Legal English strong and weak opinions

Legal English strong and weak opinions

Ask your partner about a topic below. They will secretly write a number from 1 (strongly disagree with this idea) to 5 (very strongly agree with this idea), then give their answer. After asking them for more details about their opinion if you like, write down what you think their number was. You then both reveal the numbers to check if they were the same.

Useful language for asking for opinions “How do you feel about…?”/ “What do you think about…?”/ “What’s your opinion on…?”

• A statute of limitations
• Banning extremist political parties
• Changing the law on capital punishment
• Changing the law on corporal punishment in schools
• Changing to (more) jury trials
• Community service for more offenses
• Criminalising advocating violence
• Curfews with electronic tagging
• Decriminalising possession of soft drugs for personal use
• Hard labour as a punishment
• Jail time for persistent petty crime (“three strikes and you are out” etc)
• Keeping all suspects’ names secret until they are found guilty
• Legalising assisted suicide
• Legalising personal protection devices such as pepper spray and Tasers
• Legalising soft drugs
• Less harsh punishments if you apologise to the victim
• Life sentences that really mean life
• More adversarial court cases
• More armed police
• More protection for whistle-blowers
• Organising meetings between criminals and victims as part of their rehabilitation
• Permanent criminal records
• Prison sentences for online harassment/ cyber-bullying
• Prison tours for young offenders
• Punishment for jaywalking
• Scrapping diplomatic immunity
• Treating violence during sporting events the same as other kinds of assault
• Videoing of all police interrogations

Brainstorm strong and weak opinions language you could have used in the task above.

 

Choose a topic below and decide which person will take each side of the argument. Start with you both strongly arguing your side of the argument, then try to slowly move together in some way, e.g. by one of you being convinced or by finding a compromise position. Then do the same for other rows of views below.

One side		The other side
Criminalisation of being a member of an organised crime group		Only prosecuting crimes by members of organised crime groups
Decriminalising prostitution	Harsher punishments for prostitution
Emphasising people’s right to privacy	Emphasising people’s right to free speech and freedom of information
Encouraging official graffiti	Discouraging all graffiti
Fines for dangerous driving	Prison time for reckless driving
Full legal immunity for serving politicians	Treating politicians exactly the same as ordinary citizens
Harsher punishments for illegal downloading	More enforcement of the existing laws on illegal downloading
Higher compensation payments	Lower compensation payments
Longer jail sentences	Shorter jail sentences
Making bankruptcy easier and less serious	Making bankruptcy harder and more serious
Making becoming a lawyer easier	Making becoming a lawyer more difficult
Making it easier for police to monitor communications (phone tapping etc)	Making it more difficult for the police to monitor (electronic) communications
Making it easier to set up a law firm	More controls on law firms
Making it easier to sue people for libel	Making it harder to sue people for libel
Making mutually-agreed divorce easier	Making all divorce more difficult
Mediation for wrongful dismissal cases	Court cases for wrongful dismissal cases
More anti-terrorism measures	Scrapping some useless anti-terrorism measures
More controls on gambling	The legalisation of other forms of gambling such as casinos
More emphasis on punishing criminals	More emphasis on rehabilitating criminals
More freedom of information	More protection for government secrets
More international law	More freedom for countries to decide their own laws
More local police	More specialist police such as armed response units
More rights for asylum seekers	More restrictions on asylum seekers
More warnings to make people worried about crime	More reassurance for people not to worry so much about crime
Prison for drug addicts	Treatment for drug addicts
Prosecuting domestic companies for bribery abroad	Leaving foreign courts to deal with bribery in their country
Prosecuting white hat hackers	Using white hat hackers to help society
Prosecutions for first offenses of petty crimes like shoplifting	Unofficial police warnings for first offenses of petty crimes like shoplifting
Raising basic taxes for the rich	Only closing tax loopholes
Taking legal precedent more into account	Taking legal precedent less into account
Treating teenage criminals the same as adults	Different systems and punishments for teenagers

Share something you finally agreed on and see what the class thinks. Then ask about vocabulary above, e.g. words in italics, discussing your real opinions as a class each time,