of a dictionary or the answer may lie somewhere in between. What about ease / difficulty of writing a reply?
I look forward to meeting you and to teaching you.