Materials Development in EALP Legal Writing Courses

Abstract

While the field of materials development has grown in the past twenty years, covering areas like EAP and ESP, there remains a need to elaborate further the strategies and to develop a process for developing materials for EALP courses such as legal writing. Legal writing in particular poses unique challenges like the complex system of legal writing genres and the interferences created by multiple languages, cultures, and legal systems. This article expands on existing strategies offered by the scant literature on legal writing materials development. The article takes into account the work of materials development scholars who have proposed SLA-derived principles. The article also considers factors that affect materials development, including learner, teacher, and contextual factors. Additionally, the article considers the role of theoretical frameworks in shaping decisions in materials development. Most importantly, the article relies on methods in legal writing pedagogy to inform the strategies and process for legal writing materials development. The article ultimately proposes a process for developing materials for legal writing courses that requires the consideration of the (1) purpose, (2) audience, (3) course and curriculum requirements, (4) length and number of assignments, and (5) sociocultural and legal context of the materials.