Legalese – explicit or ambiguous?

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Read at home,
talk in class

ARTICLE: https://eslbrains.com/crc032

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson students discuss different types of jargon, learn some vocabulary to describe that something is easy or difficult to understand, and share their thoughts about the article they read at home. 

C1 / Advanced30 minCritical Reading ClubUnlimited Plan

This is a Critical Reading Club worksheet. With this format, students need to read an online article at home and do the exercises in the classroom. Learn more about how to use such worksheets and their benefits in our post.

ACTIVITIES

At the beginning of the lesson, students read the definition of the word jargon and think of some examples (like legalese from the article). They also share what they remember about the jargon from the article. After that, students decide which of the words in the box mean ‘easy to understand’, and which ‘difficult to understand’ (e.g. unintelligible, unambiguous). They also need to come up with possible synonyms to each set of words. Then, they read four statements and check their understanding of the bolded words and phrases (e.g. explicitly, in layman’s terms). They also decide if the statements are true for them. Finally, students look at five types of jargon and discuss whether they understand or speak the jargons, what their benefits are, and whether they are used to describe ideas explicitly, or are unintelligible on purpose. 

ARTICLE

https://eslbrains.com/crc032

WORKSHEETS

Comments

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Leave a Reply

  1. Melanie Smith

    In general I love this lesson plan, and so do my students. I have personalised my own copy though, as I feel the use of “jargon” as a countable noun is very rare and unnatural. Just a thought 😉

    1. Justa

      I’m sorry to respond to your comment so late. We must have missed it somehow. ‘Jargon’ is uncountable, but we can sometimes use uncountable nouns countably to mean ‘a measure of something’ or ‘a type or example of something’. You can find some examples here.

  2. snazar13

    Hi,
    I was just about to say the same. This is a great lesson plan with a really interesting piece of English but ‘jargon’ is uncountable, isn’t it?

    1. Justa

      Hi! It is uncountable, but we can sometimes use uncountable nouns countably to mean ‘a measure of something’ or ‘a type or example of something’. You can read more about it here.

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