A Needs Analysis For Developing And Evaluating A Culturally Relevant Mobile-Assisted English Language Teaching (MAELT) Module To Enhance Legal English Proficiency And Critical Thinking Skills In Pakistani Law Undergraduates

Abstract

The need for English as a legal professionals, technological readiness, and the curriculum preference of Pakistani undergraduate law students are explored in this study to shape the development of a Mobile-Assisted English Language Teaching (MAELT) module. This study grounded on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) framework, Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL), Communicative and Task-Based Language Teaching (CLT/TBLT). The data was collected through convenient sampling from 385 law undergraduates from both public and private universities of Pakistan. The questionnaire included six domains: mobile learning readiness, legal English proficiency demands, higher-order skills, cultural and curriculum relevance, functionality and ethics of an application, and the assessment of current English courses. Data was analyzed through SPSS.  Both descriptive and inferential analyses such as t-tests, ANOVA, the Pearson correlation, and factor analysis have made strong arguments of high mobile learning readiness (mean = 3.683.85), majority of our participants indicate comfort  and open-mindedness towards digital instructions with less resistance to adopting the use of technology (reverse-coded mean = 2.614.85). There are significant skill gaps indicated by the data: there is a high demand on improvement of legal vocabulary (mean = 3.53), reading (mean = 3.09), writing (mean = 3.26) and comprehension of legal genres (mean = 3.11) with the percentage [1]of those who support the necessity of improvement of legal English exceeding 75. The necessity of high-order skills is also noticeable with high means of argumentation, reasoning, and critical thinking (means = 3.613.67). Considering the content of the curriculum and the features of the mobile application that addresses the legal context of Pakistan, a score of 4.0 indicated that, privacy, instant feedback and academic honesty strongly preferred by the students. The existing English classes were not found so efficient enough (means = 3.543.75) which supported the idea of specialized, contextually rich units. Factor analysis indicated four primary dimensions in which legal English is required (namely, legal English, mobile readiness, critical thinking, and cultural relevance) that contributed to the large proportion of variance (more than 60) and reliability analysis also revealed that the scale had high levels of internal consistency (Cronbach 0.93). This study substantially increase the level of legal English knowledge and professional readiness among Pakistani law undergraduates, as justified by the evidence. This study is turning to develop a tailored, culturally relevant, mobile-enhanced and ethically founded MAELT module to fill the existing gaps.