Designing an intermediate-level introductory legal Spanish course

Abstract

As part of a plan to create a minor in Professional Spanish, an introductory Legal Spanish course was launched at a large Midwestern university. The course, it was thought, would complement three other LSP courses being offered in the program and could be useful for a number of service careers, such as law enforcement, social work, public safety, public administration, foreign service and officers of the courts. In 2016, after two years of offering the course, students were surveyed to ascertain their perceptions of the various components, as well as their overall assessment of the course and how it could be improved. The results indicate that students generally considered the course to be useful for their future career and community roles and that they most valued the hands-on and practical experiences of the course. These and other insights are taken into consideration in discussing the design of an intermediate-level introductory course in Legal Spanish as well as proposing directions for further development.