Creating Experiential Learning Opportunities for Language Learners: Acting Locally while Thinking Globally 9781783097326

Table of contents :
Contents
Contributors
Introduction
Part 1: Experiential Learning through Community Engagement
1. Multilingual Learners and Leaders
2. Community Engagement in Spanish Departments at US Colleges and Universities: Where Is It?
3. Civic Engagement and Community Service Learning: Connecting Students’ Experiences to Policy and Advocacy
4. Service Learning as an Ecological Resource: Providing Learning Opportunities for Mixed Second and Heritage Language Classrooms
5. Experiential Learning for L2 Students: Steps Toward a French Service-Learning Program in the Community
Part 2: Experiential Learning through Professional Engagement
6. Externship Opportunities for French: An Initial Response to Pedagogical Climate Change
7. Developing Internship Programming for Second Language Students
8. Mentors’ Perspectives on Professional Internships: Rewards, Challenges and Future Directions
9. Internship Programs: A Platform for Locally-based Cultural Immersion Programs
Part 3: Experiential Learning in Other Local Contexts
10. Using Expeditionary Learning Design for Secondary and College-Level World Language Curriculum and Instruction
11. Creative Placemaking in Cajun Louisiana: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching and Learning Environmental, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in the United States
12. Engaging Students through Foreign Language Campus Housing: A Case Study of a Small German Language Program
13. Language Camps: By Teaching We Learn
Conclusion: Future Directions in Experiential Learning
Index

Citation preview

Creating Experiential Learning Opportunities for Language Learners

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editors: Professor David Singleton, University of Pannonia, Hungary and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Dr Simone E. Pfenninger, University of Salzburg, Austria This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical findings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes final-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers, teachers and policy-makers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 111

Creating Experiential Learning Opportunities for Language Learners Acting Locally while Thinking Globally

Edited by Melanie Bloom and Carolyn Gascoigne

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Library of Congress Control Number: 2016046326 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-731-9 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-730-2 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2017 Melanie Bloom, Carolyn Gascoigne and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services Limited. Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by Edwards Brothers Malloy, Inc.

Contents

Contributors

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Introduction Melanie Bloom and Carolyn Gascoigne

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Part 1: Experiential Learning through Community Engagement 1

Multilingual Learners and Leaders Adrian J. Wurr

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Community Engagement in Spanish Departments at US Colleges and Universities: Where Is It? Josef Hellebrandt

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Civic Engagement and Community Service Learning: Connecting Students’ Experiences to Policy and Advocacy Annie Abbott

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Service Learning as an Ecological Resource: Providing Learning Opportunities for Mixed Second and Heritage Language Classrooms Cecilia Tocaimaza-Hatch and Laura C. Walls

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Experiential Learning for L2 Students: Steps Toward a French Service-Learning Program in the Community Frédérique Grim

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Contents

Part 2: Experiential Learning through Professional Engagement 6

Externship Opportunities for French: An Initial Response to Pedagogical Climate Change Carolyn Gascoigne

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Developing Internship Programming for Second Language Students Melanie Bloom

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Mentors’ Perspectives on Professional Internships: Rewards, Challenges and Future Directions Carmen King de Ramírez and Barbara A. Lafford

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Internship Programs: A Platform for Locally-based Cultural Immersion Programs Leticia T. McDoniel

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Part 3: Experiential Learning in Other Local Contexts 10 Using Expeditionary Learning Design for Secondary and College-Level World Language Curriculum and Instruction Brigid Moira Burke 11 Creative Placemaking in Cajun Louisiana: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching and Learning Environmental, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in the United States Jessica S. Miller 12 Engaging Students through Foreign Language Campus Housing: A Case Study of a Small German Language Program Sabine Marina Jones 13 Language Camps: By Teaching We Learn Jacqueline Thomas

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Conclusion: Future Directions in Experiential Learning Melanie Bloom

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Index

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Contributors

Annie Abbott is Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign. She has taught Spanish community service learning since 2004 and has authored articles, chapters and a textbook – Comunidades: Más allá del aula (Pearson) – about community service learning. She coordinates a program of three community service learning courses with about 80 students per semester working with a dozen community partners. Her work in languages for specific purposes has covered business Spanish, social entrepreneurship, ethics and social media marketing. Annie has received several campus awards for her teaching, service and public engagement. Melanie Bloom is an associate professor of Spanish and the Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Nebraska Omaha, where she teaches courses in Spanish conversation and composition and second language acquisition theory, as well as directs Spanish internship programming. Her research interests include experiential learning, study abroad, second language writing, the teaching and learning of culture and world language pedagogy. Brigid Moira Burke completed her PhD at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr Burke has taught and consulted with students and teachers in a variety of areas in the United States. She is currently an associate professor of education and the world language education program coordinator at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Her research interests include world language pedagogy, action research, professional development, education reform, experiential learning and differentiated instruction. She has published articles in Foreign Language Annals, Hispania, the Journal of Experiential Education, Kappan and the Modern Language Journal. Carolyn Gascoigne is Dean of Arts and Humanities at Angelo State University. Her research interests include student performance in both hybrid and online language learning environments and student persistence in language study in traditional, hybrid and online courses. vii

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Her work has appeared in publications such as the French Review, Foreign Language Annals, the Online Journal of Distance Education Administration and the ADFL Journal. Frédérique Grim received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She is an associate professor of French and second language acquisition at Colorado State University, training preservice and in-service foreign language teachers, as well as graduate students. Her publications relate to topics such as culture in the classroom, the use of L1 and L2, the role of pronunciation instruction, the impact of service learning on students and the role of Anglicisms. She is also interested in immersion/bilingual education and proficiency-based applications. Josef Hellebrandt received his PhD from Purdue University. He is an associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Santa Clara University, where he teaches courses in Spanish and German languages and cultures. He has co-edited three books on service learning and community engagement in Spanish and applied linguistics. He is an associate editor of Hispania and served as department chair and as president of a non-profit German Saturday school in San Jose, California. Sabine Marina Jones is Faculty-in-Residence at the Max Kade (German) House and Lecturer in the Department of German Language and Literatures at Oberlin College. She has a BA in Translation from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz School of Applied Linguistics and Cultural Studies (Germersheim, Germany) and received an MA in Translation from Kent State University, as well as an MA in Germanic languages, with a concentration in 20th-century German literature, from UNC-Chapel Hill. Currently, she is ABD in Modern European and Gender History, with a focus on the African diaspora at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her interests include 20th-century German literature, Africana studies, migrant literature, translation, modern European and gender history and foreign languages. Carmen King de Ramírez received her PhD in Spanish literature and culture from Arizona State University and is currently an assistant professor of Spanish at the University of Arizona. She has developed and directed community internships in domestic and international settings, including Peru, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Dr King de Ramírez actively works with international NGOs to promote transborder education and intercultural communication. She also provides services as a certified cultural intelligence consultant and medical interpreter. Her areas of research include culture for the professions, community service learning and internships.

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Barbara A. Lafford is a professor of Spanish linguistics and heads the School of International Letters and Cultures for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. She has published in the areas of Spanish sociolinguistics, second language acquisition, Spanish applied linguistics, computer-assisted language learning and languages for specific purposes. While serving as editor of the monograph/focus issue series for the Modern Language Journal, she edited the 2012 focus issue on languages for specific purposes. Professor Lafford spearheaded the creation of a minor/certificate in Spanish for the professions and co-hosted the Third International Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes in 2016. Leticia T. McDoniel received her international business degree from Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. She completed her PhD in Hispanic languages and literatures from Washington University in St Louis. She has taught Spanish language and literatures in top universities and currently teaches at Southern Methodist University. Her main interest, apart from teaching, is the Mexican–American border culture and its influence on the US business world. As a result, she started SMU’s Spanish internship program with both local (Dallas, Texas) and international (Seville, Spain) curricula. She has conducted executive training and translations for several Fortune 500 corporations. Jessica S. Miller is Associate Professor of French at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and was born in Strasbourg, France. She earned a licence and a maîtrise in English studies (Université de Strasbourg, 2001), an MA in French literature (St Louis University, 2002) and a PhD in French linguistics (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 2007). She has been teaching a variety of French courses at all levels at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire since 2006, specializing in pronunciation and oral proficiency. Her research focuses on second language acquisition and oral proficiency development. She became an American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages-certified Oral Proficiency Interview tester in 2015. Jacqueline Thomas is Regents Professor of French at Texas A&M University–Kingsville and Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques. She edited Etudiants Sans Frontières: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in French and is the author of chapters on French culture in France at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century and France in the Twenty-First Century. She is also the author of testing programs to accompany McGraw-Hill’s Rendezvous, Vis-à-Vis and Débuts and has refereed articles on teaching French and francophone culture, including ‘Showing the Relevance of French through Service-Learning’ and ‘Keeping the “Learning” in Service-Learning’.

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Cecilia Tocaimaza-Hatch received her PhD in Hispanic linguistics from The University of Texas at Austin. She is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, where she teaches courses in Spanish language, conversation, second language acquisition methodology and Spanish for the professions. She specializes in second language acquisition, particularly in the context of vocabulary learning in interaction. Laura Walls received her PhD in applied linguistics from UCLA. She is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, where she teaches courses in Spanish language, composition, bilingualism and sociolinguistics. She also developed the Spanish heritage language program for her department. Dr Walls’ scholarship bridges the fields of sociolinguistics, second language acquisition and heritage language pedagogy. She also conducts research into the benefits of service learning with regard to language learning. Adrian Wurr has worked and published extensively in the United States and Asia, exploring the intersections of applied linguistics, literacy studies and service learning. He co-edited Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook (Bedford/St Martin, 2010), two editions of Learning the Language of Global Citizenship (Wiley, 2007; Common Ground, 2015) and served as guest editor for numerous journals, most recently for the TESOL Journal special issue on service learning in teaching English to speakers of other languages (2013). He is currently researching service learning in immigrant communities worldwide.

Introduction Melanie Bloom and Carolyn Gascoigne

An extensive amount of anecdotal evidence, program descriptions and empirical research has been published detailing experiential learning opportunities and outcomes in the study abroad context (e.g. Bloom & Miranda, 2015; DuFon & Churchill, 2006; Godfrey et al., 2014; Hernández, 2010; Jackson, 2011; Twombly et al., 2012). Although international study, service learning and internships provide ideal experiential learning opportunities for language learners, very few post-secondary students in the United States study abroad. According to the 2015 Open Doors report (Institute of International Education, 2015), nearly 10% of undergraduate students in the United States studied abroad during the 2013–2014 academic year and of the total number of students studying abroad that year only 7.8% were majors in foreign languages and international studies. Thus, educators looking to infuse their language programs with experiential learning often must turn to the domestic context to create opportunities at home. Unlike experiential learning abroad, there are fewer publications devoted to experiential learning in the domestic context. Much of the research published is focused on program descriptions and/or anecdotal evidence of service-learning contexts in either English as a second language or Spanish as a second language in the United States (e.g. Auerbach, 2002; Hellebrandt et al., 2004; Hellebrandt & Varona, 1999; Purmensky, 2009; Wurr & Hellebrandt, 2007), with more limited materials available for French learners (e.g. Thomas, 2012). Beyond a few isolated articles (e.g. Bown et al., 2011; Dewey, 2004; Dewey et al., 2011; Martinsen et al., 2010), there are no published volumes that detail second language learners’ experiential learning in either professional engagement activities or unique engagement contexts such as language housing. The paucity of published work in the area of domestic experiential learning in second language contexts is what led to the development of this volume, whose purpose is to highlight research-based innovations in experiential learning in domestic contexts, focusing particularly on the United States. Although this volume focuses on the US context, the research projects and curricular innovations described here can serve as models for educators working in other local contexts.

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Experiential Learning Before presenting the chapters of the volume, we should first introduce the construct under study, namely, experiential learning. Experiential learning is rooted in Dewey’s (1938: 24) theory that there is an ‘organic connection between education and personal experience’. In Experience and Education, Dewey (1938) notes that education emanates from experience, but that not all experiences have the same educative value; there exists an experiential continuum. Following Dewey’s model, it is the job of the educator to use his/her ‘maturity of experience’ to provide an educative environment that facilitates the growth of his/her students, as well as to analyze the continuity of their growth. Thus, in Dewey’s philosophy of experience, education is primarily a social experience in which students learn within a community. From this brief summary of Dewey’s philosophy, it is easy to see how it became the foundation of the experiential learning movement and why it is so applicable to the second language teaching and learning context specifically. Its focus on the social nature of learning, the role of the teacher as facilitator and the role of experience in learning are all concepts that are widely discussed in the literature on second language learning and teaching. Dewey’s philosophy forms a sound theoretical basis from which many other experiential learning models have been developed. Using Dewey’s work as part of the theoretical basis for his model of experiential learning, Kolb (1984) notes that learning should not be conceived of as an outcome, but rather as a process. He also notes that this process is not a smooth one free of conflicts, but one that inherently presents tension between old and new knowledge and experiences. Because Kolb’s model is process oriented, he describes it as a cycle with four points: concrete experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualization (AC) and active experimentation (AE). He notes that students must be able to involve themselves fully, openly, and without bias in new experience (CE). They must be able to reflect on and observe their experiences from many perspectives (RO). They must be able to create concepts that integrate their observations into logically sound theories (AC), and they must be able to use these theories to make decisions and solve problems (AE). (Kolb, 1984: 30) As Kolb’s model presents experiential learning as a cyclical process working within different learning modes, it has served as a guide for many second language educators incorporating experiential opportunities in their language classes and/or programs. Although Kolb’s model has been applied to experiential learning more broadly, other models have been developed to describe service learning more

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specifically. In a seminal article defining service learning, Sigmon (1979) outlines three principles of service learning that relate to the community members served. He notes that those served should be able to choose the services provided, that they should be empowered by the service and that the learners who provide the service should be able to control the learning outcomes. These three principles have since been expanded into more complete models of service learning, including Furco’s (1996) continuum of experiential education, which characterizes program types based on their primary intention and focus (see Figure 1.1, Wurr, this volume). Furco explores the differences between service learning, community service, field education, volunteerism and internship based on these program characteristics. He notes that volunteerism focuses on those served without consideration or planning of specific learning objectives of those who serve. Community service is similar in that those served are the primary focus of service activities, but that the students serving also receive some learning benefits. For example, on our campus our introductory Spanish classes often run canned food drives for local charity organizations. Through these projects the students learn more about the organizations, the community members served and the community in which they live and study more broadly. The internship experience focuses primarily on the learning objectives of the student, but the internship provider may also benefit from the work being conducted by the student intern. Similarly, field experiences in areas such as nursing or education primarily benefit the student, as the experience is integrated into his/her educational program. However, students working in field experience placements must also take into careful consideration how their service benefits those who receive it. Finally, the focus of service learning is on both the service providers and those served, as the work completed should be mutually beneficial. According to Furco (1996: 5), service learning should be organized so that ‘the service enhances the learning and the learning enhances the service’. Although the chapters in this volume do not represent each one of the types of experiential learning mentioned by Furco, there are examples directly related to community service, field experience, internships and service learning, in addition to other experiential contexts not mentioned by Furco due to their unique relationship to the field of language education.

Experiential Learning in the Second Language Context Models of experiential learning serve to frame the discussion of the creation and implementation of the specific courses or projects outlined in this volume. However, because these projects take place in a second language-learning environment, in which language students interact

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directly with other non-native or native speakers of the target language, we must also position our discussion within the field of second language acquisition. As the learning involved in these projects is rooted in the local social contexts in which they occur, the sociocultural approach to second language acquisition may serve as the most appropriate theoretical frame. In fact, van Lier (2000) suggests that his ecological approach to social interactive learning is an extension not only of the Vygotskian perspective, but also of the work of Dewey and other American pedagogues who advocated for experiential learning. The sociocultural approach, based on the work of Vygotsky (1978), emphasizes social interaction as the site of the development of higher mental processes, including language acquisition. Central to socioculturalism is the idea that our development of these higher mental processes is mediated externally first through objects or through other more knowledgeable peers, during which time we gain greater control over these processes (Lantolf et al., 2015). Over time, we may require different forms of mediation until we are eventually able to self-regulate without mediation. Because the learning outcomes of experiential learning activities may include the development of linguistic, pragmatic or cultural competence, in addition to other types of context-specific knowledge, sociocultural theory works well to frame this work, as it is a theory of learning and mental development that is not limited to language acquisition. Stewart (2007: 86) notes that the sociocultural perspective ‘dovetails nicely with service-learning, which places students in the community interacting with native speakers of the target language’. Only relatively recently have second language teachers and researchers begun to collect data on specific learning outcomes in experiential learning contexts (Lear, 2012). Researchers working within the sociocultural tradition have focused on students’ self-reported gains in their development of linguistic and/or cultural competence, linguistic self-confidence and content knowledge in a wide variety of areas related to the social contexts in which students interact (Andrew, 2012; Grabois, 2007, 2008; Hummel, 2013; Tocaimaza-Hatch & Walls, this volume). As more empirical research in the area of experiential learning is conducted, we imagine that other researchers will adopt a sociocultural framework given that, according to Lantolf et al. (2015: 222), ‘SCT [sociocultural theory] does not rigidly separate understanding (research) from transformation (concrete action)’. Thus, this approach is appealing to research in the dynamic social contexts within which experiential learning occurs.

The Present Volume This volume will focus on three specific experiential learning contexts: community engagement experiences, professional engagement experiences and other unique experiential contexts such as language camps and houses.

