This session will look at pedagogical approaches that include community service learning (CSL) as an integral part of language learning process. The CSL model puts language learners in direct contact with reality and allows them to tackle new, concrete challenges involved in learning a discipline, while testing their commitment to the community. To strengthen the learning process, the tasks accomplished in the community context must be meaningful and satisfy students' motivational needs. In addition, students reflect on their experience through various parameters inherent to the language learning process. Their reflection deepens and enhances a learning process geared towards their future, the skills they are meant to acquire throughout their university program and the challenges posed by society, both today and tomorrow. Experiential language learning through collaboration with the community is an expanding conceptualization of the action and autonomy theory Little, D. (2007), Bloom, M. and Carolyn Gascoigne, Ed. (2017), on one hand, and of the positive psychology theory (MacIntyre, P.D., Gregerson, T. and Mercer, S. Editors (2016); (Clifford & Reisinger, 2018) on the other.
To illustrate the CSL model at work, we will look at quantitative and qualitative analyses of a Canadian university students' journals relating CSL experience embedded in their language courses (+ N = 800 collected since 2008), as well as at institutional surveys results coming from students, professors, and community partners.
The data show that the use of CSL in language learning incidentally fosters many individual and social dimensions that stretch the learning beyond the desired linguistic outcomes, allowing students to become social actors and mediators, within citizen's responsibilities and leadership community projects. These aspects cultivate both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-esteem, and self-construction of meaningful tasks with exposure to expected or unexpected circumstances and learning. Based on our findings, the CSL pedagogical shift confirms the validity of theoretical constructs grounded in positive psychology and is an innovative tool in best language teaching practices using an expanded action approach.
References:
Bloom, M.and Carolyn Gascoigne, Ed. (2017). Creating Experiential Learning Opportunities for Language Learners: Acting Locally While Thinking Globally. Multilingual Matters.
Clifford, J., & Reisinger, D. S. (2018). Community-Based language learning: A framework for educators. Georgetown University Press. http://muse.jhu.edu/book/62431
Dörnyei, Z. and Ushioda, E. (2009). Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self. Second Language Acquisition, Series Ed. David Singleton. Multilingual Matters Bristol, UK.
Little, D. (2007). Language Learner Autonomy: Some Fundamental Considerations Revisited. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 14‑29.
MacIntyre, P. D. (2016). So Far So Good: An Overview of Positive Psychology and Its Contributions to SLA. In Gabryś-Barker, D., & Gabryś, D. (2016). Positive Psychology Perspectives on Foreign Language Learning and Teaching (Second language learning and teaching). Springer International Publishing, 3‑20.
MacIntyre, P.D., Gregerson, T. and Mercer, S. Editors (2016). Positive Psychology in SLA. Second Language Acquisition: 97. Multilingual Matters. Bristol, UK.
