A community service learning experience with university language students in Argentina

MELINA PORTO; GABRIELA TAVELLA; CARINA FERNÁNDEZ

Groningen

Conferencia; Conferencia Anual 2020/2021 de AILA (International Applied Linguistics Association); 2021

International Applied Linguistics Association)

In this session we will describe a service-learning experience carried out by volunteer university language students during 2016-2017. The main theoretical principle underlying this project is the idea that the teaching of languages in higher education should contribute to the integral development of students and to the development of democratic societies (Budd, 2013; Byram, Golubeva, Han & Wagner, 2017) by fostering democratic values and competences (Barnett, 2011; Council of Europe, 2018) and also by encouraging learners to take social or civic action beyond the classroom (Byram, 2014; Byram, Golubeva, Han & Wagner, 2017). In this case, the link between language learning in higher education and the community occurred as volunteer students from Universidad Nacional de La Plata and Universidad Nacional del Comahue planned, designed and carried out workshops on multicultural literature for the children in a rural school in Patagonia (the south of Argentina) and in two local non-governmental organizations (NGO) on the outskirts of La Plata. About 15 volunteers from both universities worked collaboratively with their university teachers, the school teachers and the NGOs? participants to provide a first contact with English to children who had not had the opportunity of learning the language in their formal education. In this way, volunteer students were encouraged to take action in the community simultaneously with their learning. The project was planned as a service learning experience but also as case study. Documentary data comprised reflection logs by the volunteers and the university teachers (in English) and by the children involved (in Spanish), teacher field notes, workshop outcomes created by the children (masks, posters, collages, tableaux), and photographs and video-recordings of the workshops. Using content analysis (Mertens, 2015), our analysis shows that volunteer students (future tour guides in Patagonia and future teachers of English in La Plata) developed their competences for democratic culture (Council of Europe, 2018) and that the children involved experienced English as a bridge for intercultural encounters in their local settings. In the session we will describe the theoretical framework and the service learning experience in detail and we will then present findings illustrating with multiple examples from varied data types.ReferencesBarnett, R. (2011). The coming of the ecological university. Oxford Review of Education, 37/4, 439-455.Budd, J. (2013). Informational education: Creating an understanding of justice. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 8, 17-28.Byram, M. (2014). Twenty-five years on - from cultural studies to intercultural citizenship. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 27, 209-225. Byram, M., Golubeva, I., Han, H., & Wagner, M. (Eds.). (2017). From principles to practice in education for intercultural citizenship. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Council of Europe 2018. Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. Volumes 1-3. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Available from: https://www.coe.int/en/web/education/competences-for-democratic-culture Mertens, D. (2015). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Fourth edition. Los Angeles: Sage.