SUXO CHOQUE GABRIELA WARA THESIS WORKSHOP II L2

DATE: 05/07/2022
TASK: WRITING PROJECT # 2: WRITING THE THEORY OF MY RESEARCH
TOPIC

For my final project, which I intend to develop at the end of my undergraduate studies, I
have decided to choose the guided work modality to acquire my degree. My proposal
project has a tentative title, “The innovation of the legal English course in the career of law
at UMSA La Paz city 2022.” The main topic of my proposal is the ELP (English for legal
purposes), which is part of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) that will be implemented in
the career of law UMSA.

Guided Work is one of the Graduation modalities, an essential requirement for obtaining an
academic degree at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres UMSA. It is an intellectual
research work that allows identifying a specific management need or problem in an
organization to propose a practical and feasible solution through applying academic

Understanding more about the topic is essential to define some concepts central to my
proposal. English for specific purposes (ESP) is a new trend in English Language Teaching.
ESP consists of English language teaching, designed to meet the learner's specified needs;
centered on the language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse,
semantics, etc., and analysis of this discourse; in contrast with General English (EGP). On
the other hand, General English (EGP) is a course provided to pupils as a compulsory
module at schools. Their unique purpose is to succeed in the examinations. The most
important EGP features are that it focuses is often on education as the learner’s future needs
are impossible to predict the course contents more difficult to select and due to this point it
SUXO CHOQUE GABRIELA WARA THESIS WORKSHOP II L2
DATE: 05/07/2022
is important for the content in the syllabus to have high surrender value. This image lists
the main features of ESP and EGP.

For that, the present study will be in the academic Department of Law, UMSA. It is based
on the importance of language skills, students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards an ESP
course, and the importance of needs analysis.

Needs analysis (NA) is critical to ESP (Robinson, 2001, p.98). Need analysis is an essential
step in the ESP process since it will allow us to collect information that will serve as the
basis for developing a study plan according to the needs of our students. According to
Graves (1996), needs analysis is “An ongoing process of gathering information about
students’ needs and preferences, interpreting the information, and then making course
decisions based on the interpretation to meet the needs.”

This project will use ELP English for legal purposes because this kind, of course, is
designed for law students at university who are obviously pre-experienced learners of
SUXO CHOQUE GABRIELA WARA THESIS WORKSHOP II L2
DATE: 05/07/2022
English. The legal English course runs typically parallel to law courses, so students can
associate the subject knowledge they have learned with the legal English context whenever
relevant. Since the Legal English course is among compulsory subjects, the student’s
performance is evaluated at the end of the semester. It focuses broadly on the four basic
language skills of listening, reading, writing, and speaking because it is unrealistic for the
students to predict which specific skill their future jobs require. The following link is a
video that can better explain the ELP https://youtu.be/QCSmwW-sr9A.

The fundamental importance of legal English teaching is to enhance the balanced

development of the learners’ subject knowledge and English proficiency, enable them to
become active in thinking and broad in vision, and ultimately positively impact the
learners’ employment prospects. Thus this work is vital for the two careers: Law and
Linguistics. For linguistics, I implement an ELP course so students can work in more areas,
and law students can have an English course specialized in their career. This proposal
comes from the necessity of law students regarding English. Since I studied law before, I
would like to apply my English knowledge in law as it is hard to find specified English
courses.

Law students are expected to become familiar with legal terminology and write adeptly in
English by the end of the course. They should, for instance, be able to write simple legal
documents and e-mails as well as a resume of high quality. Moreover, they should be
capable of understanding intermediate legal articles and documents, conducting everyday
professional conversations orally, and maintaining relationships with the international
community in their specific area.

The reason behind this research started because the English classes in the career of law
have to be improved to give the students better training to acquire the English language
with a specific purpose, in this case, teach with the objective that students can apply in their
works the English.

