Teaching in context: Integrating community-based service learning into TESOL education

Abstract

Interest in service-learning within TESOL has increased in recent years. Teacher-scholars have described multiple uses of such pedagogy in programs for students of English as a second language (ESL) and in courses of ESL teacher education. This article employs action research to focus on an introductory TESOL class at a U.S. university for which students volunteered as ESL tutors and teachers at local community-based organizations. By describing the course design and implementation, and by drawing on a data set comprising both student writing and interviews with community partners, the article highlights an undertheorized value of service-learning in TESOL: its potential to raise novice teachers' awareness about the sociopolitical contexts of language education and, in turn, to help them recognize the importance of attending to such dynamics in pedagogic decision making. In this way, the course offers a case study that can support TESOL educators who want to help teachers-in-training situate second language learners in larger contexts. Two specific recommendations that emerge from the study are the need to move beyond the traditional content areas of TESOL/second language acquisition in designing such courses and the importance of collaborating with community-based organizations as true partners.