Merging Legal English Vocabulary Learning with Speaking Activities for International Business Law Students at Hanoi Law University

Abstract

The teaching of vocabulary is crucial in the pedagogy of legal English; thus, to improve efficacy, educators must not only grasp the challenges students encounter with legal terminology but also comprehend the attributes of legal terms to implement suitable solutions. Only through this method can students retain and improve their language abilities and gain proficiency in fluent legal English conversation. This study examines the integration of vocabulary instruction with speaking activities to enhance students’ retention of legal terminology. The research was carried out in two classes, namely the 50212 and 50213 cohorts of the International Business Law (IBL) department, in which the former was labelled the experimental group and the latter, the control. The research was conducted during the initial seven weeks of the first semester of the 2024-2025 academic year. There were five tests applied to measure learners’ capacity in memorizing taught legal terms in both the short-  and long term.  A pre-test (Test Number 1 – TN01) and a post-est (TN05) were launched in the second week and seventh week, repectively, while three experimental procedural tests (TN03, TN04 & Tn05) were conducted in the third, fourth and fifth weeks, respectively.  The findings reveal that the implementation of speaking activities in the vocabulary instruction process resulted in higher average scores for students in the experiment group (the class 50212) regarding vocabulary retention length after seven weeks.