Tackling the content of a course for academic legal purposes

Abstract This article addresses the practices that English for academic legal purposes (EALP) teachers employ to tackle law subject content. It draws on research that took place in a British university pre-sessional course for third-year undergraduate and postgraduate law students. The data come from tutorials, legal skills classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. The original study examined four EALP teachers; here I focus on the findings regarding one EALP teacher with sound experience of teaching EAP but no specific law background. The results of the study show that in EALP, as well as wider English for specific academic purposes (ESAP) contexts, limited subject-content knowledge (SCK) can lead to the frustration and lack of confidence of the ESAP teacher, and suggest utilizing the SCK of experienced colleagues and students to address this.