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Part 1 of the volume presents a wide array of topics related to experiential learning through community engagement. As Furco (1996) notes in his continuum of experiential learning, community engagement can include a wide variety of activities that may be classified in different ways. Thus, community engagement can include many types of academically related, community-based activities, from volunteerism tied to course content, service-learning projects and/or the organization of communityfocused events. What these types of experiences have in common is that they all view the community as a physical and social space that can enhance students’ learning (Furco, 2010). Although this type of domestic experiential learning is the most widely explored in the literature, it is still a field in its relative infancy, given that many institutions are just beginning to value the scholarship of engagement in the evaluation of the faculty who engage in this type of teaching and research activity (O’Meara et al., 2013). Adrian Wurr’s chapter opens this section by highlighting less commonly recognized service-learning programs that engage English language learners in the United States. He begins the chapter by defining common experiential education experiences and framing those he presents within the experiential education continuum. He examines both the learning outcomes and long-term impacts of some of these programs, as well as exploring service learning in K-12 to post-secondary instructional settings. Wurr highlights the model service-learning programs that are working with socioeconomically diverse students in order to meet student and/or community needs, emphasizing the outcomes of each program discussed. This chapter provides an essential review of the literature on ESL servicelearning programs that will certainly serve as a valuable resource for ESL educators interested in experiential learning. In Chapter 2, Josef Hellebrandt examines the history of community engagement in post-secondary education, with special attention paid to its relatively recent rise to prominence. In light of our profession’s recent emphasis on promoting student engagement, Hellebrandt sought to examine the publicly available information on Spanish undergraduate program websites at US colleges and universities that had already earned the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification. After reviewing the number of Spanish course offerings at the 353 colleges and universities awarded the Carnegie classification and containing a servicelearning component, Hellebrandt shares data broken down by state. He concludes that there is a discrepancy between what is reported in the professional literature and what is shared publicly on institutions’ and departments’ websites and calls for departments and their stakeholders to improve upon efforts to publicly promote and display their engagement activity.

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Annie Abbott’s chapter turns its focus to a specific experiential learning context: community service learning (CSL) with immigrant populations. She adeptly notes the difficulty of engaging university students in CSL who are far removed from the immigrant experience and who do not have a clear understanding of the complicated policies surrounding immigration in the United States. This chapter clearly summarizes immigration policies from the federal to the local level for practitioners interested in performing CSL with immigrant populations. She concludes the chapter with clear examples of how to include immigration policy in a language class with a CSL component by engaging students in the inquiry cycle process. Although Abbott’s focus is primarily on Latin American immigrants, her skillful presentation of immigration policy and its relevance to CSL curricula is vital for any language educator working with immigrant populations. In Chapter 4, Cecilia Tocaimaza-Hatch and Laura Walls describe two service-learning projects in Spanish, one in an advanced conversation course and the other in an advanced composition course. Both projects, however, applied an ecological approach to language learning and involved a mixed group of language learners: heritage language learners and second language learners of Spanish. Following a detailed description of both courses, both service-learning projects and both studies, TocaimazaHatch and Walls conclude that the inclusion of carefully crafted servicelearning components can allow the faculty member to target the specific needs of each type of learner group while also complying with curriculum objectives. Specifically, the authors found that service learning allowed the second language learners to gain a better appreciation of the diversity inherent to the immigrant experience while the heritage language learners were able to find a new space in which their heritage language was useful and valued. In the last chapter in this section, Frédérique Grim offers a description of, as well as steps for creating, a service-learning program in French. With limited options for post-secondary students of French to use their language skills in Fort Collins, Colorado, Grim and her colleagues reached out to various local elementary schools, daycares and preschools to create opportunities for university students to teach French to young children. While service-learning activities are often embedded into a specific course, in this model, the service-learning activity is variable in that the singlecredit service-learning component may be attached to any post-secondary French course. While this opportunity is therefore available to students at all levels of language study, a single set of objectives, themes and steps are followed and shared as a model for others. The chapter concludes with student feedback on the experience and ideas for program expansion, such as language camps and community story times, as well as additional placement venues such as retirement homes.

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Part 2 of the book provides insights on both the development and outcomes of experiential learning in professional contexts outside of the university, namely in internship and externship programming. Although this type of professional field experience is common in professional schools, such as business, education or nursing, it is rarely discussed in the context of second language students. The chapters in this section detail the rationale and steps for setting up professional engagement programming, as well as discussing the outcomes of such programming from the perspectives of the professionals involved in student mentoring and the students themselves. In Chapter 6, Carolyn Gascoigne describes an attempt to create a semester-long internship experience for upper-level students of French, which, when faced with a limited number of true internship options, was revised and renamed. The end product was ultimately recast as an externship rather than an internship, or a shorter, less intensive version of an internship course in French that was composed of short-term student placements, guest lectures by professionals who have used French in their careers and in-class activities devoted to career exploration. End-of-semester course evaluations and student survey data provide insights as to which components of the course students found to be the most valuable, as well as their suggestions for future iterations of the course. As many faculty members in languages other than Spanish may have difficulty locating meaningful internship placements for their students, this chapter offers a model that allows students to share limited placements and still use the target language in meaningful external experiences. Melanie Bloom’s chapter provides a detailed account of the development of a new internship program for second language students at university. In a brief literature review of language-related internship programming both internationally and domestically, she notes the paucity of literature detailing second language students’ internship experiences. She also presents a review of the legal and ethical issues surrounding paid and unpaid internships in the United States, as well as two possible theoretical frameworks on which to base internship programs. Finally, she details the process of creating a small internship program for second language students offering for-credit, unpaid internships. In this section, she describes the initial contact with internship providers, the recruitment of student interns and the development of coursework surrounding the student interns’ experiences. This chapter will serve as a resource for other language educators interested in developing internship programming for their second language students. While several studies have examined the benefits and challenges of internships and service learning, as well as student perceptions of these types of experiences, Carmen King de Ramírez and Barbara A. Lafford have found that there is little research focusing on the community partner

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or mentor within these formats. In order to gain an understanding of the opinions and perspectives of professional mentors who work with university interns where Spanish is used as the medium of communication, the authors sought to both survey and interview a group of community partners. Specifically, they wanted to identify: (1) What motivates established professionals to work with interns? (2) What types of tasks are assigned to interns? (3) What are the mentors’ expectations of the interns? and (4) What challenges do mentors face when hosting university interns? The authors conclude with a list of suggestions to improve the quality of university-sponsored internship programs, as well as the relationships between university program directors and community partners. In the last chapter in this section, Leticia McDoniel describes the internship experience from the instructor and the students’ perspective, relying on her six years of experience running internship programming with Spanish language students at Southern Methodist University. She details the types of internship projects in which her students engage, as well as the assignments designed to support their learning while working on-site with their internship provider. Through examples of student work, she explores some of the learning outcomes of students’ internship experiences. Finally, she describes the program outcomes, highlighting both student success stories and some of the difficulties of running an internship program. The concluding section of the book is dedicated to unique experiential learning opportunities that either educators or educational institutions provide. It details the contexts that attempt to mimic immersion experiences that learners might have abroad and provides examples of unique experiences in which learners can use their L2 skills while exploring other disciplines. Each of the chapters in this section presents a different experiential context serving as a model that other language educators and/ or program developers can follow. Brigid Moira Burke’s chapter presents an introduction to expeditionary learning design for use in both the high school- and college-level foreign language curriculum. Specifically, expeditionary learning design’s principles, core dimensions and practices are offered as an alternative communicative and proficiency-based method to that which is traditionally espoused by major textbook programs. In this chapter, Burke provides a brief history of expeditionary learning design, including both the European and the American models, as well as detailed definitions and explanations of the major components, such as learning expeditions, in-depth investigations and learning experiences. Because Burke teaches expeditionary learning design in her own graduate and undergraduate foreign language teaching methods courses, she is able to offer descriptions of the curriculum design components that her methods students created

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following this methodology. To this end, detailed descriptions of studentdesigned learning expeditions and investigations in French, German and Spanish are shared. In Chapter 11, Jessica Miller takes the reader, along with her students, on a trip down the Mississippi River to explore Cajun Louisiana. In this chapter, Miller describes the multidisciplinary courses in which students from French and a variety of other academic programs came together to explore the linguistic, cultural, geographical and environmental issues surrounding Cajun Louisiana. The course included a domestic trip from Eau Claire, Wisconsin to Arnaudville, Louisiana, during which time the students explored the connections between geography, culture and language. Specifically, Miller discusses the creative placemaking framework and how it applies to the specific context of Arnaudville, Louisiana. In addition to describing this domestic experience, Miller applies the creative placemaking frame to the university context providing a rationale and suggestions for how it might make foreign languages, language students and language programs more relevant, visible and vital on the university campus. In her chapter ‘Engaging Students through Foreign Language Campus Housing: A Case Study of a Small German Language Program’, Sabine Marina Jones draws attention to the surprising lack of research on, or even descriptions of, foreign language housing programs in the professional literature. In an attempt to combat this lacuna, Jones shares a detailed description of the history of foreign language housing at Oberlin College, with specific attention given to the Max Kade German House. Armed with a historical perspective and detailed examples of the types of programming offered by the German House, both alone and in conjunction with other language houses in French, Spanish and Russian, this chapter can serve as a model to others who are interested in initiating or expanding language housing on their campuses. In addition to detailed descriptions, preliminary student survey data provides feedback on which types of foreign language housing programming students find most and least engaging. The volume closes with Jacqueline Thomas’ discussion of the multiple benefits of language immersion camps. Thomas first reviews the literature on the benefits of having language students teach what they know to less proficient learners of the language through service-learning projects and teacher preparation programs. She then describes two different French language immersion camps that she developed: one week-long overnight camp for high school students and one week-long day camp for elementary students. In these descriptions, she focuses on the benefits and challenges of running the camps for both the student teaching assistants helping develop lessons and the campers themselves. This chapter will serve as a helpful guide to other practitioners interested in developing either language

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camp programming or service-learning projects in which their students teach language to less proficient students of the language. In summary, Creating Experiential Learning Opportunities for Language Learners: Acting Locally while Thinking Globally provides a detailed examination of a wide variety of domestic experiential learning contexts within the United States. The aim of this volume is to provide the reader with a better understanding of this growing field of inquiry and to encourage interested practitioners to explore experiential learning opportunities in their local areas.

References Andrew, M. (2012) Authentic cultural and linguistic learning through practicum in a nursing home. TESL-EJ 16 (1), 1–19. Auerbach, E. (ed.) (2002) Community Partnerships. Alexandria, VA: TESOL Publications. Bloom, M. and Miranda, A. (2015) Intercultural sensitivity through short-term study abroad. Language and Intercultural Communication 15 (4), 567–580. Bown, J., Dewey, D.P., Martinsen, R. and Baker, W. (2011) Foreign language houses: Identities in transition. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 8 (3), 203–235. Dewey, D.P. (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanese in intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26 (2), 303–327. Dewey, D.P., Bown, J., Baker, W. and Martinsen, R. (2011) Foreign language housing in the U.S.: Results of a nationwide survey. ADFL Bulletin 41 (1), 70–86. Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education. New York: Touchstone. DuFon, M.A. and Churchill, E.E. (eds) (2006) Language Learners in Study Abroad Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Furco, A. (1996) Service-learning: A balanced approach. In B. Taylor (ed.) Expanding Boundaries: Service and Learning (pp. 2–6). Washington, DC: Corporation for National Service. Furco, A. (2010) The engaged campus: Toward a comprehensive approach to public engagement. British Journal of Educational Studies 58 (4), 375–390. Godfrey, L., Corbin, T. and Tarone, E. (2014) Change in French second language writing in study abroad and domestic contexts. Foreign Language Annals 47 (1), 48–65. Grabois, H. (2007) Service-learning throughout the Spanish curriculum: An inclusive and expansive theory-driven model. In A.J. Wurr and J. Hellebrandt (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Service-learning in Applied Linguistics (pp. 164–189). Boston, MA: Anker Publishing Company Inc. Grabois, H. (2008) Contribution and language learning: Service-learning from a sociocultural perspective. In J.P. Lantolf and M.E. Poehner (eds) Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of Second Languages (pp. 380–406). Oakville, CT: Equinox. Hellebrandt, J. and Varona, L.T. (1999) Construyendo Puentes (Building Bridges): Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Spanish. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Hellebrandt, J., Arries, J. and Varona, L.T. (2004) Juntos: Community Partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese. Boston, MA: Thompson/Heinle. Hernández, T.A. (2010) Promoting speaking proficiency through motivation and interaction: The study abroad and classroom learning contexts. Foreign Language Annals 43 (4), 650–670.

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Hummel, K.M. (2013) Target-language community involvement: Second-language linguistic self-confidence and other perceived benefits. Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue Canadienne des Langues Vivantes 69 (1), 65–90. Institute of International Education (2015) ‘Duration of U.S. study abroad, 2000/012013/14’, Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. See http:// www.iie.org/opendoors (accessed 18 December 2015). Jackson, J. (2011) Host language proficiency, intercultural sensitivity, and study abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad 21 (1), 167–188. Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Lantolf, J.P., Thorne, S.L. and Poehner, M.E. (2015) Sociocultural theory and second language development. In B. VanPatten and J. Williams (eds) Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction (pp. 207–226). New York: Routledge. Lear, D. (2012) Languages for specific purposes curriculum creation and implementation in service to the U.S. community. Modern Language Journal 96, 158–172. Martinsen, R., Baker, W., Dewey, D.P., Bown, J. and Johnson, C. (2010) Exploring diverse settings for language acquisition and use: Comparing study abroad, service learning abroad, and foreign language housing. Applied Language Learning 20 (1), 45–66. O’Meara, K., Lounder, A. and Hodges, A. (2013) University leaders’ use of episodic power to support faculty community engagement. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 19 (2), 5–20. Purmensky, K.L. (2009) Service-Learning for Diverse Communities: Critical Pedagogy and Mentoring English Language Learners. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc. Sigmon, R. (1979) Service-learning: Three principles. Synergist 8, 9–11. Stewart, S. (2007) Crossing borders/forging identities: Echoes of symbiosis between classroom and community. In A.J. Wurr and J. Hellebrandt (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Service-Learning in Applied Linguistics (pp. 82–114). Boston, MA: Anker Publishing Company Inc. Thomas, J. (ed.) (2012) Etudiants sans frontières: Service learning in French. Carbondale, IL: AATF. Twombly, S.B., Salisbury, M.H., Tumanut, S.D. and Klute, P. (2012) Study abroad in a new global century: Renewing the promise, refining the purpose. ASHE Higher Education Report 38 (4), 1–152. Van Lier, L. (2000) From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In J. Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning (pp. 245–259). New York: Oxford University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wurr, A.J. and Hellebrandt, J. (eds) (2007) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Service-Learning in Applied Linguistics. Boston, MA: Anker Publishing Company Inc.

Part 1 Experiential Learning through Community Engagement

1 Multilingual Learners and Leaders Adrian J. Wurr

Experiential education programs encompass a wide range of curricula, from traditional internships, classroom-based learning in labs and teaching practicums to the community-based learning afforded by volunteering. As shown in Figure 1.1, internships and field experiences primarily serve as pre-professional training and career development opportunities for students. At the other end of the experiential education continuum, volunteer programs such as Alternative Spring Break provide direct-service opportunities for students to make a difference in their communities. The locus of activity often shifts between campus and community over the life of a project; most programs also move back and forth along the continuum over time. Indeed, almost any experiential education project can be crafted to emphasize outcomes at one end of the spectrum or the other in order to meet its defined goals. This chapter will describe lesser-known programs in the United States that engage students of different ages and backgrounds in experiential learning activities that are most often described as service learning (SL), but that may share qualities with other types of experiential education. The purpose is to provide readers with a better sense of the range and scope of projects that are possible in different educational settings, while also introducing some of the supporting research and scholarship. All cases work with linguistically and culturally diverse populations to highlight Service Recipient

FOCUS BENEFICIARY

Learning Provider

SERVICE-LEARNING COMMUNITY SERVICE VOLUNTEERISM

FIELD EDUCATION INTERNSHIP

Figure 1.1 Experiential education continuum Adapted from Furco (1996: 3). Reproduced by permission of the author

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the beneficial effects of engaging people from diverse backgrounds in meaningful activities toward a common goal.

Literature Review Learning outcomes Earlier reports involving English language learners (ELLs) in SL provided some evidence of the ways in which language learners benefit from volunteering in the community, including positive outcomes in social, cognitive and affective domains. In the social domain, learning about the target culture (Bippus, 2011; Bippus & Eslami, 2013; Heuser, 1999; Seltzer, 1998; Steinke, 2009) is perhaps most prevalent and is supported by the social turn in language-learning theories. Cognitively, gains in academic writing skills (Hamstra, 2010; Wurr, 2002, 2009) are most often cited, given the frequent use of written reflection and the early adoption of SL by composition scholars (e.g. Adler-Kassner et al., 1997; Deans, 2000; Deans et al., 2010). Gaining a ‘confidence to contribute’ (Whittig & Hale, 2007) is frequently cited as a main outcome in the personal domain for ELLs who participate in SL (e.g. Bippus & Eslami, 2013; Perren et al., 2013; Rueckert, 2013; Steinke, 2009). Recent research reports provide additional support for the proposition that SL can potentially enhance learners’ knowledge and use of all language skills. Askildson et al. (2013) found that international students enrolled in an intensive English summer program that included SL improved their English language proficiency at a rate that was three times greater than traditional classroom-based instruction: According to this model, a standard intensive English program with the equivalent 25 hr of instruction per week and a total of 200 hr of instruction over 8 weeks should result in an average gain of 20 points. The pre- to post-test gains in the present study are more than three times greater than this predicted outcome and suggest the potential of a robust facilitation effect. (Askildson et al., 2013: 424)

Study Abroad and Intensive English Programs (IEPs) An IEP program that I helped to administer at the University of Idaho involved international students in SL projects while studying abroad in the United States. The Central American Youth Ambassador (CAYA) program is one of several educational exchange programs sponsored by the US Department of State to bring aspiring youth leaders from around the world to study in America while participating in civic engagement and leadership programs. The goal of these programs is to create change agents who will

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have a positive impact on their communities while also fostering positive relations with future foreign leaders. The first six months of the program were devoted to intensive English language lessons for the students at a neighboring college while they lived with American families in the community. The second half of the students’ year in the United States was devoted to specialized training in social entrepreneurship, leadership and civic engagement. Custom university classes and community-based field experiences focused on sustainable agricultural practices, since the university and the students’ hometowns were in agrarian settings. For example, one course taught by an education graduate focused on climate change and environmental systems. Students researched the topic online, attended guest lectures by university and community experts and volunteered on a local farm that promoted sustainable agriculture. The students also visited local nurseries and community gardens to better understand sustainable agriculture supply chains and volunteered with the largest environmental non-profit in the area, The Palouse–Clearwater Environmental Institute, helping with tree planting and wetland restoration projects. In the summer, CAYA students assisted with lessons at the University of Idaho’s McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS), which provides hands-on environmental science lessons to thousands of K-12 students across the state every year. Most MOSS teachers are AmeriCorps members and graduate students. These AmeriCorps members complete graduate coursework in education and/or environmental sustainability, while volunteering full-time in summer and part-time during the school year. CAYA students also participated in a variety of cultural events, including serving as guest DJs on a local radio station, where they interspersed music with historical and cultural essays on their hometowns. They also performed traditional dances at local schools and civic organizations. In all, a total of 18 students in two cohorts completed a combined total of 5680 hours of community service over the two years in which the program operated, providing valuable service to communities that might not have otherwise been able to afford it.

