Teaching and Engaging Adult Law Learners in a Singapore Business Law Class—A Reflection of Legal Teaching Strategies

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/23220058221139063
Published date01 January 2023
Date01 January 2023
Subject MatterArticles
Teaching and Engaging Adult Law
Learners in a Singapore Business
Law Class—A Reflection of Legal
Teaching Strategies
Ben Chester Cheong1
Abstract
In an environment that aims to promote lifelong and adult learning, legal education needs to be acutely
aware of the different skill and learning aptitudes among adult students as well as their motivation and
interest. I present a case study of a first-year undergraduate law course, law of business organisation,
at the Singapore University of Social Sciences where I used various adult teaching techniques, a strategy
of gamification, and digital tools to engage and spark an interest in my law classroom. Overall, students
have found the approach successful in cultivating their interests and developing their practical skills. The
findings speak to broader concepts of active engagement and developing their practical knowledge to
aid law students in their learning and future careers. Albert Einstein once said that ‘it is the supreme
art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge’.2 The article is divided into five
parts, the first part provides an overview of the pedagogy of adult teaching and learning, the second
part provides an overview of generic curriculum approaches at the law school, the third part covers
the tailored approach to teach adult learners, the fourth part examines in further detail specific teach-
ing methods for a business law module which I am course leader for, and the fifth part explores the
effectiveness of these teaching methods.
Introduction
Across the world, the traditional method of teaching law students is through lectures. In a lecture-style
environment, interaction is kept to a minimum and students are expected to be quiet and take notes.3 In
contrast, students are taught weekly in group sizes of one to three in a tutorial system (known in Cam-
bridge as ‘supervision’). Stolker observes that most law schools in the world do not adopt such a tutorial
system like Cambridge as it is ‘too expensive’ to perform.4 Instead, the tutorial-style system for law
1 School of Law, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore, Singapore.
2 The UlTimaTe QUoTable einsTein 100–01 (Alice Calaprice ed., Princeton University Press 2013).
3 Carel Stolker, Pedagogy: Teaching Law Students, in ReThinking The law school: edUcaTion, ReseaRch, oUTReach and
goveRnance 162 (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
4 Id. at 163.
Article
Asian Journal of Legal Education
10(1) 74–86, 2023
© 2022 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
Reprints and permissions:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23220058221139063
journals.sagepub.com/home/ale
Corresponding author:
Ben Chester Cheong, School of Law, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore 599494, Singapore.
E-mail: benchestercheong@suss.edu.sg

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