CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF PRACTICALITY OF USING MOTHER TONGUE AND ENGLISH-ONLY POLICY IN CLASS TO TEACH LEGAL ENGLISH

Abstract

The quandary of the choice between the use of English-only policy or mother tongue in learning and teaching English for Specific Purposes has been ongoing for the past few years at the tertiary level. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness and practicality of implementing the two teaching and learning approaches. The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 56 students in two classes with different pedagogical practices in longitudinal tests during the first term of the academic year 2023-2024. The findings demonstrate that the distinction line is not significant; however, the mother tongue class illustrates a little bit higher in their test results, which indicates that the role of the mother tongue class in teaching English for specific purposes, especially legal English is still essential to some extents. Besides, the students pursuing a dual-degree program gain better achievement in learning legal English as their understanding legal English is somehow supported by the knowledge from their dual-degree program. This empirical study gives a deep insight of the appropriate choice of methodological practices in legal English teaching and learning.