Gaining Oral Proficiency in French Through Service Learning: An Action Research Project with Secondary French Students and a French-American Bilingual Elementary School

Engaging in Service Learning at the high school level in a world language classroom is integral to gaining oral proficiency in the target language. Service Learning helps students to see the practical application of the language and it increases student motivation. In many high schools, students have limited opportunities to engage in authentic interpersonal speaking opportunities within the the classroom and cannot envision practical application for the language. Through the implementation and evaluation of this service learning project this study aims to increase the opportunity to use French in authentic situations and therefore increasing the students oral proficiency. A review of the literature revealed that students increased interactions in authentic situations results in higher oral proficiency rates, augments motivation significantly and helps students to see the connections between learning language and its usefulness in the real world. This is a qualitative study that examines students’ perceptions of their increased French language proficiency within the context of working with a bilingual French-American elementary school. The secondary students are from a fourth year French class at a suburban high school and are working within a K-8 French-American public charter school. Keywords: French, secondary, service learning, experiential learning, oral proficiency, high school, authentic learnin