SOFT-SKILL BASED SYLLABUS IN LEGAL ENGLISH COURSES

Abstract

The article discusses reasons why a team of teachers at Language Centre of Masaryk University decided to abandon the traditional topic based syllabus in order to focus on soft skills and life skills. It offers an application of needs analyses carried out among faculty graduates to our course syllabi and its result in major changes to structuring the courses in terms of moving from topics as our starting point to life skills, and from atomized language exercises to task chaining. This approach leads to useful soft skills development where topics serve the purpose of soft-skill practice fillers and vocabulary building is a natural by-product of the activities. The paper offers examples of chained lesson plans based on experiential learning. Student feedback and a small-scale action research illustrates how they perceive and appreciate the changes and how the changed approach towards syllabus design influences their motivation to learn.