Teaching through proxy as a response to the internationalisation of legal education

In her paper prepared for the Learning in Law Annual Conference 2007 Grace Li (University of Technology, Sydney) looked at the challenges and possible solutions for teaching students from non-common law and non-English speaking backgrounds, focusing on the potential role of teaching through proxy. (Unfortunately Grace was unable to attend the conference to deliver her paper.)

Globalisation is impelling the internationalisation of legal education. Over recent years the growth in the number of students from various Asian countries, such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia, undertaking legal studies outside their home country in overseas institutions or in-country from foreign providers has been staggering. Education has become a large service export industry – in terms of dollar value the educational industry in Australia has become the third largest service export industry, valued at AU$5 billion in 2003.

However, often there is an instructional problem of unequal or inadequate proficiency in the language of instruction, a problem compounded by differences in legal thought and method from the civil law systems in which the students originally trained. In parallel there are emerging concerns such as standards of curriculum, teaching and infrastructure inputs, and fitness for purpose – issues which could eventually lead to risks to the reputation of the education provider.

This paper identifies several possible solutions to these problems and analyses the experience of an Australian postgraduate law programme taught through proxy and delivered in Chinese.

Challenges of teaching students from non-English speaking and non-common law backgrounds

No matter the subject matter – in fact, especially in law, such a language dependent discipline – a recurrent challenge for the teacher is to communicate ideas effectively in the classroom and increasingly distantly, through the Internet. Most western universities have English proficiency as part of their admission requirements, however recent studies have found that more than half of foreign Asian students have a weak command of English . As a result simply keeping up with lectures and tutorials becomes a formidable task, and it is difficult for academics to be certain that the correct or intended message is being received.

Apart from the language factor, which probably could be overcome over time with language coaching, there are other deep rooted and fundamental factors affecting teaching and learning outcomes in law. Differences in legal thought and method between the common law system and the civil systems in which the students often originally trained can make the learning experience very frustrating. The fundamental idea of common law as a case based and adversarial approach is not a concept that can be easily conveyed to students from a statute based and inquisitorial background. This process can be even harder if the content is delivered by a teacher who lacks knowledge of civil law.

In addition, the teaching and learning culture is quite different. The massive and rapid industrialisation process of Asian countries over the last three decades has exacerbated the demand for skilled labour, with the result that their education systems are often based on quantity rather than quality. Intensive learning styles and factory-like ‘rolling off’ of new graduates is considered to be a necessary policy to meet industrial demands, and Asian students are prone to memorising vast amounts of information with little personal thought, analysis or critical thinking.

Oral presentations are seldom an essential aspect of assessment, and class presentation and participation are alien concepts. The learning process tends to focus on finding solutions or answers to match the questions, without sparing much thought or concern for understanding or appreciating the implications of the knowledge conveyed in classes. With examinations and tests the main forms of assessments, time and effort is devoted to preparing how to answer questions rather then the content of what is being taught.

Responses to these challenges

How can educators address these challenges? A decade ago Phillips suggested that academics should modify the way they teach overseas students, developing cross-cultural sensitivity, and since then strategies have been developed and adopted by educational providers across the world.

Language assistance programmes

Language assistance programmes have been widely adopted by western educational institutions. These may be charged courses, either part of the formal degree programme or separate. If part of the formal degree programme legal English is normally a compulsory subject. Separate courses are often offered by the English language school and are cross-disciplinary rather than legally focused. These programmes can be some help, however the associated costs and time considerations may make them less attractive.

Some universities offer free language assistance programmes, often provided by an international student department within the university as part of welfare provisions. These programmes are not normally compulsory and not necessarily focused on legal English, meaning that they are not very effective for students studying law.
Accreditation programmes may also be offered in the students’ home country, with students completing the programme getting credit from the overseas educational provider. This option is cheaper for the students, but puts more burden on the educational providers.

Orientation programmes

Orientation programmes are another widely adopted strategy aimed at assisting overseas students. Law schools may arrange their own orientation programmes if the international student body is sizeable, featuring introductions to being a law student away from their home country, differences in teaching and learning and differences in traditions of law. The length of these programmes ranges from several hours to several days.

