Service Learning and ESL Students

School, when some people hear the word, they usually think that school is learning new things in a room. However, it is something that cannot be described only in the textbook. Service learning is “an union of community service and formal learning. It involves students going out into their communities and using that which they learn in class to help people, and then bringing that which they learn in their community service back into the classroom to enhance their learning.”(Minor, 2001) Diane Murakami who is an ELL (English Language Learners) teacher at Queen Ka’ahumanu Elementary School in Honolulu. She gave CP 4 (college preparatory) students at Hawaii Internal College a chance to service learning at Queen Ka’ahumanu Elementary School. Service learning is a good effect way to learn about new cultures and also to communicate with local people for ESL students.

Studying abroad is a wonderful opportunity, but it is not easy to spend time in a new culture, and communicating with people is difficult. Natalie M. Russell is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher at Omaha South High School, and she realized that when she was teaching ESL students, they often felt alienated from their school and communities. Therefore, they tended to make friends only in school, so they did not make friends outside of school. In “Teaching More Than English”, Natalie M. Russell said, “they avoided interacting with mainstream students and getting involved in school activities” (Natalie M. Russell, 2007, para 1).

Natalie M. Russell tried to make her class communication with mainstream people, and she decided that service learning was a good way to communicate with mainstream people because she said, “students not only learn during service learning activities, but also they also reflect on their service and its value to the community. This reflection helps build a sense of civic responsibility and caring for others.”(Natalie M. Russell, 2007, para 3)

In Natalie M. Russell’s case, she said, “the student population of the high school in which I taught was approximately 60% Hispanic, and my ESL classes that year were 100% Hispanic. In deciding what our service project would be, my students concluded that the community’s primary problem was the language barrier that divided the immigrants from the local population.” (Natalie M. Russell, 2007, para 4) In town, Spanish/English dictionaries were available to buy, but Spanish/English phrasebooks were not, so she and her students decided to make Spanish/English phrasebooks and distributed it free in the community.