This research aims to improve their techniques based on the different programs, models,
and rules we learned as students of the Linguistics department at the UMSA. English
outside the classroom is important, especially for the law. Sometimes law could be
complex, and the undergraduates must be trained to interpret the law in English, which can
SUXO CHOQUE GABRIELA WARA THESIS WORKSHOP II L2
DATE: 05/07/2022
give them more opportunities to work better as a lawyer. The purpose of this research is to
improve their techniques based on the different programs, models, and rules that we learned
as students of the Linguistics department at the UMSA. The English outside the classroom
is important, especially for the law, sometimes law could be complex and the
undergraduates must be training to interpret the law also in English because that can give
them more opportunities to work better as a lawyer.

The main theories for this project, besides ESP EGP and ELP, are the definition of basic
terms. Methods of teaching and learning, Factors that influence the English language
teaching-learning process, and these titles are divided into subtitles that will be explained in
the following paragraphs in order to understand the project. 

According to the factors that influence the English language teaching-learning (which is
vital in this project because the ESP is based on the need analysis of students), the first goal
factors are internal and external.
SUXO CHOQUE GABRIELA WARA THESIS WORKSHOP II L2
DATE: 05/07/2022
According to Internal factors, Ellis (1986) claims that internal factors consist of age,
aptitude, motivation, and personality. They are factors that come from inside the individual.
According to Brown (2007), these factors are specified by the individual students like
motivation, attitude, personal practice, and study habits. Each factor is an individual
element of learners' ′ ability to acquire a foreign language, but each component also
interacts with another. 

Motivation, according to motivation, is the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the
goal of learning the language and favorable attitudes toward learning the language. Intrinsic
motivation occurs when students engage in actions for their own sake and without coercion,
such as satisfaction, interest, learning, and challenge(...) 

The motivation will help encourage students to learn well; it is also to look for strategies
look for relevant materials that will help them in the future, know the needs of the students,
and be guided by that information. 

According to the author, attitudes are the interests that students show; thus, they come to
show good results. As mentioned above, it is closely related to motivation. It shows good
behavior.

Aptitude Language aptitude refers to a person's potential for learning languages. This
potential is often evaluated using formal aptitude tests, which predict the degree of success
the candidate will have with a new language. Aptitude tests vary but may include
evaluating the ability to manage sounds, grammatical structures, infer rules, and memory.

External factors characterize a particular learning situation: social factors, input, and
interaction. Based on Brown's ′ definition (2007), external factors can differ for each
individual. However, their common attribute is that they are based solely on circumstances
outside the learner's control and influence. 

Until now, I read around twelve or fifteen books that help me complete more of the
information I need for these projects. I have tried to search definitions in many books to get
more information and read to write about the subtitles. So the concepts that I explain are
just a bit about what I have read about my thesis topic. I plan to read more topics and
include them in the final draft so I can improve and do a complete job. I also plan to include
SUXO CHOQUE GABRIELA WARA THESIS WORKSHOP II L2
DATE: 05/07/2022
the information I have read in English textbooks, workbooks, ad dictionaries, of course,
which are the ones that basically helped me to identify the problem and do the proper
translation to exemplify the point of this research.

REFERENCES

Alderman, M. K. (2004). Motivation for Achievement: Possibilities for Teaching and

Learning. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Graves, K. (1996). Teachers as Course Developers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Language aptitude (2010) The United Kingdom's international organization
for cultural relations and educational opportunities
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/language-
aptitude#:~:text=Language%20aptitude%20refers%20to%20the,have
%20with%20a%20new%20language.
Mirhadizadeh, N (2016). Internal and External Factors in Language Learning
Robinson, P. (2001). Task complexity, cognitive resources, and syllabus design: a triadic
framework for examining task influences on SLA. In Robinson, P. Cognitionand
Second Language Instruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

The Effects Of Aptitude On Language Learning English Language Essay (2022) Uk.Essays
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-language/the-effects-of-aptitude-
on-language-learning-english-language-essay.php
SUXO CHOQUE GABRIELA WARA THESIS WORKSHOP II L2
DATE: 05/07/2022