To reduce costs some institutions organise the programme in the students’ home country, however there are logisitical difficulties, and it can be diffciult to gather together students who are to study in the same university.

Staff and curriculum development

The nature of legal educators themselves has changed as a result of the globalisation trend. Teaching staff with a diverse range of background experience, familiar with relevant disciplines and the region as a whole, are now often engaged, ensurung that students receive instruction and guidance from educators who approach contemporary legal issues from different and relevant perspectives. There is also a growing awareness amongst law teachers of the need to be more sensitive and to adopt cross-cultural approaches.

Curriculum development is the area where perhaps the most significant changes can be made on an on-going basis. It is crucial that the law school curriculum is constantly assessed and revised, so that students are offered relevant and contemporary units of study. Just as the law itself must constantly adapt to changes in technology, politics, market forces and socio-economic developments, so must the areas of study undertaken by future lawyers be influenced by the demands of globalisation. Therefore, along with the traditional law subjects for a specific jurisdiction, more international or comparative focused subjects should be introduced.

Learning resources

Recent research has revealed that Asian students rely more on self-study than in-class learning and interaction with fellow students – reading is the primary tool of knowledge acquisition. Hence learning resources can be one of the most important determining factors in success.

Many western universities offer comprehensive resources to their international students, setting up multi-language websites, subscribing to legal databases and journals in languages other than English and acquiring key textbooks in several languages. Multiple languages are offered in computer labs and libraries, catalogues and search engines.

These provisions call for additional funding, as well as for the recruitment of staff with diversified legal backgrounds and language abilities.

Teaching through proxy

Teaching through proxy simply means teaching through a translator. Communication through a translator is a common method when travelling overseas and in international negotiations and conferences, and so prima facie seems to be a possible strategy in response to the challenge of teaching law students with non-English first language.

The University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) piloted an innovative teaching through proxy project with Chinese students on a common law LLM programme – experiences and lessons from this project are given below.

The teaching through proxy project

In 2000 the Faculty of Law at UTS launched an LLM programme targeting Chinese lawyers. The basic admission requirement was a law degree and Mandarin language skills – the entire programme was delivered by Australian teaching staff through translators. This initiative brought much attention and controversy, both in Australia and China, with key concerns centring around quality control, curriculum development, class arrangement and assessment.

The programme attracted about 100 students, recruited through two partners in China (the Shanghai Justice Bureau and Beijing Management College). Most of the students were legal practitioners, including judges, judicial officers and government legal officials.

Preparing for the course

A Chinese version of the curriculum, readings and lecture framework had to be developed from the ground up. A workgroup was formed including academic staff with a Chinese legal background, and a number of translators were employed.

The programme included one compulsory subject, common law for civil lawyers, and seven electives featuring international themes and comparative study. Full text translation was done for all key documents, including the curriculum, course outlines and subject introductions. It was not possible to provide a full translation for all the readings, however academics with a Chinese law background and language abilities provided long abstracts.

This preparation was extremely costly, due to the custom-made nature of the curriculum, the wide range of legal experts involved and the volume of translations required.

Subject delivery

Due to the special nature of the programme an intensive delivery mode was chosen – all the subjects were taught for eight hours per day over a 6-7 day period. Total contact hours were equivalent to normal week by week teaching hours.

The classes were conducted by English speaking academics through an interpreter, or interpreters. Lectures were translated sentence by sentence. The interpreters/translators were also responsible for communicating questions from students to the teaching staff, both in the classroom and/or through e-mail and letter, as well as for communicating staff responses to the students.

In certain subjects Chinese legal experts from were employed to conduct seminars.

Assessment strategy

Assessments were designed by the Australian academics in line with the standards for local students, comprising a mid-term assignment and a final exam (either a problem solving question or a research paper).

