One Stone, Two Birds: Maximizing Service Learning Outcomes through TESOL Practicum

Abstract

This paper examines a good practice for service learning that has been implemented for years in TESOL Internship, a professional unit for students doing Master of Arts (MA) in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at a major university in Australia. The author has investigated and identified three key features of a good practice in service learning, including critical reflection, community engagement and intercultural communication, which are evidenced in student service learning in various English language centres in Great Western Sydney. Data are collected from student reports, supervising teachers' reports and comments, weekly workshop discussions and emails. Using constructivist grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), the author conducts thematic analysis to code the data, categorizes them into key themes for critical analysis. The results show that during their practicum period TESOL student teachers critically reflect on their observation experience and participate in curriculum-relevant and extra-curriculum activities, particularly their own teaching practices drawing on relevant TESOL theories and communicating with their peers and mentors. Furthermore they come to understand local communities better as they are actively engaged in interacting with members of local communities. Finally their intercultural awareness is enhanced through regular and active intercultural communication with people of diverse language and cultural backgrounds. Opportunities and challenges for good service learning practices are also discussed.

Integrating Pedagogy and Practice: The Impact of Academic Service Learning in the TEFL Context in Higher Education

“…Regarding changes in professional knowledge, the findings of this study indicated that ASL practical experiences contributed to participants' confident application of TEFL teaching theories. This coincides with numerous studies suggesting that SL amplifies academic knowledge when applied in practical teaching environments (Cho and Gulley 2017;Simsek 2020;Yang 2014). However, Goodwin et al (2014) noted some discrepancies in their findings and that some participants felt overwhelmed when applying theoretical knowledge in real classroom situations.…”

Formação em tradução entre competências, profissão e engajamento cívico: algumas reflexões sobre service-learning

“…Outra área, certamente não menos importante, é constituída pela remoção das barreiras linguísticas que dificultam o fluxo de informação e o encontro das diversidades culturais. Ademais, o ensino e a formação de professores de línguas estrangeiras são duas áreas às quais o service-learning tem sido aplicado com sucesso (Ping, 2014;Salgado-Robles, 2018). Na área da tradução, assim como no service-learning, existe uma forte participação voluntária de tradutores profissionais e em formação, que oferecem seu trabalho gratuita-mente em associações como Translators without Borders, Traduttori per la Pace ou Translation Commons.…”

Exploring Models of Team Teaching in Initial Foreign/Second Language Teacher Education: A Study in Situated Collaboration

“…The findings of this study confirmed that implementation of team teaching in initial teacher education has the potentiality of enhancing the learning experience of pre-service teachers, with more structured forms of feedback and support developing from mentors and peers as a result of the approach. This study also suggested that team teaching can potentially generate more collaborative activities in class activities as student teachers are encouraged to implement more group collaborative activities and increase student talking time (Yang, 2014).…”