Long-Term Impacts What happens when these learners return to their home countries? Bickel et al. (2013) report on a 12-week online conversation course for CAYA alumni that is designed to provide a platform for further English language learning, youth engagement, social responsibility and community leadership. The student response was overwhelmingly positive, challenging the instructors’ ability to keep up with the conversation. Students proved adept at creatively using English across multiple online platforms and geographic borders to reimagine and project themselves as agents of positive social change and as emerging community leaders.

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While the results from this study show that learners can and do apply the lessons they learned in the field to other settings and situations in the future, Cameron (2015) goes even further by investigating the impact of a single SL course for advanced IEP students three years later, providing evidence of long-term positive impacts on civic engagement as a result of ELLs participating in SL. Cameron finds that ‘a cycle for actualizing social justice emerges to show participants’ shift, post-service, from awareness to critical consciousness and on to continued action, with individual differences as a factor in determining current attitudes and behaviors’ (Perren & Wurr, 2015b: 26). While Cameron’s study shows the long-term impact that civic engagement can have on the learners themselves, others have noted the generational effects that ELL service leaders can have on society as a whole. For example, Fajardo et al. (2014) note: As Latina/o college students increase their community engagement, they inadvertently provide members of the community with leadership models and expanded networks in the college environment. This subsequently increases the community members’ chances for social mobility. The role of community engagement cannot be underestimated. (Fajardo et al., 2014: 153) The bottom line here is that ‘global citizenship should be extended to include those who are traditionally regarded as potential recipients of service’ (Erasmus, 2011: 366).

K-12 ESL Settings One of the best-kept secrets in the literature on SL has been the CocaCola Valued Youth program developed by the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) in San Antonio, Texas. While the program has received its share of funding and awards from government, corporate and educational leaders, it has not caught the attention of SL leaders because it does not describe its cross-age tutoring program as SL, though it integrates many of SL’s principles of best practice (Honnet & Poulsen, 1989; Perren & Wurr, 2015a). Started in 1984, the program employs at-risk (defined by the program as performing at least two years below grade level) secondary students as tutors and mentors for younger learners. ‘The program has been implemented in 550 schools in the continental United States and Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, benefiting almost 117,000 secondary and elementary students’ (IDRA, 2009: 4). According to the IDRA’s 2013 annual report, the tutoring program ‘has kept 98 percent of its tutors in school – more than 33,000 students, young people who were at risk of dropping out. The lives of more than 787,000 children,

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families, and educators have been positively impacted by the program’ (IDRA, 2013: 26). The basic program structure provides academic credit to secondary tutors who assist younger learners in math and English. According to the program director, Dr Linda Cantu, the tutors learn these basic academic skills better while gaining self-esteem by serving as role models in school and society. The tutors have up to three tutees per year, working with them in their classes from Monday through Thursday, then completing their own reflection journals and other schoolwork on Friday. The younger learners’ performance on standardized tests shows a clear improvement in math and English; the tutors’ test scores are not as uniformly positive, but with a 98% retention rate, success can be seen in areas as or more important than standardized test scores. One teacher I spoke with said that she had seen many tutors’ grades improve, moving from poor to honors, as a result of participating in the Coca-Cola Valued Youth program. These success stories challenge many teachers’ and administrators’ views of ‘problem students’, from ‘dropouts’ to model students and citizens: When students are placed in responsible roles and supported in their efforts, powerful changes occur. Valued youth tutors stay in school, improve their literacy and thinking skills, develop self-esteem, feel they belong in school, and attend class more regularly. And schools shift to a practice of valuing youth considered at risk. (IDRA, 2009: 4) The teachers, administrators, tutors, students and parents who comprise the schools in which the program operates also reflect the views of society at large since, as Dewey (1900) reminds us, the classroom is a microcosm of society. Thus, the negative stereotypes associated with ‘at-risk’ ESL students, immigrants and dropouts in the eyes of many, are reversed when kids help kids to become model students and members of society. In Young Citizens of the World: Teaching Elementary Social Studies through Civic Engagement, Boyle-Baise and Zevin (2014) provide many examples of kids learning about and acting upon local and global issues. Each of the eight chapters includes suggestions for acting upon the lesson plan ideas through civic action (engagement in civic affairs) and/or SL. There is one chapter on immigration and world migration patterns entitled ‘Developing World-mindedness’ and one on extraordinary people in American history such as Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. Student inquiry is organized into four areas: experience, inquire, create and reflect. Although the book does not focus on ELLs or language acquisition specifically, the authors of each chapter note in their contextual comments that the classes and schools were typically diverse American schools. For example, one chapter describes Diane Lukasik’s class at Arlington Heights as representing ‘a spectrum of economic, racial, linguistic, and intellectual

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diversity’ and also mentions five ELLs in Patty Harpring’s class at University Heights Elementary School (Boyle-Baise & Zevin, 2014: 93). Thus, while the focus of these lessons is not explicitly language instruction, each class included ELLs who learned language through inquiry-based, actionoriented, content-area instruction. Chapter eight presents the authors’ rationale for developmentally appropriate SL in elementary social studies, which has been shown to heighten school engagement, foster civic development and promote moral growth: Elementary years are a time for children to spread their wings, building self-confidence, diversifying friendships, developing empathy, and sensing their place in the world. Service learning can bolster these changes, heightening school engagement, fostering civic development, and promoting moral growth (Root & Seum, 2010). When students work cooperatively in response to an authentic community need, their efforts can spur a sense of belonging, boost personal competence, foster perspective taking, and confirm the relevance of school studies. Also, students who practice citizenship through problem-solving in their communities are more likely to grasp (and relish) the role of engaged citizen [sic] than those who do not. (Boyle-Baise & Zevin, 2014: 180–181) Importantly, they cite several research studies (Johnson & Notah, 1999; Schine, 1997; Soslau & Yost, 2007) that show that ‘service-learning seems to be beneficial in urban schools with culturally diverse and/or low-socio-economic populations […]. Service learning enhanced students’ self-concepts, afforded real world connections, and improved school attendance’ (Boyle-Baise & Zevin, 2014: 190). Citing Joan Schine’s (1997) work, they argue that ‘service projects allow students from minority groups to “become the doers, rather than the done to”’ (Boyle-Baise & Zevin, 2014: 170, emphasis mine). In comments that echo the IDRA’s contention that students will rise to the challenge and responsibilities to which they are trusted, Schine ‘describes youth in service as problem-solvers, who identify problems, inventory their skill sets, determine a course of action, and address the concern. They, along with their communities, came to see themselves as resources’ (Boyle-Baise & Zevin, 2014: 190–191). For middle and high school students, SL addresses different developmental needs that are often neglected in the traditional school curriculum. According to Schine (1997), these include the need to acquire and test new skills, develop a range of relations with both peers and adults, be permitted to make real decisions within appropriate and clearly understood limits, have the opportunity to speak

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and be heard, and discover that young people can make a difference. (Schine, 1997: 171) Looking at lifelong civic engagement patterns among Hispanics, Fajardo et al. (2014) found clear connections between early life experiences and later civic engagement rates. For example, high school students who tutored someone else were more likely to volunteer in college and those engaged in college were more likely to remain so after graduation. Latina/o and African American students who attended selective institutions of higher education were more likely than their Caucasian counterparts to be engaged in their communities beyond college. Many of these students went on to start or lead nonprofit organizations in their respective communities. Thus, volunteer and civic activities in college have the potential for considerable impact on future behaviors and community engagement for Latina/o students who attend private institutions. (Fajardo et al., 2014: 142) The early volunteer experiences of minority youth not only establish lifelong habits of civic engagement, but also encourage future generations to lead lives of service: For Latina/o college students, volunteering not only develops civic leadership, but it also has the potential to expand the networks of the community members that they serve. These networks could play a major role in creating human capital for existing and rising generations. (Fajardo et al., 2014: 143)

Higher Education While SL has been critiqued as a pedagogy that is primarily for white middle-class students to learn about less privileged minority communities (Bennett, 2000), learners of all backgrounds can benefit from learning about others and themselves outside of their comfort zone. For this reason, many universities have added outreach activities for the growing numbers of international students on their campuses to teach target language and culture skills (Elfeel & Bailey, 2015; Heuser, 1999). For example, at Northeastern University, Miller and Kostka (2015) describe an interdisciplinary ‘American Classroom Program’ for international students who need additional language support prior to enrollment in mainstream undergraduate courses. Students are enrolled in several classes per semester, which may include English reading, writing, listening and speaking, American history, math and/or science, philosophy and experiential education. To provide an experiential learning experience to

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international students in the American Classroom Program, an SL course entitled Community Learning was introduced into the curriculum in fall 2012. According to Miller and Kostka (2015: 85), ‘This course requires students to use their evolving knowledge of English and American culture to engage in service to the community, an experience that is often new to our international students’. In a recent iteration of the course, many students participated in a robust intercultural and intergenerational oral history project with bicultural seniors. The oral history project informed and reinforced lessons learned in the students’ coursework in American history and academic reading and writing, including three argumentative essays and one research paper on a social issue related to ideas that emerged from their weekly interviews with elders. The community learning course also ‘informed their research and writing of oral history essays and provided support for students’ on-going reflections and meaning-making’ (Miller & Kostka, 2015: 85). Gaps in understanding inevitably arose, sometimes due to language differences and sometimes due to the different lived experiences of young and old. But these gaps, which Piaget (1954) refers to as cognitive dissonance, are a primary source of learning in experiential education, as students grapple to resolve the inconsistencies that they see between issues described in their textbooks and those experienced first-hand in the real world. Miller and Kostka describe how the international students and their elderly interlocutors, as well as agency staff and university faculty, overcame and learned from this dissonance to cooperatively construct meaning through the telling of life stories. SL projects such as those with senior citizens and children (cf. Mulvaney, 2007; Sousa, 2015, respectively) are excellent choices for ELL service providers, because these populations are often more willing to overlook language errors in the interest of continued conversation and interaction. Reports on SL in college composition are common, with several monographs (Adler-Kassner et al., 1997; Deans, 2000; Deans et al., 2010) and journals (Reflections and Community Literacy Journal) devoted to the subject. Deans’ (2000) description of the different kinds of writing that can accompany various service projects remains one of the most practical and useful models in the field today. His typology contrasts three prepositions to highlight the differences in programs in which students write about, for or with community partners. Drawing on Dewey’s (1938) notion that experience is the best teacher, writing about service produces academic texts such as reports and reflective essays. This contrasts with projects in which students write for community partners by producing technical documents such as websites, three-panel brochures, public service announcements or, in more advanced courses, grant applications. Writing for community partners draws on Freirean notions of critical literacy (cf. Freire, 1968) by using language to promote social change. Finally, students can engage

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in collaborative writing projects or oral history projects with community partners, applying Vygotsky’s (1978) theories of social interactionism in the process. Wendler Shah (2015) reports on a writing about a first-year composition course at the University of Arizona that evolved into a more equitable and reciprocal teaching–learning situation. International students at the university were matched with generation 1.5 students (students born to immigrant parents but who received some schooling in America and thus identify as American but exhibit some ESL-like language skills) at a local high school to serve as writing tutors. Using interviews with three high school students and one instructor, Wendler Shah describes how the partnerships challenged traditional notions of who is ‘served’ and who is ‘serving’. When the high school students realized that the issues the international students might face in learning the language and culture were similar to those they faced as undocumented and/or immigrant students themselves, they began to see themselves as the ones helping, rather than the other way around. These shifts in roles led to shifts in power, giving the high school students the authority to offer insights and assistance. The initial hesitation that the high school students felt in sharing their work with university students gave way to a more reciprocal teaching–learning partnership (Wendler Shah, 2015: 178). Purmensky (2015) similarly reports on a cross-age, distance education tutoring program that matched 10 college teachers of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) majors with 10 at-risk ELL middle school students using video-conferencing software. The advantage of this arrangement is that it allows students living in geographically remote areas to receive the same mentoring that others living closer to the university often receive. Purmensky reports on prior research on ESL mentoring programs that showed positive impacts on academic success and engagement with the school (Diversi & Mecham, 2005; Lara-Alecio et al., 2012) as well as increases in student language acquisition (Polansky, 2004) and retention (Herrera et al., 2011). Her own research findings add to this literature. Aided by the use of video-conferencing software and students’ reflective journals, Purmensky provides rich descriptions of language learning and teaching that occurred in situ, making her report appealing to teachers and researchers alike. As described earlier and in Figure 1.1, the experiential education continuum encompasses a range of hands-on learning experiences that vary in the extent to which they emphasize student learning outcomes or community impacts. Sigmon, who originally coined the term ‘service learning’, describes three types of SL programs that vary similarly. According to Sigmon (1994), SERVICE-learning programs emphasize community impacts, while service-LEARNING programs focus more on student learning outcomes. SERVICE-LEARNING programs balance both

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objectives, but this is not to say that these programs are better than the others. The goal is for the program to meet its objectives successfully, whether those are campus or community-based. Ene and Orlando (2015) describe an academic English program at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) that fits Sigmon’s definition of service-LEARNING programs well. As the program director and course instructor, respectively, Ene and Orlando worked with their university’s SL center to add an SL component to an existing reading and vocabulary course for advanced undergraduate ESL students. Working with a local organization, an urban farm that grew produce for local food pantries, students in the course joined with others across campus for a day of service on the farm while reading about service and food insecurity issues in their classes leading up to the event. Analyses of student writing and pre/post-survey responses indicated that, in addition to gains in academic reading and writing skills, students gained a greater ‘understanding [of] the relationships between service and community and the importance of volunteer work’ (Ene & Orlando, 2015: 125). The authors conclude: By finding validation for the role they can play in the TL [target language] community, learners may feel more empowered and motivated to learn the TL, about society, or both (Norton Peirce, 1995; Pavlenko, 2002). If the ultimate duty of a language teacher or class is to empower the language learners to be heard, through participation, and ‘claim the right to speak’ outside the classroom, we can say that our SL-enhanced ESL course was a step in the right direction. (Ene & Orlando, 2015: 127) Daniel Rueckert (2013) describes a community English teaching program for MA TESOL students that comes closer to what Sigmon categorizes as SERVICE-LEARNING, balancing service and learning outcomes equally. On the one hand, having a teaching practicum for MA TESOL students is clearly designed to address student learning outcomes. Most reputable TESOL programs have a teaching practicum and many of these have students working in ESL classes in the community with a greater diversity of learners than is typically found on a college campus. (Note that a community-based teaching practicum is not the same as an SL project. See Wagner & Lopez’s (2015) useful discussion of distinctions between the two.). On the other hand, since the Community English School at Oklahoma City College is open to all members of the community free of charge, its community goals and impacts are on par with student learning outcomes. The other unique aspect is that the TESOL teachers are mostly international students, which, as Rueckert notes, adds to the challenge of teaching for them, since they have not had as much experience with

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student-centered teaching methods as American preservice teachers might have had. Yet with the benefit of a structured environment in which they can practice new teaching methods, all of the teachers in Rueckert’s study gained greater self-confidence as TESOL professionals and in their ability to implement new teaching methods. Thus, the ‘confidence to contribute’ in society noted in earlier studies on SL in TESOL (Bippus & Eslami, 2013; Perren et al., 2013; Steinke, 2009; Whittig & Hale, 2007) is easily extended to professional arenas as well. Where a program is housed and administered says a lot about where it hopes to have the most impact. Community-based programs are most often run by and for the community and so they naturally fall in Sigmon’s SERVICE-learning category and the left side of Furco’s (1996) experiential education continuum shown in Figure 1.1. Two TESOL teacher education programs with this design feature, Ball State University and the University of Hawaii’s Department of Second Language Studies, are described by Zygmunt-Fillwalk et al. (2014) and Cooney (2015), respectively. Ball State’s program immerses preservice teachers in the community for an intensive, semester-long practicum that comprises the entirety of the students’ work that semester. The goal of the program is to not only provide the preservice teachers with hands-on experiences in classrooms in the communities in which they will serve as professional teachers, as most practicums do, but also to provide teacher candidates with a better understanding of community resources outside of school. For this reason, the preservice teachers’ time outside of class is spent volunteering at a local community center. They also attend neighborhood council meetings, church services and other activities central to the community’s identity and the lived experiences of its residents: Differentiated from more typical service-learning projects done as isolated events without more fully developed contextual understanding, candidates work not just cooperatively, but in collaboration with the community, to realize shared vision. This type of ‘critical servicelearning’ (Rosenberger, 2000) is characterized by work with community constituents through which relationships are built and trust is established. (Zygmunt-Fillwalk et al., 2014: 11–12) By immersing students in the community, the Schools Within the Context of Community program at Ball State provides its preservice teachers with a holistic understanding of their future students and target communities. They come to see the community not as a blank slate or a problem to be overcome, but as a diverse and resourceful place where children are surrounded by teachers, mentors and role models from all walks of life. The community, in turn, has come to see the university program and its students as a trusted ally in addressing and changing

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community conditions. The win–win reciprocal relationship between campus and community ensures that all participants are equally invested in the continued success of the program. Cooney (2015) describes a fledging SL program at the University of Hawaii. TESOL majors are matched with homeless Micronesian families in an effort to teach the life and career skills necessary to escape the generational cycles of poverty and homelessness that many Micronesians find themselves caught in when they immigrate to Hawaii. Cooney describes how the program ‘has teetered on the brink of extinction’ for years due to indifference on campus and systemic discrimination against Micronesians in the community. Yet the program has survived, with the help of a handful of committed volunteer teachers, administrators and staff from the university and community agency. The community agency tasked with helping the Micronesians to assimilate into mainstream Hawaiian society was an emergency homeless shelter for families, couples and single women, with a separate men’s shelter in a nearby building. Open-enrollment ESL and life skills classes were held in the buildings several nights a week, with a spotty and transitory attendance. Support from and communication between the university and community agency was even more tenuous initially. But a useful feedback loop emerged from complaints in the student teachers’ reflection journals, which led to calls from the supervising teacher to agency staff, resulting in substantial changes in agency staffing and procedures to ensure more successful outcomes for all (e.g. better communication and emerging trust between the university and community partner, which, it is hoped, will lead to a more stable, sustainable and effective program for the homeless Micronesians served). This same type of feedback loop was noted by Tice and Nelson (2013) in their chapter on effective community field experiences and it highlights one potential benefit to the community inherent in almost all SL projects: learning your blind spots and how others in the community see and experience interactions with the agency.

