Incorporating Service-Learning into the ESL Curriculum: What Aspiring Practitioners Need to Know

As an ESL teacher at a community college, my constant goal is to synergize teaching approaches and strategies so that in addition to maximizing students\u27 language learning, their critical thinking skills, cultural competence, and reflectivity - as members of an increasingly growing multicultural society - are heightened. Most recently, I have been pursuing service-learning as a philosophy, pedagogy, and practice that can help students connect their classroom learning to concrete, exciting, and challenging learning situations beyond the classroom. This paper is an attempt to highlight service-learning as a powerful tool that can make a difference in students\u27 lives as they take on important challenges and issues in their communities. Service-learning\u27s power as a philosophy, pedagogy, and practice is examined, and its connections to current education trends, practices, and concepts are considered. Finally, practical ways of utilizing service-learning are presented, with the hope of inspiring other teachers (ESL or otherwise) to test drive service-learning with their students and communities