The Teaching of Law in the United States: Studies on the Case and Socratic Methods in Comparison with Traditional Taiwanese Pedagogy

美國法律教學方法:案例教學法、蘇格拉底教學法之研究與台灣傳統教育方法之比較

使用案例教科書做為教材的教學方法稱為案例教學法,而課堂中的對話與問答稱為蘇格拉底教學法。十九世紀晚期,前哈佛法學院教授Christopher Columbus Langdell第一個發展出這兩種教學方法並在課堂上使用。Langdell引介的案例教學法及教科書最終也取代了傳統教科書,透過閱讀以及分析案例,法學院學生學習如何從不同事實的案件中分辨相同或相似的議題,並可獲得法律人的思考方式。但針對這兩種教學方法之效率的挑戰逐漸增加,包括不能賦予學生解決實際問題之能力。同時,也有不同的教學方法加入競逐。相較於美國法律系統著重於案例的解釋與適用,台灣則重於成文法的解釋與適用,因此兩國在訓練法律人時也有顯著的差異。然而,法學教育體制的比較也是比較法研究重要的一環,並期待透過後續的比較豐富學術討論。

The utilization of casebooks as teaching materials is referred to as the case method," and the in-class dialogue or questioning is known as the Socratic method." Former Harvard Law professor Christopher Columbus Langdell first developed and employed both pedagogies in the late nineteenth century. The case method Langdell introduced ultimately replaced traditional textbooks with casebooks containing actual decisions and opinions from various state and federal courts. Through reading and analyzing these opinions, law students learn to identify the same or similar issues in factually different cases, helping them to attain an understanding of judicial thinking. Despite the dominance of these two methods in modern American law schools, however, there are increasing challenges and critiques directed at their effectiveness in various aspects, including their failure to equip students with the ability to solve real problems. Meanwhile, different pedagogies have been explored to provide law professors with alternative ways in teaching, and there is an increased emphasis on the many techniques available that are more effective than the Langdell methods in reaching students in classroom. While the U.S. legal system is driven predominantly by the interpretation and application of case law, Taiwan's is driven by the interpretation and application of statutory law. Thus, there is an inherent difference in the training of lawyers in the two countries, respectively, that reflects the inherent difference in the two legal systems. Nonetheless, because the comparison of legal educational systems is an integral part of comparative law studies, the following examination of Taiwanese and American pedagogies will serve to enrich the existing scholarship.