030568 KU Discussion, Negotiation and Presentation in English (2021W)

Online can be good, very good! Uni is mostly about learning, not teaching – so don’t think of an online class as second-best. In DNP, you will master the course content, remember more, and develop your learning and communication skills through working in pairs and groups.
Many lawyers often have to work in English. This can challenge the foundational abilities of a legal professional - high language skill combined with exceptional reasoning - because working in a second language can limit expression and downgrade thinking.
This course, off-beat and very popular, will give you ways to develop your applied language skills; three scenarios are included - discussion, negotiation, and presentation, with most texts and exercises drawn from legal contexts.
But language mastery is of little value unless it is underpinned by clear thought. So the course core trains your thinking skills - how to engage problems, make arguments, evaluate options, and render opinions.
The course is led by David Goulden, a Cambridge qualified barrister and former English daily newspaper editor.
Discussion: key functions such as expressing and seeking opinions; agreeing and disagreeing; making suggestions and persuading; a survival game provides hands-on experience.

Negotiation: outlining proposals, making counter proposals, bargaining etc and practising key skills like establishing positions - strengthening yours and weakening the counter-party, trading, closing etc. Online meetings to resolve contract disputes are role-played in pair and group practice sessions.

Presentation: two principal elements. Ideas about body language and voice skills are demonstrated and you will analyse a Supreme Court death penalty submission. The final exercise is presenting a short appellate brief against conviction and sentence with your group colleagues as justices.

Critical thinking: one third of the course is devoted to improving your thinking skills … but by learning from experience, not "teacher talking". Memorisation has many uses, but it does not develop the ability to think. Concepts such as the Analysis and the Evaluation of Arguments, plus Fallacies, Assumptions and Evidence will be worked on.

The later purpose of the Thinking element is to use your new skills as a tool to move towards greater personal autonomy. So, there will be introductions to cognitive concepts such as perception, heuristics, and tribal intelligence. Finally, we will look at how to set your personal and professional ethical compass - with help from old-timers such as Epicurus, the Stoics and Cicero.

Goals: in language you will acquire ideas of practical value which you can build on through your professional career. In thinking, the aim is to acquire a "critical spirit - a probing inquisitiveness, a keenness of mind, a zealous dedication to reason, and a hunger or eagerness for reliable information" (Peter Facione).