Conclusion This brief review of the literature on engaging multilingual learners and leaders in SL reveals several key points worth remembering. First, positioning ELLs as service providers leads to ‘confidence to contribute’, enhanced learning outcomes across all domains, lifelong engagement and generational impacts on the communities in which service leaders live. Second, designing service projects in which diverse learners serve side-by-side offers the added bonus of breaking down negative stereotypes and fears of the Other, providing students, schools and communities with safe and effective lessons in multiculturalism. Finally, a range of experiential learning activities exist to meet all educational and community needs; the

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most successful SL projects meet identified needs, whether these target community impacts, student learning outcomes or both.

References Adler-Kassner, L., Crooks, R. and Watters, A. (eds) (1997) Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Askildson, L.R., Kelly, A.C., Mick, C.S. and Snyder, C. (2013) Developing multiple literacies in academic English through service-learning and community engagement. TESOL Journal 4 (3), 402–438. Bennett, B.C. (2000) The best of intentions: Service-learning and noblesse oblige at a Christian college. Reflections: A Journal on Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy 1 (2), 18–23. Bickel, B., Shin, J.K., Taylor, J., Faust, H. and Penniston, T. (2013) Learning English internationally while engaging communities locally: Online EFL supporting community learning for young leaders. TESOL Journal 4 (3), 439–462. Bippus, S.L. (2011) Adult ESL students and service-learning: Voices, experiences, and perspectives. PhD thesis, Texas A&M University. See http://oaktrust. library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2011-08-9763/BIPPUSDISSERTATION.pdf?sequence=2 (accessed 22 October 2015). Bippus, S.L. and Eslami, Z.R. (2013) Adult ESOL students and service-learning: Voices, experiences, and perspectives. TESOL Journal 4 (3), 587–597. Boyle-Baise, M. and Zevin, J. (2014) Young Citizens of the World: Teaching Elementary Social Studies through Civic Engagement (2nd edn). New York: Routledge. Cameron, L.M. (2015) Attitudes, behaviors, and the longitudinal impact of social justice service-learning for language learners. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 56–79). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Cooney, B. (2015) Island to island: TESOL students teach homeless Micronesian migrants in Hawai’i. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 396–427). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Deans, T. (2000) Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition. Urbana, IL: NCTE. Deans, T., Roswell, B. and Wurr, A.J. (eds) (2010) Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook. New York: Bedford/St. Martin. Dewey, J. (1900) School and Society (2nd edn). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago. Dewey, J. (1938) Education and Experience. New York: Macmillan. Diversi, M. and Mecham, C. (2005) Latino(a) students and Caucasian mentors in a rural after-school program: Towards empowering adult-youth relationships. Journal of Community Psychology 33 (1), 31–40. Elfeel, S. and Bailey, L.C. (2015) The potential of service-learning in shifting ESL adults’ sense of agency in an informal ESL literacy center. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 223–245). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Ene, E. and Orlando, H. (2015) Integrating service-learning in EAP programs: Building the village that it takes. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-learning in TESOL (pp. 112–139). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Erasmus, M. (2011) A South African perspective on North American international service learning. In R.G. Bringle, J.A. Hatcher and S.G. Jones (eds) International Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Research (pp. 347–371). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

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Fajardo, I., Lott, J.L. and Contreras, F. (2014) Volunteerism: Latina/o students and private-college experiences. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 13 (3), 139–157. Freire, P. (1968) The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (M.B. Ramos, trans.). New York: Continuum. Furco, A. (1996) Service-learning: A balanced approach to experiential education. In Corporation for National Service (ed.) Expanding Boundaries: Service and Learning (pp. 2–6). Washington, DC: Corporation for National Service. Hamstra, M.D.P. (2010) The impact of service-learning on second language writing skills. MA thesis, Indiana University, Indianapolis. Herrera, C., Grossman, J.B., Kauh, T.J. and McMaken, J. (2011) Mentoring in schools: An impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring. Child Development 82 (1), 346–361. Heuser, L. (1999) Service-learning as a pedagogy to promote the content, cross-cultural, and language-learning of ESL students. TESL Canada Journal 17 (1), 54–71. Honnet, E.P. and Poulsen, S.J. (1989) Wingspread Special Report: Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning. Racine, WI: The Johnson Foundation. Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) (2009) Continuities: Lessons for the Future of Education from the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program. San Antonio, TX: Intercultural Development Research Association. Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) (2013) Annual Report: The Power of Possibility. San Antonio, TX: Intercultural Development Research Association. See http://issuu.com/idrareports/docs/power_of_possibility (accessed July 2014). Johnson, A. and Notah, D. (1999) Service learning: History, literature review, and a pilot study of eight graders. The Elementary School Journal 99 (5), 453–467. Lara-Alecio, R., Tong, F., Irby, B.J., Guerrero, C., Huerta, M. and Fan, Y. (2012) The effect of an instructional intervention on middle school English learners’ science and English reading achievement. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 49 (8), 987–1011. Miller, J. and Kostka, I. (2015) Bridging cultures and generations: An exploration of intergenerational and intercultural oral history projects with English language learners. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 80–108). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Mulvaney, M.K. (2007) In a heartbeat: Academic and affective benefits of an intergenerational exploration of memoir. Reflections: A Journal on Writing, ServiceLearning, and Community Literacy 6 (1), 169–180. Norton Peirce, B. (1995) Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly 29 (1), 9–31. Pavlenko, A. (2002) Poststructuralist approaches to the study of social factors in second language learning and use. In V. Cook (ed.) Portraits of the L2 User (pp. 275–302). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Perren, J., Grove, N. and Thornton, J. (2013) Three empowering curricular innovations for service-learning in ESL programs. TESOL Journal 4 (3), 463–486. Perren, J.M. and Wurr, A.J. (eds) (2015a) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL. Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Perren, J.M. and Wurr, A.J. (2015b) Higher education and intensive English programs (IEPs). In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 25–26). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Piaget, J. (1954) The Construction of Reality in the Child. New York: Basic Books. Polansky, S.G. (2004) Tutoring for community outreach: A course model for language learning and bridge building between universities and public schools. Foreign Language Annals 37 (3), 367–373.

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Purmensky, K. (2015) Bridging the gap for English learners: Service-learning digital mentorship for school success. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 569–598). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Root, S. and Seum, N.W. (2010) Service-learning in elementary schools: What’s developmentally appropriate? In J.C. Kielsmeir, S. Root, C. Pernu and B. Lynsgtad (eds) Growing into Greatness: The State of Service-Learning (pp. 44–54). St Paul, MN: National Youth Leadership Council. Rueckert, D.L. (2013) Fostering confidence and risk taking in MA in TESOL students via community English teaching. TESOL Journal 4 (3), 514–533. Schine, J. (1997) School-based service: Reconnecting schools, communities, and youth at the margin. Theory into Practice 36 (3), 170–175. Seltzer, R. (1998). Volunteerism and ESL makes everyone a winner. Paper presented at the XV Rocky Mountain Regional TESOL Conference, Tucson, AZ. Sigmon, R.L. (1994) Serving to Learn, Learning to Serve. Linking Service with Learning. Washington DC: Council of Independent Colleges. Soslau, E. and Yost, D. (2007) Urban service-learning: An authentic teaching strategy to deliver a standards-driven curriculum. Journal of Experiential Education 30 (1), 36–53. Sousa, E-K. (2015) Service-learning as a course component in an intensive English program. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 28–55). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Steinke, M.H. (2009) Learning English by helping others: Implementing service learning into the ESOL classroom. The Journal of Civic Commitment 12. Tice, K. and Nelson, L. (2013) Toward understanding effective community field experiences. In V.M. Jagla, J.A. Erickson and A.S. Tinkler (eds) Transforming Teacher Education through Service-Learning (pp. 73–98). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wagner, S. and Lopez, J.G. (2015) Meeting the challenges of service-learning teaching with international TESOL student teachers. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 277–305). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Wendler Shah, R. (2015) “It was sort of hard to understand them at times”: Community perspectives on ELL students in service-learning partnerships. In J.M. Perren and A.J. Wurr (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service-Learning in TESOL (pp. 169–193). Champaign, IL: Common Ground. Whittig, E. and Hale, A. (2007) Confidence to contribute: Service-learning in ESL. In A.J. Wurr and J. Hellebrandt (eds) Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Service-Learning in Applied Linguistics (pp. 378–404). Bolton, MA: Anker. Wurr, A.J. (2002) Service-learning and student writing: An investigation of effects. In A. Furco and S. Billig (eds) Service-Learning through a Multidisciplinary Lens: Advances in Service-Learning Research (Vol. 2, pp. 103–121). Berkeley, CA: Information Age. Wurr, A.J. (2009) Composing cultural diversity and civic literacy: English language learners as service providers. Reflections: A Journal on Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy 9 (1), 162–190. Zygmunt-Fillwalk, E., Clark, P., Clausen, J. and Mucherah, W. (2014) Teacher education redefined: Contextual cognizance and the potential for community impact. International Journal of Research on Service-Learning in Teacher Education 2, 1–41.

2 Community Engagement in Spanish Departments at US Colleges and Universities: Where Is It? Josef Hellebrandt

Community engagement (CE) no longer occupies a niche at US colleges and universities. To the contrary, in 2013, a team of researchers from Indiana University’s Center for Postsecondary Research, which publishes the National Survey of Student Engagement,1 even wrote that anything having to do with engagement in higher education ‘is in vogue’ (McCormick et al., 2013: 47). This includes terms such as ‘student engagement’, ‘civic engagement’ and ‘community engagement’. Not surprisingly, this growing interest has been accompanied by efforts among higher education groups to further promote, as well as to publicly recognize, institutions’ engagement efforts. In 2006, two national higher education initiatives were launched: the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Carnegie) and its Community Engagement Classification2 and the Corporation of National and Community Service’s (CNCS) President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.3 Within five years, both initiatives saw significant increases. The number of Carnegie awardees went up 52%, from 115 in 2010 to 240 in 2015,4 as did the number of recipients of the President’s Honor Roll, which showed an increase of 19%, from 634 in 2009 to 780 in 2014. 5 In Spanish, too, engagement efforts aimed at promoting student learning through community interactions have been met with increased interest and involvement among association members and practitioners, as well as researchers. Yet, while the field’s literature mirrors this growth and disciplinary acceptance, it is surprisingly underrepresented in the way that Spanish programs promote and publicize their engagement efforts through their websites. This chapter reports on conflicting perspectives as to the presence and availability of CE in Spanish. In the first part, it offers an overview of CE in higher education. Parts two and three discuss disciplinary engagement efforts in Spanish and pedagogies of engagement.

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Community Engagement in Spanish Departments at US Colleges and Universities

19

Part four presents and discusses the findings of a study examining the extent to which Spanish programs share their curricular engagement work on their websites. A reflection about the results concludes this chapter.

Community Engagement What is ‘community engagement’? The Carnegie Foundation defines the term as: collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. The purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good. (Carnegie Foundation, 2015) Institutions seeking Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification are asked to provide information about institutional identity and culture, information about institutional commitment and to inform and document their efforts in the areas of curricular engagement, outreach and partnership. A key area in the new Carnegie classification is curricular engagement, which is described as ‘the teaching, learning, and scholarship that engages faculty, students, and community in mutually beneficial and respectful collaboration. Their interactions address community identified needs, deepen students’ civic and academic learning, enhance community wellbeing, and enrich the scholarship of the institution’ (Carnegie Foundation, 2015). A similar intent of engaging communities but with different goals underlies the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. As with the Carnegie effort, the Honor Roll initiative extended an invitation to institutions of higher education to demonstrate their efforts in partnering with communities. More specifically, it ‘highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement by recognizing institutions that achieve meaningful, measureable outcomes in the communities they serve’ (Corporation of National and Community Service, 2015). Both 2006 initiatives not only resulted in significant increases in the number of recognitions, but they also represent – speaking for the Carnegie classification – ‘A major force in recent acceleration of interest and practice in community engagement for higher education…’ (Driscoll, 2014: 3). Both efforts also signify a reaction to calls for educational renewal.

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Part 1: Experiential Learning through Community Engagement

Between 1999 and 2005, numerous publications offered new visions for American higher education, among them the following three books. The first, Colleges and Universities as Citizen (Bringle et al., 1999: 203), calls for a greater role of CE and its incorporation into all teaching, research and service and reminds readers that what is at stake is ‘not only the well-being, intensity of purpose, and level of social responsibility of institutions of higher education but also the well-being of the society to which institutions and persons are called to serve’. In Educating Citizens, the editors suggest that ‘higher education has a critical role to play in shaping character and a sense of social responsibility in the U.S. citizenry’, particularly among undergraduates, and argue that ‘the two strands of undergraduate education—disciplinary, or academic, on one hand and moral and civic on the other—can be mutually enhancing’ (Colby et al., 2003: xii–xiii). The third publication, Higher Education for the Public Good, expands on the role of universities as citizens. Echoing the sentiments of his fellow contributors and co-editors, Chambers (2005: 4) writes: ‘Many believe that higher education is more than a vehicle for providing economic opportunity for individuals and that without a determined effort higher education may soon forfeit its ability to be a major force in shaping the future of our world’. These publications would become primers for significant CE efforts in subsequent years, at the institutional level as well as among the membership of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP).

Community Engagement in Spanish As much as the initiatives by the Carnegie and CNCS have incentivized, and continue to incentivize, colleges and universities to pay greater attention to CE and community service, the development and implementation, particularly in the area of curricular engagement, has been advanced by others; key among them is Campus Compact6 and, from the vantage point of this chapter, the discipline of Spanish, primarily through the AATSP, its national association. In Spanish, CE has also become commonplace, particularly through service learning. In 1999, Spanish joined the American Association for Higher Education’s (AAHE) series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines. Its contribution was Construyendo Puentes (Building Bridges): Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Spanish. Not surprisingly, the focus of most of the articles in the volume was on service learning. For example, ‘Servicelearning and Spanish: A missing link’ (Hale, 1999), ‘Service-learning and language acquisition theory and practice’ (Mullaney, 1999) and ‘Raising cultural awareness through service-learning in Spanish culture and conversation: Tutoring the migrant education program in Salem’ (Varas, 1999) represent early efforts and explorations into applying this pedagogy to Spanish.

Community Engagement in Spanish Departments at US Colleges and Universities

21

In 2004, the AATSP published Juntos: Community Partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese. Again, the focus was on service learning. Of the 19 articles in the AATSP’s professional development volume, a majority (16 or 84%) addressed it from multiple perspectives, highlighting theoretical contexts, for example ‘From service-learning to social activism: Growing the “soul of a citizen”’ (Lesman, 2004) and efforts with multiple community groups, such as ‘It takes a holler: Appalachia goes Hispanic’ (Cockerham et al., 2004). Others presented service-learning efforts from a cross-disciplinary and resource perspective, for example ‘Spanish in the social sciences: Notes on the challenges of service-learning among Mexican migrants in Pennsylvania’ (Díaz-Barriga, 2004) and ‘Annotated bibliography for servicelearning’ (Tilley-Lubbs, 2004). While these contributions still center on service learning, they also reflect the field’s efforts to explore links with subfields or other disciplines. Nine years later, in 2013, Hispania, the AATSP’s disciplinary journal, published the special focus issue, The Scholarship of Community Engagement: Advancing Partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese. As with the contributions in the 1999 and 2004 publications, the 14 articles in Hispania that inform about curricular efforts in which Spanish learners interacted with local and international community partners in service contexts outnumbered those (12 out of 14 or 85%) without such component. With titles, such as ‘How service-learning in Spanish speaks to the crisis in the humanities’ (Carney, 2013), ‘Spanish teacher education programs and community engagement’ (Jovanović & Filipović, 2013), ‘Sustained engagement with a single community partner’ (Lear & Sánchez, 2013) or ‘Service-learning course design for languages for specific purposes programs’ (SánchezLópez, 2013) again reflecting a wide spectrum of topics and purposes of service learning. Increased interest in CE also grew in visibility in the titles of conference presentations. For example, the number of topics related to forms of community-based learning at the annual AATSP gatherings increased from 2 in 2001 to 11 in 2010 (Hellebrandt & Jorge, 2013). Papers given at the annual meetings of the AATSP show a similar preference for service learning. A review of the conference programs of the association’s meetings held in Denver (2015), Panama City (2014) and San Antonio (2013) shows that 17 of the 22 presentations, or 77%, had a focus on service learning. While not as high as in the published articles, it still shows that three among four courses have a service-learning component. Moreover, according to a 2012 AATSP membership survey, 75% of respondents found it important to offer classes with a CE component, with volunteerism listed highest, followed by service learning, communitybased learning, internships and community-based research, in that order (Hellebrandt & Jorge, 2013). In light of the strong presence of service

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Part 1: Experiential Learning through Community Engagement

learning in the field’s literature, it did not come as a surprise that members would assign service learning an important role in their CE efforts; however, that its rating was second after volunteerism was unexpected. Was this an indication of an emerging trend away from a focus on service learning toward the inclusion of other experiential pedagogies and could this suggest any changes in the way a department addresses communityengaged learning? It was against this background – on the one hand the continued preference of service learning for engaging learners with communities and the 2013 survey findings on the other – that the idea for this study was conceived. One way to resolve this apparent contradiction was to review the Spanish course offerings at institutions with a commitment to CE. Two hypotheses were formulated: (1) Spanish programs employ multiple pedagogies of engagement, service learning, volunteerism, internships, field work and others; (2) Spanish programs at community-engaged colleges and universities identify and promote courses with a community learning component on their websites.

