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Faculty of Law
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Students who enter UNSW Law School need to attain UAI scores of 99 and above. However, this does not guarantee that their grasp of English is perfect even if they come from an English-speaking background. At UNSW five years ago it was decided that English-support was necessary for law students – law is a language-based discipline, after all, and a great deal of learning in the law consists of learning the language of law. After consultation with the University of New South Wales Learning Centre, Prue Vines, Director of First Year Studies in the Faculty of Law, set out to establish a peer tutor program.
For the past three years the program has run every year, and some 150 students in first year law (about half the intake) have been assisted each year.
The aim of the program is to help first year students manage the transition to university studies and legal studies in particular by developing confidence through participation and involvement with a senior student who is their peer tutor. Ultimately the aim of the program is to have those students develop independence and no longer need the assistance of a Peer Tutor.
The program works by selecting high-achieving senior students and paying them to be trained in facilitation of English and other legal skills by the Learning Centre. Peer Tutors do an initial workshop and continue to meet with the Learning Centre co-ordinator, Dominic Fitzsimmons, once a fortnight to discuss tactics and the needs of their students. Meanwhile the Law School uses all its first year assessment tasks as diagnostic tests to determine which students move into and out of the peer tutor program. Initially all non-English-speaking background students are eligible. The tutoring is free to the students, but peer tutors are paid to see up to 4 students (together or separately) for 4 hours per week. Once a peer tutor thinks the students she/he is seeing do not need their input they will move them into a study group who meet independently.
Surveys of students involved in the program show that they value it highly. In the survey of students who participated in 2001, over 90% of the respondents said they would recommend the peer tutor program to other first year students.
For the past three years the program has run every year, and some 150 students in first year law (about half the intake) have been assisted each year.
The aim of the program is to help first year students manage the transition to university studies and legal studies in particular by developing confidence through participation and involvement with a senior student who is their peer tutor. Ultimately the aim of the program is to have those students develop independence and no longer need the assistance of a Peer Tutor.
The program works by selecting high-achieving senior students and paying them to be trained in facilitation of English and other legal skills by the Learning Centre. Peer Tutors do an initial workshop and continue to meet with the Learning Centre co-ordinator, Dominic Fitzsimmons, once a fortnight to discuss tactics and the needs of their students. Meanwhile the Law School uses all its first year assessment tasks as diagnostic tests to determine which students move into and out of the peer tutor program. Initially all non-English-speaking background students are eligible. The tutoring is free to the students, but peer tutors are paid to see up to 4 students (together or separately) for 4 hours per week. Once a peer tutor thinks the students she/he is seeing do not need their input they will move them into a study group who meet independently.
Surveys of students involved in the program show that they value it highly. In the survey of students who participated in 2001, over 90% of the respondents said they would recommend the peer tutor program to other first year students.
