LANGUAGE LEARNERS CAN “MAKE A DIFFERENCEâ€: BENEFITS OF A VOLUNTEERING OPTION FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE
Journal Title: European Journal of Business and Social Sciences - Year 2013, Vol 1, Issue 12
Abstract
This paper reports on a group of 70 students of English as an Additional Language (EAL) studying New Zealand culture and language at a tertiary institute in Auckland who became volunteers during community placement. Of the original cohorts, 16 of the students, from a wide range of backgrounds, became regular volunteers as a result of a community placement they were required to do for a unit in their BA (EAL) degree. The concept of community placement is valuable in the EAL sector, where work placements are commonly used as a way of acculturating EAL students, whether they are international students, migrants or refugees, into the linguistic, cultural and practical aspects of workplace experience. Community placements allow such learners to explore their linguistic, cultural and practical learning in supportive, community-based contexts such as rest homes, advice bureaux or charity shops. Backed by an investigation of the concept of “communityâ€, this study identifies the students’ experiences of cultural, linguistic and practical learning in their communities. This project gave learners access to “communities of practice†(Lave & Wenger 1992; Wenger 1998) that aligned with the kinds of communities they imagined as valuable to their future identities; in other words, “imagined communities†(Anderson 1983). The data in this project consists in the reflected journals of participants in community placements that are analysed thematically. They reveal the cultural, linguistic and ontological value of community work for invested learners. As an educational study, it shows how community placements can prepare learners both for their future work as volunteers and for their imagined communities, where they see themselves as contributing to their “host†culture but able, as one participant writes, “to make a differenceâ€.
Authors and Affiliations
Dr. Martin Andrew| College of Education, Victoria University, Footscray Park,Australia
Keywords
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