Pedagogies of Engagement CE relies on pedagogies of engagement. In 2001, Edgerton, the former director of the Pew Forum on Undergraduate Learning, introduced the term, arguing that: Learning ‘about’ things does not enable students to acquire the abilities and understanding they will need for the twenty-first century. We need pedagogies of engagement that will turn out the kinds of resourceful, engaged workers and citizens that America now requires. (Edgerton, 2001: 38) Among those he suggested were service learning, collaborative learning, undergraduate research and problem-based learning. At the time, Edgerton advanced his call for engaged pedagogies, Boyer of the Carnegie Foundation had already laid out his own vision for how to connect colleges and universities with community groups. In his ‘Scholarship of Engagement’, he argues that ‘…the academy must become a more vigorous partner in the search for answers to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems’ (Boyer, 1996: 19). He saw the scholarship of engagement as an effort toward ‘connecting the rich resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems, to our children, to our schools, to our teachers, and to our cities…’ (Boyer, 1996: 20). Not surprisingly, parts of his vision would re-emerge in the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification.

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Curricular engagement is one of the areas in this new classification for which applicants need to submit documentation. Carnegie provides guidance as to what colleges and universities may want to focus on and include in their submission. Following the definition of curricular engagement, it informs firsttime applicants: ‘NOTE: The questions in this section use the term “service learning” to denote academically-based community engaged courses. Your campus may use another term such as community-based learning, academic service learning, public service courses, etc.’ (Carnegie Foundation, 2015). This definition invites multiple perspectives on how faculty and students interact with communities, particularly with regard to the relationship and balance between service and learning. Sigmon (1994) proposed a typology for describing service programs in which ‘learning’ carries less weight than ‘SERVICE’ using upper- and lowercase to visualize it accordingly. For it to qualify as ‘SERVICE-LEARNING’, as Furco (2004) states in his discussion of Sigmon’s model, both components need to have equal weight. Furco offers his own typology and definitions, in which he expands on Sigmon’s model by adding the variable ‘beneficiary’. In service learning, for example, where Sigmon assigns each component equal weight and goals, Furco, too, holds that such endeavor should have an equal focus on both service and learning. Any definition of service learning with Furco’s added notion of ‘beneficiary’ assigns to service learning the added value that any such courses equally benefit the recipient and the provider. Courses that, for example, employ volunteerism or field education fall on an ‘experiential education continuum’ (Furco, 2004: 12), which he then defines and illustrates accordingly. For example, the term ‘volunteerism’ is ‘the engagement of students in activities where the primary focus is on the service being provided and the primary intended beneficiary is clearly the service recipient’ (Furco, 2004: 13). A Spanish student might for example help with staffing a booth at a university outreach event or sell raffle tickets at a senior center’s holiday celebration. The term ‘community service’ is assigned to those programs in which students engage, in activities that primarily focus on the service being provided as well as the benefits the service activities have on the recipients… The students receive some benefits by learning more about how their service makes a difference in the lives of the service recipients. (Furco, 2004: 13) What distinguishes it from volunteerism is that students would be asked to make a longer commitment to a community agency compared to infrequent and occasional volunteer efforts. As to ‘internships’, Furco (2004: 13) offers this definition: ‘Internship programs engage students in service activities primarily for the purpose of providing students with hands-on experiences that enhance their learning

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Part 1: Experiential Learning through Community Engagement

or understanding of issues relevant to a particular area of study’. Spanish majors or minors, for example, might work in community clinics, providing assistance with translation and/or interpretation, or with literacy efforts in their communities. Other than volunteerism, internships are on the opposite end of Furco’s continuum. In ‘field education’, programs move closer to the center. According to Furco, such programs provide students with co-curricular service opportunities that are related to, but not fully integrated with, their formal academic studies. Students perform the service as part of a program that is designed primarily to enhance students’ understanding of a field of study, while also providing substantial emphasis on the service being provided. (Furco, 2004: 14) Prospective teachers are often required to work as student teachers, where their main focus continues to fall on academic work, but during which they also provide valuable service to the school and students. The last term Furco defines is ‘service learning’. Such programs are ‘distinguished from other approaches to experiential education by their intention to benefit the provider and the recipient of the service equally, as well as to ensure equal focus on both the service being provided and the learning that is occurring’ (Furco, 2004: 14). In preparation for an internship, for example, Spanish majors could take an applied linguistics course with a service-learning component, assisting a community client with translations or interpretations, and would thus perform tasks that reflect the course’s learning goals. These five types and definitions of service programs formed the basis of the review criteria used in this study.

Mapping Community Engagement Methodology This study was conducted in the summer and fall of 2015 and examined publicly available information on program websites about Spanish undergraduate programs at colleges and universities across the United States that had earned the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification. Underlying this selection was the assumption that, at such institutions, departments and programs would benefit from a climate and the conditions favorable toward and supportive of CE. The review started with an examination of the list of classified campuses that was used to identify program websites. As the New England

Community Engagement in Spanish Departments at US Colleges and Universities

25

Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) informs, the number of Carnegie community-engaged campuses in 2015 stood at 361. In light of the research questions, the total of 361 of such institutions was screened for institutions where Spanish was part of a program, department or other unit. This included eliminating from consideration institutions with a professional, special-focus orientation, such as medicine or law, which left a total of 353 institutions or approximately 7.5% of all 4706 Title IV colleges and universities in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics). The review itself followed a strict protocol. First, information about institutional size and type was recorded. Second, program information posted on websites was examined for curricular information about courses with an experiential component ranging from service learning, volunteerism or community action research to community-based learning. At the heart of this examination were lists of courses, course descriptions and bulletins that were available and accessible. Cases that required access privileges were excluded from review. These steps were conducted for each institution by state and in alphabetical order. This study has several limitations. First, given the dynamic nature of websites, it can only offer insights based on a snapshot taken at one point in time. This means that courses that were included in this review may no longer appear due to staffing, scheduling or other changes or, vice versa, that new ones may have been added after the review. Second, websites cannot entirely capture and represent all aspects of academic programs. In the same vein, course titles, together with what are often only one to two sentence-long course descriptions, can only provide limited information about the extent to which a course engages students with communities. In the few cases where program sites were provided or offered links to course syllabi, it was possible to classify a course by engagement type. In most cases, however, this process relied on specific identifiers such as ‘CBL’, ‘SL’ or ‘EL’. Another limitation is the fact that while the author took great care in reviewing and coding course listings, this process was done by only one person. Therefore, due to these limitations, this study can only suggest emerging trends.

Results This study reviewed the course offerings of Spanish undergraduate programs available on websites at colleges and universities with current Carnegie Community Engagement Classification. Part one of this section reports on the number of courses dedicated entirely or with components dedicated to pedagogies of engagements. This information is presented by state.

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Part 1: Experiential Learning through Community Engagement

Community-engaged courses and components Of the 353 colleges and universities with Spanish programs that formed the basis for this review, 64 programs or about 18% listed information on their websites that included courses or course components dedicated to CE. Table 2.1 offers a summary count of the courses and course components by state and CE type. Table 2.1 Community-engaged courses by engagement type by state State

Courses and course components by engagement type (1) (a)

(2) (b)

Alabama (3/4)

1

1

California (9/32)

3

5

Florida (1/14) Georgia (2/9)

(a)

(3)

(5)

(b) 1 2

1 1

Illinois (1/9)

(4)

1

All

2

3 2

14

1

2

1

2

1

2

Indiana (5/15)

3

2

1

6

Kentucky (3/7)

2

1

1

2 1

Massachusetts (3/23)

2

1

Michigan (2/11)

1

1

1

4

Minnesota (4/10)

1

Missouri (1/7)

6 4 2

1

7

1

New Jersey (2/10)

1 1

New York (2/23)

1 (EL)

4

North Carolina (5/18)

1

5

Ohio (5/17)

2

8

Pennsylvania (7/24)

2

6

Tennessee (1/8)

1

1

Oregon (1/2)

4 1

2

1

10 10

1

Texas (1/12)

2

1 3

11 2

1

1

Utah (1/6)

1

1

Vermont (1/5)

1

1

Virginia (4/6)

2

Washington (1/5)

1

Totals: 23 (65/277)

20

2

4 1

41

2

13

11

6

1

Total: 78

Note: Number of institutions with CE programs of total of CE institutions by state. (1) Service learning: (a) SL course (b) SL component; (2) community-based learning: (a) CBL course (b) CBL component; (3) internship; (4) field studies; (5) other.

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Table 2.1 shows that there were a total of 78 courses in 23 states at 65 institutions in which CE was either the focus or a course component. In Alabama, for example, three institutions of a total of four colleges and universities with current Carnegie Community Engagement Classification offered a total of three courses. The majority was offered at institutions in five states: California (14), Pennsylvania (11), Ohio (10), North Carolina (10) and Minnesota (7). The table does not show the number of CE courses at individual institutions; however, it offers a ratio of those colleges and universities that provide information about CE courses in the state compared to all other community-engaged institutions in the same state. In the case of California, that ratio is 9 in 32; the 14 CE courses however, are distributed unevenly across the institutions, with UCLA alone offering 4. Similarly, 2 of 7 institutions in Pennsylvania offer 5 of the 11 CE courses. The review of program websites of classified institutions in the following states (number of institutions in parenthesis) did not provide information about curricular CE efforts in Spanish. These states were: Alaska (1), Arkansas (2), Colorado (3), Connecticut (5), Delaware (1), DC (1), Hawaii (1), Idaho (2), Iowa (7), Kansas (2), Louisiana (5), Maine (4), Maryland (1), Mississippi (4), Montana (2), Nebraska (3), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (1), North Dakota (1), Oklahoma (2), Puerto Rico (1), South Carolina (5), Virgin Islands (1), West Virginia (1) and Wisconsin (9). Table 2.1 further shows that the Spanish faculty at these institutions engage their students in most cases through servicelearning components (41), followed by service-learning courses (20) and community-based learning experiences (13). Faculty also employ other forms of engagement, albeit to a lesser extent: internships (10), field studies (4) and experiential learning (1).

Discussion and Reflection This study has yielded a surprisingly limited amount of data that does not allow for any meaningful interpretation or discussion of the results in consideration of the research questions. In light of this unexpected outcome, the following section offers a personal reflection on what might explain this near absence of data. Is there CE in Spanish at US colleges and universities? Regrettably, visitors – students or teachers – to the majority of the program sites examined for this study might raise this question and leave with the impression that the institution they considered for a degree program, or even a job, does not offer classes with a community-based learning component. More seriously, they might question why a Spanish program at an institution classified by the Carnegie Foundation as community engaged does not inform about its efforts with Spanish-speaking communities.

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Of course, CE in Spanish does exist and, as the authors referenced in this study would emphasize, it is available and has been used in many more than the 78 instances that were identified in this study. This discrepancy of what is reported in the field’s literature and what is shared on program websites might be due to unreported information. After all, the articles in Hispania and other venues published over a span of 16 years, together with numerous conferences papers, authors and presenters from their very own institutions and ‘closer’ to the projects and classes they reported on, provide evidence that allows for triangulation, suggesting that the actual number of community-engaged courses is considerably higher. A close look at potential roles of departments, faculty and support structures is therefore necessary. Academic departments and programs are very busy. Its members are increasingly asked to do more with fewer and fewer tenure-stream faculty. With the shift to hiring more lecturers, they then are asked to serve on hiring committees and subsequently on evaluation teams. It is therefore conceivable that departments assign courses with a CE component a low priority, especially at programs where such work lacks a long tradition. Departments and programs at community-engaged classified institutions are not necessarily committed to CE. Therefore, if a colleague offers an occasional course with a CE component, the department may not share information about that course on the department site. Other reasons why departments may omit information about curricular engagement efforts could also have to do with institutional mandates specifying format and quantity for anything printed or posted electronically. Course catalogs and bulletins are just two examples where, for the sake of uniformity, course titles and content are often condensed into two or three sentences. At many institutions, the department chair decides what gets posted on its website. They may be very responsive to requests from faculty or programs to add or update engagement information or they may delegate that task to department staff. Chairs also tend to wait to see if a course is successful before adding it to the curriculum with a service learning designation or a brief description informing that it carries a communitybased learning component. As with departments, faculty, too, may simply be too busy to inform their department chairs about their engaged work, particularly if they are between evaluation cycles. This may also have to do with a lack of a culture of sharing. Colleagues elsewhere who also employ engaged pedagogies may then wonder why the course of their fellow service-learning practitioner is suddenly listed without the community-based learning component. Furthermore, faculty may not think it is necessary to inform their departments when they modify existing courses, particularly when they already have made those changes in their course syllabi and forwarded

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those to their departments. In such instances, it might be helpful if they could be prompted by other offices charged with advancing engagement across campus reminding them to have their courses posted as community engaged. Centers for CE or other offices may not always be in a position to inform and advise departments about major upcoming CE efforts, for example Carnegie’s classification effort or the Corporation of National and Community Service’s annual Service Honor Roll. Departments would most likely embrace informing on- and off-campus communities about how their students engage with schools, hospitals and the like. Unfortunately, such centers often lack the funding that is necessary to advance engaged learning with communities beyond a handful of departments. It might be beneficial for both parties, centers and Spanish departments to work more closely with each other and share information on their respective websites about events and courses that are of mutual interest and benefit. Aside from departments, faculty and service-learning centers, there are very likely other factors that might account for this underrepresentation of community-engaged courses on department websites. One might be that the field’s scholarship, as highlighted earlier in this chapter, was conducted at colleges and universities that did not seek Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification and that therefore were not included on the list of institutions used for this study.

Conclusion CE in Spanish has witnessed significant growth. Scholarly efforts through publications or conference presentations attest to this rise. Surprisingly, as this study has highlighted, there is very limited data on this topic that suggests a gap between interest in CE, as represented by the increases in scholarship around CE, and the curricular reflection thereof in courses among Carnegie classified institutions with a CE component. The fact that this finding has surfaced in the context of precisely such colleges and universities makes this even more counterintuitive. It might be worthwhile to pursue a similar study with a focus on curricular engagement at non-classified institutions. It might also be advisable to study similar questions of CE using additional indicators and evidence of engagement, among them course syllabi and faculty surveys. CE in Spanish can be found at many colleges and universities across the United States. However, for it to also appeal to a wider public and audiences outside of journals and conferences, Spanish departments and their stakeholders need to do their part to ensure that their engagements are publicly and prominently displayed on program websites, as well as on platforms and media venues. After all, we also want to contribute to our institutions’ engagement efforts and not let our work go unnoticed.

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Notes (1)

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is published by the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University’s School of Education. More information is available at http://nsse.indiana.edu/html/about.cfm. (2) The Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification is managed and administered in partnership with the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE). More information is available at www.nerche.org. (3) The annual President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll offers colleges and universities the opportunity to seek recognition in four areas: general community service, interfaith community service, economic opportunity and education. More information is available at http://www.nationalservice.gov. (4) According to the Carnegie Foundation, the number of community-classified institutions in 2015 was 240. Among those were 83 newly classified colleges and universities and 157 that were reclassified. More information is available at http:// nerche.org/ under the Carnegie community classification tab. (5) Based on the full list of Honor Roll members for 2009 and 2014 posted on http:// www.nationalservice.gov/special-initiatives/honor-roll. (6) Campus Compact is an alliance consisting of almost 1100 colleges and universities in the United States. Founded in 1985, it is ‘committed to the public purposes of higher education’ and aims to ‘develop students’ citizenship skills and forge effective community partnerships’. More information is available at http://compact.org/.

References Boyer, E. (1996) The scholarship of engagement. Journal of Public Outreach 1 (1), 11–20. Bringle, R., Games, R. and Malloy, E. (1999) Colleges and universities as citizens: Reflections. In R. Bringle, R. Games and E. Malloy (eds) Colleges and Universities as Citizens (pp. 193–203). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Campus Compact (2015) Who we are. See http://compact.org/who-we-are/ (accessed 19 October 2015). The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2015) Carnegie Community Engagement Classification. See http:www.carnegieclassifications.iu.edu (accessed 19 October 2015). Carney, T. (2013) How service-learning in Spanish speaks to the crisis in the humanities. Hispania 96 (2), 229–237. Chambers, T. (2005) The special role of higher education in society: As a public good for the public good. In A. Kezar, T. Chambers and J. Burkhardt (eds) Higher Education for the Public Good (pp. 3–22). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Cockerham, S., Nelson, A. and Anderson, M. (2004) It takes a holler: Appalachia goes Hispanic. In J. Hellebrandt, J. Arries and L. Varona (eds) Juntos: Community Partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese (pp. 83–99). Boston, MA: Heinle. Colby, A., Ehrlich, T., Beaumont, E. and Stephens, J. (eds) (2003) Educating Citizens. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Corporation of National and Community Services (2015) About CNCS. See http:// www.nationalservice.gov (accessed 15 September 2015). Díaz-Barriga, M. (2004) Spanish in the social sciences: Notes on the challenges of servicelearning among Mexican migrants in Pennsylvania. In J. Hellebrandt, J. Arries and L. Varona (eds) Juntos: Community Partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese (pp. 154–161). Boston, MA: Heinle.

