Community Service Learning as Critical Curriculum: Promoting International Students' Second Language Practices

Abstract

Grounded in the whole person perspective of language learners and the concepts of investment and L2 socialization, this qualitative study explores how community service learning (CSL) contributes to international students' L2 practices and identity development. This study finds that CSL creates “a pedagogical contact zone” outside the formal language classroom in which students are exposed to authentic L2 practices and discourse acquisition. CSL is a critical curriculum for students' learning, repositioning, cooperating, and empowering. It transforms the multiple spaces of students' worlds and connects the boundaries between university and community and between foreign culture and American culture. CSL promotes students' L2 practices and positions in the community as worthy cultural and social beings. This study advocates that CSL is a legitimate language practice. It offers students an alternative discourse, community contact, and an invitation to reading and understanding the world. Suggestions for curriculum implications are discussed.