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Disciplinary Pathways to Service Learning
English
as a Second Language Courses
Lin Griffith
Glendale Community College
Glendale, California
English as a Second Language and Service-Learning
are an obvious pairing. Students in these courses often express a desire
to use English in natural, purposeful situations with native speakers,
or at least with people who do not share the learner's native language.
Three models involving courses on differing skills at various proficiency
levels at Glendale Community College, a school of 14,000 in a suburb of
Los Angeles, have confirmed the "fit" of Service-Learning to
ESL and at the same time revealed the complexities of that fit.
Students in an intermediate speaking/listening course are not yet proficient
enough in English to hold jobs, yet they know enough English to communicate
in a basic way. Our Volunteer and Service-Learning Center (VSLC) places
these students at a local retirement home for one-on-one dialog sessions
with a retiree. Before their first session, they practice in class asking
questions on appropriate topics. Then, as they visit the retirement home
an hour a week for eight weeks, they gather data for class discussions
on topics relating to American culture. They also write in journals, discuss
in groups their progress and frustrations, and give a reflective oral report
at the end of the semester. Although some students are initially reluctant
to enter homes for the elderly, final reports focus on friendships, lengthy
and meaningful conversations, and gains in vocabulary, listening comprehension
and self-confidence in English. They also feel the satisfaction of doing
good for others as their new friendships lead to running errands, repairing
bookshelves, bringing hot soup, and exchanging gifts.
Jen Sun Shi's journal entry reflects on a first session:
When I went to "Windsor Manor" last Friday I was very nervous...
I thought to converse with old people was not comfortable in any language.
However, "Windsor Manor" was warmer, cozier and more beautiful
than I had expected... I met Louise... She had a problem on the spinal
column. She who was white, tall and had a tough constitution, liked "Scrabble"
game.. She taught me how to play it... and I got several new words from
the game. She and I really enjoyed playing it. "
Clearly, intercultural learning accompanies language learning in this
project.
In an upper-intermediate course in reading, writing and grammar, success
rates have suffered because students lack adequate exposure to English,
especially through reading. So students are placed in child development
centers. After receiving training by K-12 specialists and a public library
children's librarian on selecting books and reading them aloud effectively,
students read many books, select a few, practice reading them aloud, then
read them to two K-2 children at a time weekly for ten weeks. They write
weekly journal entries evaluating the progress of the children and of themselves
toward present goals, and they reflect on their experiences in groups during
class. After ten weeks, students write on each of various benefits--language
skills, parenting skills, values clarification, career exploration, giving
back' to the community and acculturation. Class groups collect these evaluations,
and each group prepares a different topic as part of a class report sent
to the funding source and community agencies as a "real" writing
task.
According to one such report,
Many of the students had never read to children before this program,
and because we did not want to have a difficult time while reading to the
children or disappoint them, we started to go to the libraries and read
many children's books each week... With the help of VSL (Volunteer/Service-Learning),
some of the students realized that we need to pay more attention to the
children of our community, because there are many children that spend most
of their days at the centers and have no one to read to them. These children
need people like us to read and interact with them.
(Rebeka Megerdichian, Cicely Hunjaya, Arusyak Nikogosyan and Koji Isabe)
Throughout the semester the reading, summary and grammar exercises and
in-class essays responding to articles that build skill for writing such
a report are all on topics related to community service or reading aloud
and thus contribute to making this a content-based course in which all
activities are connected by service.
In a third course, an advanced reading and writing course, students
learn academic reading skills, write essay tests, learn to do library research,
and write a research paper; students who pass are eligible to take Freshman
English. The addition of Service-Learning to this course forms a connection
between reading, research and writing. The student browses the listings
maintained by the VSLC and selects an agency that is as closely related
as possible to the student's intended career. During the early weeks of
the course she also reads books related to her major. She writes dialog
journal entries about both activities. As she searches for an issue to
research, she discusses her Service-Learning and library reading in groups
with students of similar interests. She evolves a thesis that she can support
both with library research and with experiences and observations from her
Service-Learning. Having the opportunity to try out her career in advance--to
observe and interview people doing the future work, to do some of that
work herself and see how that feels--has proven immediately popular.
After a session at an elementary school, Parkoohi Panosian, who is considering
becoming a teacher, noted in her journal a feature of American education
very different from that of her country:
The math game that they played yesterday was very interesting to
me... They learned how to buy... some items with prices and they should
choose the items with given money. After my researching I have some idea
of creativity. I can understand why they are doing these things. Freedom
of thinking gives the children creativity, which is more important than
learning more materials without thinking.
By reflecting on her classroom observations, Parkoohi developed questions
which led her to a thesis about the role of creativity in education. She
and her classmates discovered that integrating theory and practice lends
reality and purpose to coursework.
A particular problem of introducing Service-Learning in ESL courses
has been that the recent immigrants who are the majority of our population
are in a survival mode, working long hours and caring for families, and
feeling their foremost obligation to be toward their family, not the wider
community. While most students welcome the interactions with native speakers
of English, a few students find the extra time for travel to off-campus
sites an impossible burden. As a consequence, the GCC Credit ESL Division
has established the policy that there be an alternative, on-campus (lab
or library) option to Service-Learning for meeting course requirements.
Other considerations important to success are adequate English proficiency
levels for the tasks, sufficient training, a clear presentation of students'
duties and responsibilities as well as rights, and a means of closure (e.g.,
certificates, lunch). With careful planning to meet objectives and avoid
problems, a Service-Learning component can add a most memorable dimension
to an ESL course.
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Developing Service-Learning in Developmental Studies