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Driscoll, A. (2014) Analysis of the Carnegie classification of community engagement: Patterns and impact on institutions. New Directions for Institutional Research 16 (2), 3–16. Edgerton, R. (2001) Education white paper. See Education white paper. Philadelphia, PA: Pew Institute. Furco, A. (2004) Service-learning: A balanced approach to experiential education. In Campus Compact (ed.) Introduction to Service-Learning Toolkit: Readings and Resources for Faculty (2nd edn; pp. 11–14). Providence, RI: Campus Compact. (Reprinted from Corporation for National Service, 1996: 2–6.) Hale, A. (1999) Service-learning and Spanish: A missing link. In J. Hellebrandt and L. Varona (eds) AAHE’s Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines (pp. 9–32). Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education (AAHE). Hellebrandt, J. and Varona, L. (eds) (1999) Construyendo Puentes (Building Bridges): Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Spanish. AAHE’s Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education (AAHE). Hellebrandt, J. and Jorge, E. (2013) The scholarship of community engagement: Advancing partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese. Hispania 96 (2), 203–214. Hellebrandt, J., Arries, J. and Varona, L. (eds) (2004) Juntos: Community Partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese. AATSP Professional Development Series, Vol. 5. Boston, MA: Heinle. Jorge, E. and Aristizabal, C. (2015) Engaging local and global communities in world language teaching. The Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP), Denver, July 17–20. Jovanović, A. and Filipović, J. (2013) Spanish teacher education programs and community engagement. Hispania 96 (2), 283–294. Kezar, A., Chambers, T., Burkhardt, J. (eds) (2005) Higher Education for the Public Good. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Lear, D. and Sánchez, A. (2013) Sustained engagement with a single community partner. Hispania 96 (2), 238–251. Lesman, A. (2004) From service-learning to social activism: Growing the ‘soul of a citizen’. In J. Hellebrandt, J. Arries and L. Varona (eds) Juntos: Community Partnerships in Spanish and Portuguese (pp. 18–35). AATSP Professional Development Series, Vol. 5. Boston, MA: Heinle. McCormick, A., Kinzie, J. and Gonyea, R. (2013) Student engagement: Bridging research and practice to improve the quality of undergraduate education. In M. Paulsen (ed.) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research (pp. 47–92). Dordrecht: Springer. Mullaney, J. (1999) Service-learning and language acquisition theory and practice. In J. Hellebrandt and L. Varona (eds) Construyendo Puentes (Building Bridges): Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Spanish (pp. 49–60). AAHE’s Series on ServiceLearning in the Disciplines. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education (AAHE). National Center for Education Statistics (2015) Digest of education statistics. See https:// nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/ (accessed 19 October 2015). Sánchez-López, L. (2013) Service-learning course design for languages for specific purposes programs. Hispania 96 (2), 383–396. Sigmon, R. (1994) Serving to Learn, Learning to Serve: Linking Service with Learning. Washington, DC: Council of Independent College. Tacelosky, K. (2014) Interviews: Engaging the community one member at a time. The Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP), Panama City, July 8–11. Tilley-Lubbs, G. (2004) Annotated bibliography for service-learning. In J. Hellebrandt and L. Varona (eds) Construyendo Puentes (Building Bridges): Concepts and Models for

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Service-Learning in Spanish (pp. 223–226). AAHE’s Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education (AAHE). Varas, P. (1999) Raising cultural awareness through service-learning in Spanish culture and conversation: Tutoring the migrant education program in Salem. In J. Hellebrandt and L. Varona (eds) Construyendo Puentes (Building Bridges): Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Spanish (pp. 123–136). AAHE’s Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education (AAHE).

3 Civic Engagement and Community Service Learning: Connecting Students’ Experiences to Policy and Advocacy Annie Abbott

Toward the end of the fall semester of 2014, after my ‘Spanish in the Community’ students had already participated in many class discussions about immigration and completed at least 20 hours of community service learning (CSL) work with local Spanish speakers, I asked them to identify the most urgent concerns of our local Latino community. They made individual lists and then paired up to share and compare those lists. Together, they wrote the top five concerns on the blackboard. Three main issues emerged: education, language barriers and poverty. This was not surprising. The majority of students in this section of the course had chosen to do their CSL work in schools; as language students, they were particularly attuned to language issues; and like the majority of students at our university, they were from middle- to upper-class families, unaccustomed to the economic realities of the majority of the local Latino immigrant community. I observed that although my students were deeply interested in the lives of the Spanish speakers with whom they worked, they mostly approached ‘difference’ by comparing and contrasting their own life experiences with those of the Spanish-speaking community. Furthermore, their conclusions were confined to their direct experiences with their community partner. ‘Now’, I told them, ‘let’s see which issues community members themselves are concerned about’. I projected the page of a Facebook group for local Latinos. Students read the posts and comments as I scrolled down the page. None of the posts were about the issues the students had identified as most urgent. Instead, the Latino group members wrote questions and concerns about deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA). People were unsure if they qualified for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also

33

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known as Obamacare. They shared links to information from politicians about the latest ups and downs of comprehensive immigration reform. In addition, the rollout of Illinois’ temporary visitor driver’s license (TVDL) confused them. Finally, they were gathering resources for a member of the community with a family emergency. These two lists of concerns – my students’ and the community members’ – are not incompatible, of course. It struck me, though, that the programs and policies discussed by the community members in their Facebook group were almost all unknown to my students. Not only were students’ observations and conclusions about the local Latino community inevitably sifted through their own personal and cultural filters (Bednarz, 2010), they simply missed information for which they did not already have a category. In other words, within the stream of new and complex information that they confronted during their time in the community, concepts, terms and abbreviations that were unfamiliar to them passed by unnoticed. We had spent considerable time in the classroom framing their CSL work in the following ways: specific language skills that they needed in order to work well in the community; an understanding of bilingual education in order to comprehend the classrooms where many of them did their CSL work; how to perform routine office tasks that were surprisingly difficult for them, yet fundamentally important for the community partner; myths and truths of immigration; global and historical patterns of human migrations; media and artistic representations of immigrants; and much more. Clearly, this was not enough.

Preparing Students to Learn in Communities To fill this gap, this chapter offers a list of many policies that are relevant to the lives of the community members with whom our language students interact during their CSL work. The examples here center on Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, but the policies apply to all immigrants, regardless of country of origin. Nowadays, universities and colleges in large metropolitan areas, small cities and even relatively rural areas often neighbor immigrant communities from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, though these connections are not always visible at first glance. For example, French programs in Midwestern colleges can often access nearby immigrant communities from French-speaking African countries. Relatively large Korean communities exist in parts of Texas, creating possibilities for Korean CSL. Currently, the resettlement of Syrian refugees across the United States will allow Arabic programs to forge meaningful partnerships with them. In sum, although CSL has gained most ground in Spanish programs, this list of policies is pertinent to instructors of any language who have built, or are building, CSL courses and programs of their own.

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Current Foreign Language Curricula Foreign language curricula in most university programs are designed, consciously or not, to prepare students for advanced academic work in literary studies or linguistics, regardless of the fact that data from the Modern Language Association show that ‘[o]nly 6.1% of college graduates whose first major is foreign languages go on to attain a doctoral degree’ (Modern Language Association, 2007). For Spanish programs in particular, the curriculum is often, consciously or not, Spain-centric. The inclusion of Latin America and other Spanish-speaking communities is often still infused with a colonial perspective: ‘In addition to the hegemony of Spanish over other languages in the Americas and Iberia, the different facets of Hispanism, as a cultural model for interpretation, as a discipline’s object of study, and as an academic institutional organization, have from their very beginnings involved erasure and been marked by their imperial origins’ (Gómez, 2015: 2). Even basic language programs are permeated with institutional, political and ideological conditions that point forward toward literature, leading Lacorte (2015) to ask: What symbolic elements are established as the result of the demands of specific institutional norms (e.g., those which mark a division between teaching that focuses on linguistic aspects of Spanish as a L2 in the first courses of a program and on cultural and literary aspects in the intermediate and advanced levels…? (Lacorte, 2015: 109) It is no surprise, then, that CSL courses can present an uneasy fit within the structures, content and values of Spanish programs. CSL yanks students in a divergent direction, where language is used for different ends, other analytical tools must be acquired and the content knowledge accumulated in previous Spanish courses does not fully cover their needs. Furthermore, the division between Latina/o studies and Spanish programs on many campuses exacerbates the gap in students’ knowledge about Spanish and Spanish speakers in the United States, despite the fact that alternate departmental structures and approaches to content are possible (Miñana, 2013). Finally, CSL practice and research intersect with the highly theorized areas of community-based learning, public humanities, engaged scholarship, participatory action research and qualitative research, whose theoretical frameworks are often more familiar to education programs than foreign language departments. Whatever the reasons may be for the relative absence in traditional Spanish curricula of details about the daily lives of Spanish speakers in the United States and the policies that impact them, our CSL students need to learn that content in order to successfully make sense of their experiential learning. Ideally, this information would be spread across both the basic

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language program and courses within the major, though in all likelihood we need to dedicate time and space within our CSL courses to provide this foundational knowledge. However, since many Spanish CSL educators have backgrounds in literary studies or linguistics, not in fields such as immigration law and public policy, they can feel ill-equipped to provide their students with the necessary details. Finally, some educators are loath to tackle the issue of undocumented immigrants head-on with their students, whether out of a desire to protect community members, avoid a potentially touchy topic or resist the stereotype of all Latino immigrants as undocumented. Nevertheless, with over 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States making up 3.5% of the population (Krogstad & Passell, 2015), any approach that does not include this group would be inaccurate; this chapter will therefore deal directly with immigrants of all statuses.

Resources about Policies To educate ourselves and our students about pertinent policies, we can turn to our community partners and community members. They can tell us about their daily lives and brushes with public policy. One common approach is to invite community members to the class as guest speakers. Additionally, students and faculty can conduct brief interviews with community members that are then integrated into the curriculum (see, for example, videos from the companion website to Comunidades: Más Allá del Aula at http://wps.prenhall.com/ml_abbott_comunidades_1/). Just as important, attendance at community organizing and advocacy events provides vital information about policies and simultaneously strengthens the community–university relationship. Finally, published biographical works by US Latinos such as Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant (N., 2014) give detailed, personal accounts of how policies shape many aspects of the lives of immigrants and their families. Other disciplines, too, can inform us and frame the issues related to US Latinos in meaningful ways. For example, in Revisiting Education in the New Latino Diaspora (Hamann et al., 2015), scholars of education offer a framework for understanding two important elements related to Spanish CSL: the school environments where many of our Spanish CSL students do their work and the demographic changes of the new Latino diaspora that have made Spanish CSL possible at almost all universities today. From sociology and history, Governing Immigration through Crime (Dowling & Inda, 2013) and Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland (Allegro & Wood, 2013) also tackle the new Latino diaspora and contextualize those human movements and realities through everything from trade agreements to for-profit detention centers in the United States. Blogs

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can offer manageable chunks of information that is also academically sound, for example ‘Social scientists on immigration policy’ (http:// stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com/). A book like Barrio Libre (Rosas, 2012) presents an in-depth look at the border, border crossing and violence from an anthropological and ethnographic lens. Journalism also provides similarly extensive narration and description, such as the book La cacería: Una historia de inmigración y violencia en Estados Unidos (Ojito, 2014), which focuses on one community in order to highlight the anti-Latino hate crimes that occur across the country. A particularly helpful way to frame a policy-based approach to CSL comes from a collection of essays from the field of political science: Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen (Millet McCartney et al., 2013). To start, it defines civic engagement – a concept that is central to Spanish CSL, yet often difficult to pin down – as the following: an individual’s activities, alone or as part of a group, that focus on developing knowledge about the community and its political system, identifying or seeking solutions to community problems, pursuing goals to benefit the community, and participating in constructive deliberation among community members about the community’s political system and community issues, problems, or solutions. (Millett McCartney, 2013: 14) Furthermore, it elucidates the complexities of civic engagement as a process, including activities that are horizontal, and thus rather superficial, versus vertical and more deeply engaged (Harward & Shea, 2013), distinct stages of political ego development (Gentry, 2013) and pedagogical practices that can foster positive student attitudes and actions that can then be assessed (Bennion, 2013). So, while our own traditional, disciplinary lens from Spanish studies can help us to read texts about US Latino communities and their experiences, these resources from other disciplines offer complementary ways for Spanish CSL instructors and students to ‘read’ communities and experience real-time interactions with people who are not on the page. Therefore, this chapter is meant to serve as a resource to foreign language CSL instructors and students alike by providing a list of current, salient policies that impinge on the lives of immigrants in the United States. Some are specifically geared toward undocumented immigrants. This is almost always pertinent, because many immigrant families are mixed, with relatives ranging from citizens to legal residents to undocumented. Inevitably, this list of policies will be incomplete and some items might soon become outdated. Laws and policies are made and changed continuously. Therefore, the list of policies will be followed by a section on inquiry-based

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learning as a framework that allows students and instructors to update the information found in this chapter and generate new questions to research and report.

A Lack of Relevant Literature Little has been written about the connections between policies and Spanish CSL. Although civic engagement and social justice are two central threads of CSL in all disciplines (Benigni Cipolle, 2010; Cress et al., 2011) and occasionally in foreign languages (Glynn et al., 2014; Osborn, 2006), the question of teaching relevant policies as course content, especially as it pertains to immigrants of all statuses, is not explicitly addressed by the literature. The research on Spanish CSL has up to now been primarily focused on student learning outcomes regarding language and culture, with a more recent bend toward critical pedagogies. In a forthcoming volume, Martínez and Abbott (forthcoming) list ‘policies and policing’ as one of the critical issues and topics within Spanish for the professions and CSL. ‘[M]any community members’, they write, ‘find themselves controlled and constrained by laws, public policies and government institutions that college students… need to know in order to understand the structural and institutional challenges community members face’ (n.p.). For example, some Spanish CSL students who work with Latino children in the K-12 system draw erroneous, negative conclusions about Latinos’ attitudes toward education. What can appear to be a disinterest in education can actually be a reaction to insurmountable obstacles created by government policies. Because a federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act (https://dreamact.info/) has not yet passed Congress, undocumented youth in most states cannot qualify for resident tuition, making college unaffordable for many. Furthermore, if they do go to college, higher education is not the path toward a profession that many Spanish CSL students assume it is, because undocumented youth cannot then be legally hired for a job that uses that college degree. The picture is even more complicated, because some states have passed their own DREAM Acts, offering varying degrees of access to college and college funding for undocumented students (VISANOW Global Immigration, 2012). Thus, if Spanish CSL students are unaware of the federal and state policies that determine the (im)possibility of the Latino youth with whom they work to advance to college and career, they might attribute an apparent ambivalence toward education to an individual’s lack of ambition, instead of a structural lack of opportunities. This is just one example of many in which knowledge of pertinent policies can help Spanish CSL students avoid incorrect conclusions and gain a more accurate understanding of that community and its members.

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Public Policies and Spanish-Speaking Communities in the United States Although definitions of public policy vary (Project Citizen, n.d.), they reflect both the policies that are explicitly codified through official processes, such as introducing bills that then become laws, as well as the unwritten set of social norms upon which official policy is built. For the purposes of this chapter, I will focus on official bills and laws, plus the institutions created from those laws. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the policies governing immigrants and immigrant communities do not emerge from a vacuum. They reflect societal attitudes toward immigrants that are not always explicit and that Spanish CSL students might have unconsciously internalized. Therefore, what might appear at first glance to be a straightforward factual matter – teaching specific laws and policies – can stir emotional reactions among students and instructors alike. Although that is not the focus of this chapter, it is important to acknowledge and prepare for it.

Federal Immigration Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more commonly known as ICE, is the federal entity that imposes and polices immigration policies. The people who stamp passports at airports, the border control agents at the Mexican and Canadian borders and the agents who carry out immigration raids in factories and communities all work for ICE. In their own words, ‘U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforces federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration to promote homeland security and public safety’ (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, n.d.: Who we are). Created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ICE’s rhetoric and actions often conflate immigration and terrorism. The official version of ICE as seen on its website is at odds with the perspective of many immigrant communities. For example, La Santa Cecilia’s song ‘ICE El Hielo’, available on YouTube, gives one alternate vision of ICE. As students carry out their CSL work in immigrant communities, they might hear the common term la migra and note high levels of fear and rumors about its activities. Indeed, ICE uses tactics such as appearing at homes without identifying themselves as ICE officers, with ICE written only on the back of their jackets; wearing clothing similar to that of police (who do not have the authority to enforce immigration laws); gaining entrance to homes with ‘friendly’ questions; etc. Therefore, many immigration advocates strive to educate community members about their rights and responsibilities, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, provides a clear guide about what to do if you are

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stopped by police, immigration agents or the FBI (Know Your Rights, n.d.). (Incidentally, I have often found that learning about non-citizens’ rights leads students who are US citizens to also learn about their own rights visà-vis the police and other armed officials; this is especially pertinent in our post-Ferguson era.) Visa regulations and quotas are also determined at the federal level. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s website provides a complete and lengthy list of immigration options (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, n.d.), reflecting the complex realities of immigration, a notion that is oversimplified in the media and public discourse. A few examples help to contextualize these options for Spanish CSL students: many Central Americans were conferred refugee status (a status conferred before arrival to the new country) after Hurricane Mitch in 1998; other Central Americans became asylees (a status petitioned after leaving one’s country of origin) after fleeing civil wars in the 1980s; and many Salvadorans in the United States have temporary protected status (TPS) visas, making their lives dependent on the politicized renewal process. On the other hand, some visa types are exclusive and outside the reach of most people: the O-1 visa is for internationally recognized scientists, artists, educators, athletes, etc.; the EB-5 visa is for millionaire investors; and since a bachelor’s degree is almost always required for a ‘regular’ work visa (the H-1B), the overwhelming majority of the world’s population would never qualify to enter the United States to work legally. In addition to the websites listed above, other resources can help both instructors and students to understand ICE. An internet search can turn up multiple videos, essays and images that show students that for many, ‘illegal immigration’ is not a choice, but rather the only available option. Finally, students sometimes struggle to learn concepts that are new to them and in a second language. A simple matching activity can help students master the Spanish vocabulary while they work through other activities that help them to acquire the vocabulary in Spanish with which to grasp the complexity as well as the limits of the immigration process (e.g. Abbott, 2010: 62–66).