The assessments – in Chinese – were marked in various ways:

1. Sydney based legal practitioners or academics who read Chinese marked all the assessments in the subject and chose samples from the low, middle and high range of markings for full text translations. These translations were then forwarded to the teaching staff for moderation.
2. The subjects taught by Chinese legal experts were marking by them.
3. Translators then provided samples to the teaching staff for moderation.
   Marking in one subject was don, by an academic sourced through an inter-university arrangement between UTS and the Central China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), with the moderation process again done through translating sample markings.

Evaluation of the programme

From the brief narration above it is obvious that this innovative programme of teaching through proxy consumed considerable resources. The process was also very time consuming and complex. It took about four years (8 semesters) for this first cohort of Chinese students to graduate – in comparison, students on the English LLM normally take one year (two semesters).

In November 2004 a graduation ceremony was held in Beijing for the students who had completed the course. UTS law school and its Chinese teaching partners held this event jointly, but unfortunately this event signified the formal ending of the pilot LLM programme of teaching through proxy.

Although the programme ended after its pilot phase, several achievements and lessons can be taken from the experience.

Achievements:

• The programme successfully bridged some of the difficulties for Chinese students coming from a different legal system. Some teaching and learning methods, such as employing a native speaking legal expert in facilitating delivery, proved to be particularly successful.
• The programme also developed a set of bilingual curricula and readings, a successful way of solving language difficulties.
• Many international law subjects, such as international business law, international banking and financial laws, were very well received by the students, and topics such as the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank were very informative for those involved in China’s export orientated industries.

Lessons:

• The programme ran on the basic Faculty academic and administrative infrastructure. In reality it required a separate administrative structure, including bilingual administrative staff, curriculum development personnel and student liaison.
• The programme relied on the quality of its translators/interpreters, meaning that the level of uncertainty was high. An excellent translator can easily make a disaster in translating law – teaching law through proxy requires an extremely high level of legal translation, with personnel who are not only excellent in language but also have legal knowledge.
• The Chinese students experienced a steep learning curve. Ideally, a comprehensive orientation programme would introduce Australia’s legal attributes and the rationality of a common law system. The content of the introductory subject designed for this purpose was far from enough for the Chinese students to appreciate the differences between the two legal systems.
• Assessment methods and criteria were the main difficulties which lead to the failure of the programme. None of the various methods adopted provided satisfactory results, with the main reasons being that the person who taught in the classroom could not mark the paper, and conversely the person who marked the paper did not teach the subject. The extensive moderation process conducted after marking created a number of problems, not least delays. Concerns were raised regarding disparities between the translated version and the original work, making the results unreliable.
  Teaching through proxy is hence not suggested by the author as a response to the challenges posed by the internationalisation of legal education. The price of such programmes is high, the quality uncertain and the process long and complex. The UTS programme had its achievements, however the downsides mean that teaching through proxy is unlikely to achieve its desired goals.

References and further reading

• Bryant S (2001) ‘The five habits: building cross-cultural competence in lawyers’ Clinical Law Review 33-111
• Burns R (1991) ‘Study and stress among first year overseas students in an Australian university’ Higher Education Research and Development 10:61-76
• Chodhury A & Islam I (1993) The newly industrialising economies of east Asia London: Routledge at pp146-147,159-161
• Edwards M (2002) ‘Teaching foreign LLM students about US legal scholarship’ Journal of Legal Education 52(1&2):5205-32
• Freeland, Li & Young (2004) ‘Crossing the language and cultural divide: the challenges of educating Asian law students in a globalising world’ Legal Education Review 14(2):219-239
• McInnis C, James R & McNaught C (1995) First year on campus: diversity in the initial experiences of Australian undergraduates (working paper series) Melbourne: Centre for
• Phillips D (1994) ‘Solutions to the dilemma and concerns of teaching international students in universities’ Legal Education Review 5(1):47-66
• Phillips D (1992) ‘University academics responding and adjusting to the increasing numbers of cross-cultural and overseas students’ Legal Education Review 3(2):123-153
• Wang T (2005) ‘The way to the western legal studies’ China Daily 2 February

Last Modified: 9 July 2010