I go walking or trekking when I am short of new ideas for my writing. I go to the forest to clear my mind.
I remember when two years ago I came up with a brilliant idea for research when trekking in the Bieszczady. Professor Jarosław Krajka had invited me to write a chapter for a book edited by him and professor Magdalena Sowa – an opportunity that you do not reject. First, I had to submit an abstract and for the abstract I needed an interesting topic and a research proposal which would motivate me to design it, conduct it and then write about it.
I went trekking to the Wetlińska Mountain Pasture in late December when the sun sets around 3.30pm, the day is short and the trails are empty. The silence around and perhaps only the sound of wind let me concentrate on my moves first, the feeling of the ground under my boots, slow steps to avoid getting tired too quickly, the view of blue sky above the tops of the trees…
And then the idea came to contact my former students and ask them how their English skills were tested during their first job interviews. I was interested to know whether I was teaching them the right skills to help them succeed in getting their entry jobs.
I did as I thought and collected over 20 interviews and managed to write a chapter “Increasing Law Students’ Employability Skills in the English for Legal Purposes (ELP) Classroom” published in: Magdalena Sowa, Jarosław Krajka (eds.), Innovations in Languages for Specific Purposes – Present Challenges and Future Promises (pp. 131-147). Frankurt am Main: Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b10915
Later that year I presented the paper on “What Shall We Teach in the Legal English Classroom? The Students’ Perspective” at a conference “Specialized Languages in Teaching and Translation: Theory and Practice organized by Institute of Applied Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in November 2017.
Today I am sharing the slides from that conference here.
Yesterday I went to the forest again and came back with a new idea for a presentation that I am going to submit soon.
To be continued…