Executive action In the United States, politicians from both parties and employers from both extremes of the job spectrum (the high-tech, white collar sector as well as low-skilled, manual labor) agree that our current immigration system is flawed and does not work in the country’s best interest. Still, for decades Congress has introduced, and then failed to pass, comprehensive immigration reform. In light of this congressional inaction, President Barack Obama took executive action twice regarding immigration during his second term. First, he created DACA on 15 June 2012, a program that

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allowed certain undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors to apply for the program and avoid deportation. While this was certainly a positive move, many immigrants were wary; Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate that year, promised to undo DACA if he won and they did not want their personal information in the hands of immigrant-unfriendly politicians. They had good reason to be guarded. Conservative states, including Texas, later sued, saying that they would have to burden the costs of DACA. Even immigrants who stood to benefit began to distance themselves from DACA because they felt it pitted relatives within mixed-status families against each other. Second, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) was signed by President Obama in November 2014 alongside an expanded version of DACA. DAPA was designed to keep families together by preventing the deportation of certain undocumented adults who are parents of US citizens and legal residents. However, as of the time of this writing, no applications for DAPA or the extended version of DACA are being accepted because of a court injunction issued in February 2015 by a federal district court in Texas. Despite signing DACA and DAPA, and contrary to Republicans’ portrayal of him as weak on immigration enforcement, many immigration advocates call President Obama the ‘Deporter-in-Chief’ (Lin, 2014). During the seventh year of his presidency, more than 2 million immigrants were deported, more than during George W. Bush’s two terms, for example. Moreover, during the summer of 2014, when a wave of undocumented immigrants arrived from Central America, including unaccompanied children, many were deported through expedited removal processes (with no individual hearing before an immigration judge or no hearing at all) or housed in for-profit detention centers (Woodruff, 2015). All in all, DACA and DAPA should be seen as important programs that are designed to give undocumented minors and parents a chance to live without the fear of deportation. Still, they are critiqued by some immigrant advocates for focusing solely on heteronormative immigrant families and are accused by the other side of not being tough enough on unauthorized immigrants. As part of their work in the community, CSL instructors and students can play an important role in helping immigrants to understand if they qualify for DACA or DAPA and guide them through the application process.

Federal policies that impact immigrants There are many other federal programs that are not specifically targeted to immigrants, but that play an important role in their lives. Because there is still deep mistrust and misunderstanding of undocumented immigrants in the United States, these policies are often cited, incorrectly or in partial truths, to support the idea that immigrants are stealing scarce resources

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(jobs, tax dollars, etc.) from citizens. Therefore, it is important for CSL instructors and students to be aware of these policies in order to advocate for immigrants’ rights during their CSL work, as well as to refute false information in public and private discourse. For example, many claim that immigrants do not pay taxes. First of all, they pay sales taxes every time they buy something, just like citizens. To pay federal income taxes, the Internal Revenue Service offers the individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) for people without a social security number. The ITIN also allows undocumented immigrants to obtain mortgages for properties, upon which they are taxed like everyone else, not to mention the property tax revenue generated by landlords who rent to undocumented immigrants – and to anyone else. Furthermore, employers have the responsibility of automatically deducting and depositing federal and state taxes from employees’ paychecks. Thus, undocumented immigrants – like everyone else – cannot avoid paying income taxes, social security (FICA) and Medicare; the employer pays it. Unlike everyone else, though, undocumented workers cannot receive the benefits from the programs they pay into with every paycheck. It is true that there is a black economy of undeclared work performed by people of all types of legal statuses, in which no taxes are withheld and contributed. University students might understand this example: if any one of them has ever done any jobs (babysitting, lawn mowing, tutoring, etc.) and earned money over a certain threshold ($400 annually at the time of this writing) and not declared it as earned income on a tax return, then that is also part of our nation’s black economy. This is not to scare students. Instead, the example provides perspective on what is framed as ‘criminal’ when done by one group of people and ‘entrepreneurial’ or simply ‘normal’ by a different group, even though the law is the same for all groups. During their CSL work, students may also encounter federal programs and policies regarding health and nutrition. For example, though certain groups of non-citizens can qualify for food stamps, undocumented immigrants cannot. Nonetheless, in mixed status families, one or more members might qualify, thus creating a false perception that undocumented immigrants are receiving food stamps. As is often the case with public policy, students need to know the official terms (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP and the Link card, a debit card for SNAP funds), unofficial terms (food stamps) and the words used by Spanish speakers (estampillas de comida). On the other hand, another important program does provide supplemental nutrition to undocumented mothers and children up to five years old: the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. Whereas many public policies are not inclusive of immigrants, others are purposefully drafted to exclude them. For example, undocumented immigrants cannot receive health insurance through the ACA and even lawfully present immigrants have only limited federal coverage. Unable to

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access public health insurance programs, many undocumented immigrants are uninsured and thus only access medical care in emergencies. A federal law requires hospitals that participate in the Medicare program to treat any patient experiencing a medical emergency – even undocumented immigrants. Seen from a public policy perspective, students can better understand how policy gaps create health-related challenges for the people with whom they do their CSL work. This is especially important for medical Spanish courses that incorporate CSL. Instead of viewing illness and wellness from solely an individualized, medical model, it is important that students in these courses understand public health. In other words, medical Spanish is not just about acquiring long lists of specialized terminology, but also arriving at a basic understanding of public health and immigrant communities’ specific situations. This more complete picture also helps faculty and students to advocate for immigrants of all statuses, so that they receive the services to which they are indeed lawfully eligible.

State Policies Although immigration is enforced at the federal level, many programs and policies that impact immigrants vary state by state. As the mood on immigration and immigrants shifts, states often move more quickly to pass laws that reflect current sentiment. Driver’s licenses are one example. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, states began to require a social security number to receive a driver’s license. Indeed, for José Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and immigration reform advocate, the driver’s license was the crux of the ‘coming out’ story he narrated in an essay for the New York Times, entitled ‘My life as an undocumented immigrant’. ‘One day when I was 16’, Vargas wrote: I rode my bike to the nearby D.M.V. office to get my driver’s permit. Some of my friends already had their licenses, so I figured it was time. But when I handed the clerk my green card as proof of U.S. residency, she flipped it around, examining it. ‘This is fake’, she whispered. ‘Don’t come back here again’. (Vargas, 2011) After many difficult years for immigrants, some states began to provide limited access to driver’s licenses. As of 2015, youth with DACA status can earn a driver’s license in all states (National Immigration Law Center, 2015), and several other states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont and Washington) offer some kind of driver’s license (National Immigration Law Center, n.d.). Still, temporary or limited driver’s licenses cannot be used as ID for air travel and do not constitute permission to work. In states without a driver’s license program for immigrants, people take an enormous risk every time

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they drive to work, to the doctor or to their children’s school. If they are pulled over for a minor traffic violation, they risk being detained for their status and eventually deported. Ironically, police sometimes decide to focus on enforcing bicycle violations, thereby targeting (unconsciously or not) undocumented immigrants, who often use bicycles to avoid driving a vehicle without a license. Immigrants must also navigate states’ varied responses to the failure to pass a federal DREAM Act. In 2015, 12 states had passed some type of DREAM Act that allows undocumented youth – also known as Dreamers – who were minors when they entered this country with their parents, to attend college at in-state tuition rates. In New Mexico, New York and Utah, for example, that is the extent of the law. On the other hand, California allows its Dreamers to participate in higher education financial programs like private scholarships, state financial aid and more, while Illinois even requires that high school counselors be able to advise undocumented students about their college options (State Level, 2012). Dreamers in other states can, of course, apply to colleges as international students, but the high cost of that tuition is beyond the reach of most Dreamers’ families. Even in the best of cases, though, after graduating from college, Dreamers still face an overwhelming obstacle: they cannot receive a legal work permit. Only those who have been granted DACA status are granted an employment authorization document (EAD), which must be renewed every two years in a program that could conceivably be eliminated by a future president who may decide to eliminate the executive action upon which DACA rests. In other words, after investing in many immigrant youths’ mandatory education grade school, high school and perhaps college, our country then prohibits them from contributing their knowledge and talents to the US workforce and economy. In polar opposition to state DREAM Acts, some individual states have passed anti-immigrant laws. Arizona’s SB 1070, passed in 2010, was one of the strictest of its kind. It added another layer of criminality to being in the United States without authorization, making it a state misdemeanor as well as a federal misdemeanor. Furthermore, it required state law enforcement to attempt to ascertain a person’s immigration status during any kind of stop if they suspected that the person was undocumented, even though immigration enforcement is a federal matter. Finally, it punished anyone for sheltering, hiring or transporting undocumented immigrants. Although the US Supreme Court struck down much of the law in 2012, it still created an environment of fear among immigrant communities and other states followed Arizona’s example: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana and Utah. Spanish CSL students should be aware of the laws in their own states and consider the effects – fear, anxiety, instability, mistrust, etc. – on the immigrants with whom they work. As a response to this type of legislation, activists organized a ‘Do I look illegal?’ campaign.

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CSL students can search YouTube for videos related to the campaign and consider the role of racial profiling in these laws and in overall attitudes toward immigrants.

Local Policies On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump gave a speech to launch his presidential campaign. In it he vilified immigrants, specifically those from Mexico: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. (TIME Staff, 2015) Just 15 days later, at a San Diego pier, an undocumented immigrant fired a gun, the bullet ricocheted and a young woman died (Elias, 2015). Given the national attention that Trump’s comments gave to undocumented immigrants, this shooting death put one type of local policy into stark relief: so-called ‘sanctuary cities’. Although ‘sanctuary city’ is not an official legal term, it is an outgrowth of the 1980s sanctuary movement spearheaded by US churches for Central American refugees fleeing civil wars. It now describes municipalities that have adopted policies of various degrees of non-cooperation with ICE, ranging from prohibiting municipal workers from inquiring about a person’s immigrant status (i.e. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’) to refusal by local police departments and jails to participate in ICE’s now-defunct secure communities program, which demanded that the fingerprints of anyone booked, even for a misdemeanor, be sent to both the FBI and ICE (Cuison Villazor, 2008; Ridgely, 2008). Local initiatives also exist about identification cards. Without a social security number, undocumented immigrants are often left without any valid form of identification, limiting their access to a wide variety of services and creating barriers for community policing. Some countries offer an identification card for their citizens from their US consulate, such as the Mexican consular identification card, or matrícula consular. However, those cards are not deemed valid in all contexts. Additionally, the documents required to receive a matrícula consular (birth certificate, photo identification issued in the country of origin, etc.) are often lost or stolen during the migration process, although the consulate might offer alternatives. Therefore, some municipalities have created their own identification programs. New Haven, Connecticut, offered the first municipal ID in 2007 with only a handful of other cities following suit. Municipal identification cards reemerged in 2015, with programs launching in both New York City and Newark, New Jersey. Spanish CSL students

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could be instrumental in educating community members about these programs. Other local entities, such as schools, churches, civic organizations and businesses, all contribute to a climate of fear or welcome to immigrants through their official and unofficial policies. Some of these are influenced from above, such as the non-discrimination laws that mandate that all schools accommodate English learner (EL) students and that is explained on the U.S. Department of Education (2015) website. Some school districts go beyond mere compliance, however, and create positions for bilingual family liaisons and institute programs and activities to promote inclusivity. Others do not. When CSL instructors and students understand this overall local climate, they can better understand what they observe during their time in the community.

Reframing Teaching Spanish CSL students about the policies outlined above is necessary. However, we must also show students that this is merely one way of framing immigration and immigrants – through policies that attempt to contain them or even celebrate and integrate them. Ultimately, our policies define immigrants for what they are not; even the terms ‘undocumented’, ‘unauthorized’ and ‘noncitizens’ position them as lacking something essential. An alternative, more humane and equally plausible way of framing immigration is as a humanitarian issue. The American Civil Liberties Union states: Numerous international human rights documents firmly establish the principle that no human being can be ‘illegal’ or outside the protection of the law. Yet despite the clearly established principle that discrimination and abuse based on immigration status are violations of human rights, U.S. government policies continue to sanction human rights violations against migrants and immigrants. (American Civil Liberties Union, n.d.) In the end, Spanish CSL students should understand that our larger goal need not be parceling out or taking away immigrants’ rights through policies because of their citizen status or lack thereof, but rather imbuing them with the dignity and rights that they inherently possess as human beings, just like all of us and just as set forth by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, n.d.). The previous sections should not give the impression that instructors and students can learn a list of policies and be done. Immigration policies are in constant flux. Immigrants and advocates ride a roller coaster, hoping for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, while the only

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constant is that change never arrives. External events can happen at any moment and cause increased nationalistic anxiety (e.g. 9/11, the Paris attacks of 2015), which then lead to increasingly hostile rhetoric and actions against immigrants. Families live with constant threats of raids and deportations, which may or may not happen. Even the makeup of immigration and immigrants themselves can change quickly, as they did in the summer of 2014 when unaccompanied minors from Central America increased dramatically. In sum, immigrants’ lives and the policies affecting them are always in flux.

Inquiry-Based Learning This flux creates a demand for Spanish CSL instructors and students to regularly update their awareness of immigration issues and policies as new realities emerge. By adopting a model of inquiry-based learning such as the one proposed by Bruce and Bishop (2002), Spanish CSL instructors can lead their students through a five-part cycle in which students ask, investigate, create, discuss and reflect (University of Illinois, n.d.). All students, but especially those who work in the dynamic realities of a CSL course, need to be able to examine complex situations and define the solvable problems within them. They need to work with multiple sources and media – not just a textbook. They need to become active learners, to collaborate, and to understand the perspectives of others. In short, the need to learn how to learn, and they must ask (find problems), investigate (multiple sources/media), create (engage actively in learning), discuss (collaborate and debate), and reflect to do that. (Bruce & Bishop, 2002: 707) Complex situations come in many forms in Spanish CSL contexts. On one level, the complexity can be the result of policies’ detailed, legalistic and complicated wording, especially of policies that are new or new to students. For example, at the time of this writing, communities began to feel the effects of the relatively new ICE program that replaced the much-maligned Secure Communities Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, n.d.: Priority Enforcement Program) or Programa de Cumplimiento de Prioridad. Using the inquiry process, students can sift through the details of the program, understand the facts and present their findings. The level of complexity rises when students go through the inquiry process while contextualizing policies within the lives of individuals. It can be helpful to present the issue within a real or fictitious client case. For example, an undocumented worker has been in the United States for 15 years. He has a wife and three children, one of whom is also

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undocumented and two of whom are US citizens. The family has savings, enough to pay 25% of the price of a home of a friend. He wants to know if he can get a mortgage from the bank and buy a house for his family. The first round of inquiry could lead to the following answer: yes, it is possible if he has proof of two months of income (pay stubs), the last two years of IRS forms and a state-issued form of ID. Students would then need to cycle through the inquiry progress again, considering common scenarios that are specifically pertinent to immigrants. Would a temporary visitor driver’s license count as a state-issued ID? Would the bank accept IRS forms filed with an ITIN? Would the banker be obliged to report any irregularities? In sum, understanding policies is simply one step in the process of understanding how they impact immigrants’ lives. Because CSL instructors must cover so much ground in their courses, inquiry-based learning should be threaded into existing course elements, not treated like yet another component to add to an already bulging course. For example, I have successfully threaded it into a final exam. Toward the end of the semester, students tend to naturally begin the first step of the inquiry-based learning process (ask) by wondering what happens after the course. They spend a whole semester devoting many work hours to their community partner, forming strong relationships with people in the community and often transforming their ideas about immigration and then it all comes to a stop as the semester ends. In class, then, I asked students to pair up and investigate – the second stage of the inquiry process – online sources of information by and/or for the local Spanish-speaking community. They discovered, unfortunately, a dearth of reliable sources (newspapers, local television or radio programs) with professional-level content in either Spanish or English. There is one weekly interview program dedicated to local immigration issues that is broadcast on public access television and radio and uploaded to a YouTube channel. However, the videos on YouTube had generic titles and neither a description of the content nor metadata tags for retrieval through an online search. So, after a brief lesson on how to best write tags and descriptions, each student watched a different video and created the following: (1) a list of relevant keywords for tags; and (2) a summary of the video’s content in both English and Spanish, staying within YouTube’s 5000 character limit. The information that students created during this third moment of the inquiry process served multiple purposes. They learned the content about immigration that was shared in the video, strengthened their digital literacy and provided valuable information that the community organization could then copy and paste into their YouTube videos. Next, in groups they shared and compared the information they had learned, thus enacting the fourth stage of the inquiry process. Finally, for the final exam, students turned in their YouTube information, along with a critical, reflective essay on the connections

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between the video and what they had learned during their semester-long work in the community. While the topics explored in the examples of the inquiry process above are complex, they do have clear answers. Some community-based issues, though, are so new that answers and solutions are still emerging. For example, when unaccompanied minors from Central America began arriving at the US border in record numbers during the summer of 2014, our immigration system scrambled because its normal capacities and procedures were outstripped. Difficult questions arose about how to process so many immigrants at once, how to house them and if the minors could qualify for protection under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) (American Immigration Council, 2015). In fact, the shortage of expert lawyers prompted Vice President Joe Biden to ask private law firms to provide pro bono representation (Rampton, 2014). Even logistical problems may not yield clear answers. For unaccompanied minors living in rural areas, one big challenge has been how to attend immigration hearings in a faraway city. They cannot drive themselves. They cannot take the train: minors cannot buy tickets and travel alone. They need legal representation at their hearings with the immigration judge, yet how can they afford to pay a lawyer if they are minors living alone or in precarious situations?

