A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF LEGAL ENGLISH COURSE BOOKS IN A BLENDED LEARNING SETTING: A CASE STUDY AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF SRI LANKA

Abstract

The increase in global demand for legal professionals with advanced English proficiency has heightened the need for Legal English courses that are rich in content and contextually relevant. In response, this study aims to critically evaluate the English for Legal Studies course books: Part 1 - Intermediate Communication Skills and Part 2 - Advanced Communication Skills, used at the Department of English Language Teaching of the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL). Designed for a short-term blended learning course, the materials aim to support learners to enhance legal communication skills for academic and professional purposes. The study explores the alignment of course materials with the University Tests of English Language (UTEL) Benchmarks 2021 to identify the coverage of language skills in terms of the standard benchmarks. Initially, an impressionistic evaluation was done to get a general idea of the course books. This qualitative research employed UTEL (2021) descriptors (Bands 3-7), McGrath’s (2002) evaluation checklists, and Kumar’s (1996) standards for evaluation of course materials in ODL to critically evaluate the existing course books. A gap analysis was conducted to assess content, skill coverage, legal relevance, and pedagogical design, with specific focus on how the materials help students understand legal terminology, sentence structure, and practical expressions. Findings show that the course books present a logical progression from basic to advanced content and engage students through relevant and practical tasks. However, there is a need to further develop listening and speaking components, integration of skills, contextual grammar, and digital integration. Visual design, reflective tasks, and assessment tools were also identified as areas for improvement. The study recommends redesigning the materials using a blended methodology combining Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), Content-Based Instruction (CBI) and UTEL-aligned rubrics, while incorporating learner feedback and adapting to evolving ODL contexts. These refinements will help position the course as a benchmark model in Sri Lanka and beyond.