Impacts of Experimental Service-Learning Course Service-learning course’s goal is to improve students’ academic success by involving them into work in the community, which have to improve their language skills, leadership skills and increase their civic engagement concept. The service-learning course’s value is being ambivalent by its impact on providers and receivers of the service. Different studies has shown different positive impacts of the service-learning course, such as solving issues of multiculturalism, self-development and increasing the social engagement for providers. While having great influence on providers of service learning, most of researches has not been focusing on the receivers of the service. Furthermore, using service
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Students were presented as a teachers, while workers were students. It is notable, that both groups were Egyptian native-speakers of Arabic. Participants of first group were undergraduate students who were enrolled in LING268. All of the students came from high socioeconomic background and were familiar with service-learning concept and had participated at service-learning projects in the past. The participants of second group all were from lower socioeconomic background than students. The goal for ‘teachers’ were to apply knowledge gained in the classroom and then to critically summarize their service-learning experience. First group were instructed in using textbook, however they were not given training about the material itself. Talking about teaching process, the students were working in pairs in order to reduce self-esteem issues and have been using CLT – communicative language teaching while communicating with workers, which were able to enclose the language proficiency gap between groups. Throughout the course students wrote three reflection papers which reflected their experiences about service-learning process. By the end of the course both groups were interviewed about advantages and disadvantages of this …show more content…
However, as all of the participants belong to the same language and cultural group, it is easier for them to communicate and cooperate with each other, which does not include the issues of cross-cultural communication. This fact weakens the investigation of study’s impact on students’ concept of civic engagement. Furthermore, this strengthen the concept of so-called ‘broken English’, which will influence service-recipients’ ability to communicate with representatives of another cultures.
In addition, English proficiency test results for workers were not mentioned in the study, which questions the quality of the service provided and leaves the problem of negative impact on the recipients of the service for this particular experiment. The fact that students-teachers work in pairs is considered as a sacrifice of a potential personal growth in order to increase tutoring quality. This one more time proves the fact that study was oriented on recipients of the service as well as on the providers. However, according to the questionnaires, students estimated the personal growth and increasing of their academic enhancement as almost equal. This poses as a strength of a study, because while working into groups students were still able to develop such skills as a leadership and
Students were presented as a teachers, while workers were students. It is notable, that both groups were Egyptian native-speakers of Arabic. Participants of first group were undergraduate students who were enrolled in LING268. All of the students came from high socioeconomic background and were familiar with service-learning concept and had participated at service-learning projects in the past. The participants of second group all were from lower socioeconomic background than students. The goal for ‘teachers’ were to apply knowledge gained in the classroom and then to critically summarize their service-learning experience. First group were instructed in using textbook, however they were not given training about the material itself. Talking about teaching process, the students were working in pairs in order to reduce self-esteem issues and have been using CLT – communicative language teaching while communicating with workers, which were able to enclose the language proficiency gap between groups. Throughout the course students wrote three reflection papers which reflected their experiences about service-learning process. By the end of the course both groups were interviewed about advantages and disadvantages of this …show more content…
However, as all of the participants belong to the same language and cultural group, it is easier for them to communicate and cooperate with each other, which does not include the issues of cross-cultural communication. This fact weakens the investigation of study’s impact on students’ concept of civic engagement. Furthermore, this strengthen the concept of so-called ‘broken English’, which will influence service-recipients’ ability to communicate with representatives of another cultures.
In addition, English proficiency test results for workers were not mentioned in the study, which questions the quality of the service provided and leaves the problem of negative impact on the recipients of the service for this particular experiment. The fact that students-teachers work in pairs is considered as a sacrifice of a potential personal growth in order to increase tutoring quality. This one more time proves the fact that study was oriented on recipients of the service as well as on the providers. However, according to the questionnaires, students estimated the personal growth and increasing of their academic enhancement as almost equal. This poses as a strength of a study, because while working into groups students were still able to develop such skills as a leadership and