Conclusions Using the inquiry-based learning model allows instructors and students to collaboratively inform and update themselves about continually changing policies and how they impact members of the communities in which they are learning and serving. Nonetheless, it is also important to realize that not all questions will have answers – and that can be one of the most important lessons of all in a Spanish CSL course. Students can affix their lists to a blackboard and community members may post questions and answers in a Facebook group, but the vicissitudes of the policies that affect immigrants can quickly turn it all upside down.

References Abbott, A.R. (2010) Comunidades: Más Allá del Aula. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Pearson. Allegro, L. and Wood, A.G. (eds) (2013) Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. American Civil Liberties Union (n.d.) Human rights and immigration. See https:// www.aclu.org/issues/human-rights/human-rights-and-immigration (accessed 2 November 2015). American Immigration Council (2015) Special report: A guide to children arriving at the border, June 26. See http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/

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guide-children-arriving-border-laws-policies-and-responses (accessed 2 November 2015). Bednarz, F. (2010) Building up intercultural competences: Challenges and learning processes. In M.G. Onorati and F. Bednarz (eds) Building Intercultural Competences: A Handbook for Professionals in Education, Social-Work and Health Care (pp. 39–52). Leuven: Acco. Benigni Cipolle, S. (2010) Service-Learning and Social Justice: Engaging Students in Social Change. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bennion, E.A. (2013) Assessing civic and political engagement activities: A toolkit. In A.R. Millett McCartney, E.A. Bennion and D. Simpson (eds) Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen (pp. 407–421). Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Bruce, B.C. and Bishop, A.P. (2002) Using the Web to support inquiry-based literacy development. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 45 (8), 706–714. Center for Civic Education (n.d.) Know your rights. See https://www.aclu.org/knowyour-rights/what-do-if-questioned-about-your-immigration-status (accessed 2 November 2015). Cress, C.M., Donahue, D.M. and Associates (eds) (2011) Democratic Dilemmas of Teaching Service-Learning: Curricular Strategies for Success. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Cuison Villazor, R. (2008) What is a sanctuary? SMU Law Review 61 (133), 133–156. Dowling, J.A. and Inda, J.X. (eds) (2013) Governing Immigration through Crime: A Reader. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Elias, P. (2015) Fatal shot in San Francisco pier shooting was ricochet. The San Diego Union-Tribune, August 27. See http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/ aug/27/fatal-shot-in-san-francisco-pier-shooting-was/ (accessed 2 November 2015). Gentry, B. (2013) Bridging adolescent engagement and adult engagement: A theory of political identity. In A.R. Millett McCartney, E.A. Bennion and D. Simpson (eds) Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen (pp. 57–72). Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Glynn, C., Wesely, P. and Wassell, B. (2014) Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice. Alexandria, VA: The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Gómez, L. (2015) Introduction. In L. Gómez, A. Horno-Delgado, M.K. Long and N. Silleras-Fernández (eds) Teaching Gender through Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Texts and Cultures (pp. 1–17). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Hamann, E.T., Wortham, S. and Murillo, E.G. (eds) (2015) Revisiting Education in the New Latino Diaspora. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Harward, B.M. and Shea, D.M. (2013) Higher education and the multiple modes of engagement. In A.R. Millett McCartney, E.A. Bennion and D. Simpson (eds) Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen (pp. 21–40). Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Krogstad, J.M. and Passell, J.S. (2015) 5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S. Pew Research Center, November 19. See http://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2015/11/19/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/ (accessed 1 December 2015). Lacorte, M. (2015) Methodological approaches and realities. In M. Lacorte (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics (pp. 99–116). New York: Routledge. Lin, J. (2014). Deporter-in-Chief. Huffington Post, April 7. See http://www. huffingtonpost.com/joanne-lin/deporter-in-chief_b_4733456.html (accessed 2 November 2015). Martínez, G.A. and Abbott, A. (forthcoming) Spanish for the professions and community service learning. In K. Potowski (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage/ Minority Language. New York: Routledge.

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Millett McCartney, A.R. (2013) Teaching civic engagement: Debates, definitions, benefits, and challenges. In A.R. Millett McCartney, E.A. Bennion and D. Simpson (eds) Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen (pp. 9–20). Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Millett McCartney, A.R., Bennion, E.A. and Simpson, D. (eds) (2013) Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Miñana, R. (2013) The New Mission and Location of United States Spanish Departments. Profession, December 9. See https://profession.commons.mla.org/2013/12/09/ the-new-mission-and-location-of-united-states-spanish-departments/ (accessed 2 November 2015). Modern Language Association (2007) Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World. See http://www.mla.org/flreport (accessed 2 November 2015). N., J.A. (2014) Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. National Immigration Law Center (2015) Access to driver’s license for immigrant youth granted DACA. See https://www.nilc.org/dacadriverslicenses2.html (accessed 2 November 2015). National Immigration Law Center (n.d.) Toolkit access to driver’s licenses. See https:// www.nilc.org/DLaccesstoolkit1 (accessed 2 November 2015). Ojito, M. (2014) La cacería: Una historia de inmigración y violencia en Estados Unidos. New York: Vintage Español. Osborn, T.A. (2006) Teaching World Languages for Social Justice: A Sourcebook of Principles and Practices. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Project Citizen (n.d.) What is public policy? See http://www.civiced.org/pc-program/ instructional-component/public-policy (accessed 2 November 2015). Rampton, R. (2014) Biden makes plea to U.S. lawyers for pro bono help on migrant crisis. Reuters, August 6. See http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-usaimmigration-biden-idUSK BN0G62BW20140806#GZzw4GqBlXteOV6p.97 (accessed 2 November 2015). Ridgely, J. (2008) Cities of refuge: Immigration enforcement, police, and the insurgent genealogies of citizenship in U.S. sanctuary cities. Urban Geography 29 (1), 53–77. Rosas, G. (2012) Barrio Libre: Criminalizing States and Delinquent Refusals of the New Frontier. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. TIME Staff (2015) Here’s Donald Trump’s presidential announcement speech. Time, June 6. See http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/ (accessed 2 November 2015). United Nations (n.d.) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. See http://www. un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ (accessed 2 November 2015). University of Illinois (n.d.) Inquiry page. See http://www.cii.illinois.edu/InquiryPage/ (accessed 2 November 2015). U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (n.d.) Explore my options. See https:// my.uscis.gov/exploremyoptions (accessed 2 November 2015). U.S. Department of Education (2015) Schools’ civil rights obligations to English learner students and limited English proficient parents. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. See http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ellresources.html (accessed 2 November 2015). U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (n.d.) Priority Enforcement Program. See https://www.ice.gov/pep (accessed 2 November 2015). U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (n.d.) Who we are. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security. See https://www.ice.gov/about (accessed 2 November 2015).

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Vargas, J.A. (2011) My life as an undocumented immigrant. New York Times, June 26. See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumentedimmigrant.html?_r=5&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all) (accessed 2 November 2015). VISANOW Global Immigration (2012) DREAM Act State Tuition Benefits, December 19. See http://www.visanow.com/deferred-action/dream-act-tuition-benefits-state/ (accessed 2 November 2015). Woodruff, B. (2015) Prison gets rich locking up preschoolers. The Daily Beast, September 8. See http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/08/america-s-most-lucrativepreschooler-prison.html (accessed 2 November 2015).

4 Service Learning as an Ecological Resource: Providing Learning Opportunities for Mixed Second and Heritage Language Classrooms Cecilia Tocaimaza-Hatch and Laura C. Walls

Service learning (SL) has its roots in the writings of Dewey (1938) and his attention to experiential learning. He proposed that the then-current educational system delivered knowledge without concern for that which students already possessed. Because students are not a blank slate and in order to better serve their needs, he argued that education should build upon their past experience. He warned, however, that not all experience is educational in itself; rather, action needs to be accompanied by reflection for it to be fruitful. In the last few decades, SL has become an integral educational tool in various fields (e.g. Almazroui [2010] on university students’ literacy awareness and Zeller et al. [2010] on preservice teachers’ attitudes). In the language classroom, Spanish programs have taken the lead in the application of SL to the teaching of Spanish as a second language (L2) (Faszer-McMahon, 2013) and, to a lesser extent, Spanish as a heritage language (HL) (Leeman et al., 2011; Lowther Pereira, 2015). In this chapter, we argue that SL naturally provides an ecological context from which to draw. SL ameliorates the limitations within the classroom and extends language learning beyond an understanding of cultural subjects. Through SL, learners reach a comprehension of systemic relational codes afforded by authentic social environments and through social interactions (Kramsch, 2006; Lear, 2012). We briefly discuss SL by emphasizing its usefulness and application in language learning and how it provides an ecological context for it. Specifically, we explore the type of meaningful interaction that we aim for in L2 and HL instruction, which 53

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links cognitive development to social activity (van Lier, 2000, 2004b). We follow this with two practical examples from mixed L2–HL classrooms, the first on vocabulary acquisition and the second on writing. We conclude with suggestions for the implementation of SL as a means to accomplish language learning from an ecological perspective and for future directions of research on SL.

Defining Service Learning SL is a type of experiential education that combines community engagement with academic learning, in which both students and the community partner benefit. Learners reach their educational objectives, while the community’s needs are filled (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Jacoby, 2003). Important to this component is the notion of reciprocity, which dictates that both parties give and receive as a result of their collaboration. In order for the service to be a learning experience for the students, it must be accompanied by reflection. As Jacoby (2003: 4) points out, ‘learning and development do not necessarily occur as a result of experience itself but as a result of reflection explicitly designed to foster learning and development’. Reflection is where students make the connection between their service, their learning objectives and their place within a democratic framework (Dubinsky, 2006; Hatcher & Bringle, 1997; Jacoby, 1996). Proponents of SL tout its various benefits across academic disciplines: it can (a) enhance the learning experience and instill a sense of civic duty (Barreneche, 2011; Battistoni, 2002; Faszer-McMahon, 2013; Overfield, 2007; Speck, 2001), (b) promote personal and interpersonal development (Eyler & Giles, 1999), (c) raise cultural awareness (Varas, 1999) and (d) establish links between theory and application (Boyle & Overfield, 1999). As a pedagogical tool, therefore, SL can enhance the overall educational experience.

Service Learning in Second and Heritage Language Acquisition Canale and Swain (1980) posited that communicative competence constitutes four distinct aspects: grammatical, sociolinguistic, discursive and strategic competence. Grammatical competence pertains to knowledge that the speaker possesses with regard to the linguistic code; the speaker knows what words to use, in what order to use them and how to form those words. When the speaker understands what comprises appropriate responses to his/her interlocutor, he/she possesses sociolinguistic competence; in other words, he/she applies social and cultural rules to language use. Discursive competence refers to the construction of

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coherent sentences that can be interpreted and are suitable for a specific context. Finally, strategic competence pertains to the ability to recognize communication breakdowns and repair them. Though second language learners (L2Ls) may develop some degree of each of these competencies, the classroom is unable to provide substantial opportunities for them to acquire all four effectively. As Pica (1987) has noted, the traditional classroom presents few opportunities for language learners to interact and create with the target language. Oftentimes, the teacher asks all of the questions and chooses the topic of conversation; thus, when the L2L is given the chance, he/she may not know how to negotiate language. The classroom environment lacks the richness of a reallife setting and limits learning. Consequently, though learners may receive instruction in both grammatical and social rules, they are not likely to be fully proficient in the four competencies. They may lack the ability to use language in communicative performance. While classroom settings are at the core of L2 learning challenges, heritage language learners (HLLs) present different obstacles. HLLs, individuals who grew up speaking a language other than English in the home (Valdés, 2001), differ from L2Ls in that HLLs possess some language ability in the HL, though their mastery may vary. Kagan (2005) has noted that HLLs tend to possess a vast vocabulary and rapid fluent speech; however, their oral language abilities are nonetheless inadequate for highlevel performance. Moreover, because they often do not have access to formal training, their speech may contain grammatical errors and they may be unable to write effectively. Another characteristic of Spanish HLLs is their linguistic insecurity. Potowski (2011, as cited in Potowski, 2012), for example, found that these speakers are sometimes mocked because their language is not proper. This may be because they tend to be speakers of a rural variety of Spanish (Parodi, 2008), which is often denigrated (Parodi, 2008; Silva-Corvalán, 1994; Valdés, 2000). In addition, HLLs find that their home language does not match that of academic settings (Martínez, 2003; Urciuoli, 2008; Villa, 1996). These tensions have doubtlessly contributed to the view that their language is deficient. Conversely, Ruiz (1984, 2010) argues for a shift toward a perspective that positions HLLs’ linguistic repertoire as a resource. Such external validation of their linguistic skills can contribute to their language maintenance. SL can support both L2Ls and HLLs by addressing each learner type’s needs. SL compensates for the limitations of the classroom by providing a genuine context in which to create and negotiate language. It also allows for new interactional contexts (Barreneche, 2011; Overfield, 2007) and access to new communities that help mediate knowledge (Kramsch, 2006; Lear, 2012). Moreover, it facilitates additional input from native speakers of the target language and further opportunities for output, thus allowing

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learners to develop communicative competence. These benefits are applicable to HLLs, with the added bonus that SL can provide opportunities for them to begin to view their abilities as a resource and develop a positive identification with their community and their language.

An Ecological Approach to Language and Service Learning An ecological approach to language learning sees learning as the result of meaningful activity among individuals within an accessible environment (van Lier, 1997). While this approach does not deny the connection between cognitive and social processes, nor does it interpret learning solely as a mental activity, it does focus on the verbal and non-verbal relations between people and the world (van Lier, 2000, 2004b). Learning from an ecological perspective cannot be fully explained in terms of mental processes, but it is assumed to emerge within the social activity in which learners engage (van Lier, 2000). As such, the learning environment is a rich, complex, but adaptive system full of potential meanings (van Lier, 1997, 2000). Meanings become available to learners as they engage with the environment and consistently develop ways of dealing with the world (van Lier, 2000). The context in which learners interact does not provide input to a passive recipient; instead it provides a ‘semiotic budget’ (van Lier, 2000: 252). This semiotic budget is understood as the opportunities for significant interaction that the context presents and that learners can benefit from as they participate in relevant activities with other individuals of varying linguistic competencies (van Lier, 2000). Van Lier (2004a, as cited in Lafford, 2009) distinguishes various tenets of ecological language learning: (a) language learning emerges through interaction within communities of practice in which learners engage in activities and draw on affordances (or learning opportunities that arise from student participation); (b) language mediates relationships of power and identity between people and the environment through negotiation and socialization, thus providing the learners with an increasingly better capacity to relate to the real world; (c) learners acquire the language as they profit from affordances within the activity setting that encourage them to explore meanings; and (d) learning emerges as the language is used to address particular speech situations and the semiotic system available to learners to construct meanings. This use of the language is dynamic and adaptive to concurrent outcomes and cultural parameters (Lafford, 2009). In summary, an ecological approach acknowledges interaction in its totality within a specific location of learning and the affordances presented by the environment (Thoms, 2014; van Lier, 2000). Moreover, it embraces

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an emic approach, that is, the perspective of those involved in the activity. The advantage of this approach is that it aids in contextualizing the experience, recognizes individual differences and emphasizes the product over the process (Lafford, 2009).

Applying an Ecological Approach to Language Learning The authors carried out two SL projects in advanced Spanish language classrooms at a Midwest university in the United States. These projects are discussed in this section with the intent of illustrating how they were implemented with an ecological approach to language teaching as a foundation. Both courses were required for the major. The first was an advanced conversation class, while the second was an advanced composition course. Moreover, the SL component comprised a significant portion of the final grade in both courses. Based on a questionnaire and in accordance with Valdés’ (2001) definition, the authors identified a mixed group of students comprising L2Ls and HLLs in each course. Given the aforementioned advantages to SL, we aimed to supplement our learners’ linguistic competence through authentic social interactions with the community.

Project I: Vocabulary Acquisition Settings and participants In the first SL project, the authors worked with 20 students enrolled in the advanced Spanish conversation course. The main objective was to develop learners’ fluency in the L2 in a variety of subjects less commonly discussed in the classroom. There were 10 L2Ls and 10 HLLs in the class. The SL project was a course requirement worth 25% of learners’ final grade and it consisted mainly of providing translations of animal signage for a children’s zoo. The project concluded with a visit to the zoo at the end of the semester, during which students interacted with visitors, who were both English and Spanish speakers. In order to meet the objectives of the course, the SL project aimed to expand the learners’ lexicon and increase their ability to speak about science-oriented subjects in the L2.

Data collection and analysis Learners worked in mixed dyads during the semester (L2L–HLLs) on translating the animal profiles. They were also assisted by the instructor, the first author, who interacted with them during class time and routinely provided feedback and guidance on their working drafts. Learners also

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regularly completed reflections in which they pondered on various components of the project, including identity and civic responsibility within the community, L2 acquisition and learning processes and personal and interpersonal development. For research purposes on the subject of vocabulary acquisition through SL, learners completed vocabulary tests: one during week 1 of a 16-week semester (pre-test), a second one during week 10 following the translations’ completion (post-test) and a third test that followed the learners’ visit to the zoo and their interaction with visitors during week 15 (delayed post-test). Test items were selected from animal profiles for their non-transparency with English, low-frequency in Spanish and relative high frequency in the target content to be translated (e.g. madriguera [‘burrow’] and hoja caduca [‘deciduous’]).

Learning outcomes Resulting data were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed in a mixed-methods approach. First, the comparison of vocabulary tests indicated a statistically significant difference in learners’ vocabulary learning following the translation task (t=–4.77, p