Translating community development stories: When an EFL writing course meets service learning

Abstract

Service learning has been widely applied across academic disciplines and educational settings for various purposes. This study involved a group of 24 Taiwanese students of English as a foreign language who helped a nonprofit organization translate community development stories and annual reports from English to Chinese. These documents were collected from the organization's branches all over the world and covered a wide range of topics related to community development. To collect data for the current study, a questionnaire for the upcoming service learning experience was conducted before students began their service work and a second questionnaire was administered after students finished their translation task. Students perceived the experience of working as volunteer translators quite positively and reported having gained a sense of achievement and more experiences and knowledge about other cultures, the translation process, comprehending materials written in nonstandard English, and unfamiliar issues and contexts. This article ends with suggestions for future research and integration of service learning into writing courses.