Photo Law Stories: Civil and Criminal Procedure Vocabulary Practice
Štěpánka Bilová, Radmila Doupovcová and Barbora Chovancová, Czech Republic
Štěpánka Bilová, Radmila Doupovcová and Barbora Chovancová work together as teachers of Legal English at Masaryk University Language Centre, Brno, Czech Republic. They like designing their own teaching materials, making them enjoyable for both students and themselves.
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Level: B2
Goal: creative vocabulary practice and revision, differences in technical vocabulary between civil and criminal procedures, additional bonus “fun and enjoyment”.
Skills: writing (a combination of creative writing and accurate use of newly acquired technical vocabulary), reading and speaking (using information from a chart)
Time: 30 minutes
Preparation: photos brought in by the teacher, a table listing the differences in vocabulary between civil and criminal procedure completed by the students in the previous lesson
- Class revision of the main differences between civil and criminal procedure (see the chart below, Figure 1).
- Students work in pairs, look at photos provided by the teacher (see Photos 1–2). Their task is to make a law related story, using vocabulary from EITHER civil OR criminal law procedure.
- They post the final results in shared on-line environment (e.g. Google docs or wikis), for their classmates to compare and comment on.
Based on this chart (pre-taught and filled in in the previous lesson), students describe selected photos. You can see samples of their efforts below.
Figure 1: technical vocabulary – differences between criminal and civil procedure
Student work related to Photo 1 (Figure 2):
Figure 2: Photo 1
Nováková vs. Bílý
The claimant Kamila Nováková took legal action against the defendant Petr Bílý because the defendant’s negligence caused injury to the claimant’s beloved cat. The pet’s injury was caused by a hot cup of tea with rum. The claimant wants compensation in the form of an apology. The defendant refuses to accept blame for this alleged tort. The defendant was found liable for the cat’s injury and was ordered to apologize to the claimant.
Student work related to Photo 2 (Figure 3):
Figure 3: Photo 2
Version 1
Wife was found guilty!
30 years old woman was charged with an attempt of murder of her husband by poisoned mushroom. After one year when the court was trying this criminal case the jury found her guilty. The main evidence was the rest of poisoned mushroom found in the pan. The judge sentenced young woman to imprisonment for 8 years.
Version 2
In the case R. v. Novotny the defendant was charged with attempted murder of his wife. The poison he used was from a red mushroom. The defendant pleaded not guilty and the prosecutor had to investigate the events leading to the poisoning and convict him of the poisoning. In the end it seemed that the defendant could be acquitted but the judge found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and was imprisoned right after the trial. It was a fair punishment in my opinion so in the end justice was brought to the victim.
Photo 1: Radmila Doupovcová
Photo 2: Dave B Wiseman, retrieved January 6, 2016 from http://gallery.hd.org
Please check the English Language Improvement for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English Language Improvement for Adults course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
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