Service Learning and the Preparation of English Teachers

Abstract

In this article, service learning is explored as a pedagogical third space from which preservice teachers learn to teach the New English education. We argue that such a space has the potential to foster preservice English teachers’ understanding of their role and identity as future teachers and how this identity is always relative to the students they teach. Drawing from a study of 19 preservice English teachers’ experiences with service learning, we discuss three themes relevant to service learning and the preparation of English teachers: (1) service learning as a pedagogical third space for English teachers, (2) service learning as fostering the disruption of a teaching mythology, and (3) service learning as promoting a recognition of the New English education. Further, we propose that service learning can encourage prospective English teachers to complicate notions of teacher/student, official/unofficial language, singular authority/pluralistic power, and server/served.