Actual wants and needs When asked to list their perceived wants and needs, the most frequent replies (35 respondents) concerned the practising of speaking skills (as one student very specifically puts it, in rather a sophisticated way, “skills in non-casual communication”), as well as vocabulary and grammar (“but no so much ”). Only very few (3 respondents) mentioned writing skills. Five answers indirectly referred to the need to practise reading skills (cf. “I wanna learn from legal documents”). No respondents mentioned such skills as lis- tening, note taking, excerpting documents etc. which are very important in the legal world, e.g. in lawyers’ work with their clients. Selected answers illustrating the respondents’ perception of their own wants and needs:
– I would like to learn how to name various processes and matters in Czech legal system in English. It is natural to learn from English books of English or US legal systems but I would like to be able to name the Czech specifics. – I wanna learn from legal documents from abroad but I feel I need to improve my skills in non-casual communication. – The more I can speak the better. – Mainly vocabulary and phrases useful in the field of law since I expect everybody here to know the grammar. But doing some exercises with prepositions couldn’t hurt. Only one respondent expressed the need for learning the linguistic toolsnecessary for being able to explain Czech law in English (see above). Thisis perhaps somewhat surprising since this skill is among the core skills thatfuture lawyers will actually need most, as revealed in the replies among legalprofessionals. It is evident that in multi-national law firms, or when workingfor foreign clients active in the Czech Republic, future lawyers will serve asmediators of the local legal context.
The answers reveal that students stress as important those languagephenomena that they come into contact during their secondary school stud-
ies. Thus, they often refer to vocabulary, grammar and speaking, also gen-
erally mentioning the situation in “English-speaking countries”.As noted above, hardly any of the respondents mention writing skills.
