VietTESOL International Convention 2026

As the demand for English proficiency in legal professions continues to increase, particularly in
the field of international commerce, English for Legal Purposes (ELP) has emerged as a critical
area within English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This paper reports a classroom-based study on
the use of flipped learning to improve Legal English writing in a Vietnamese ESP course on
international commercial contract drafting. As Vietnam moves toward broader and more
functional uses of English in higher education and professional settings, students need greater
support in producing specialized texts that are accurate, purposeful, and professionally
relevant. The study examined a 12-week intervention with 36 third-year students who engaged
with pre-class video lectures, annotated contract samples, and guided vocabulary tasks before
participating in in-class drafting workshops, peer review, clause analysis, and teacher feedback.
Using a mixed-methods design, the study drew on pre- and post-course writing assessments,
classroom observations, student reflections, and focus group interviews. The findings showed
clear improvement in students’ genre awareness, clause organization, legal vocabulary use,
grammatical control, and stylistic appropriateness in contract drafting. Students also reported
stronger autonomy, confidence, and engagement, particularly because class time was used for
authentic practice rather than lecture. The report argues that flipped learning offers a practical
model for supporting ESP writing development and for making English instruction more
professionally responsive in contexts where English is increasingly used beyond the traditional
foreign language classroom and hence can contribute significantly to both language acquisition
and disciplinary knowledge development.