| dc.description |
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' 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' lives as they take on important challenges and issues in their communities. Service-learning's 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. |
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