Project-Based Learning in Second Language Acquisition Building Communities of Practice in Higher Education Routledge Research in Language Education Series

This book showcases pedagogical tools for learning languages through interdisciplinary project-based learning (PBL). Chapters demonstrate a diverse range of PBL activities that help students build communities of practice within classroom settings, and across local and global communities.

Too often, learning a language can become a static endeavor, confined to a classroom and a singular discipline. But language is dynamic and fluid no matter the setting in which learning takes place. In acknowledging this, this volume explores how PBL and community-engagement pedagogies serve to combine learning goals and community service in ways that enhance student growth and facilitate second language development in an interdisciplinary, multilingual, and multicultural higher education learning environment. Chapters touch on activities and approaches including spoken-word poetry, environmental projects, social activism, study abroad, and in-service learning.

This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of language education, second language acquisition, higher education, and comparative and international education.

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Adrián Gras-Velázquez

PART I

Theoretical Intersections

Chapter 1: Diversity and second language acquisition in the university classroom. A multilingual and multicultural setting.

María José Coperías-Aguilar

Chapter 2: Project-based learning: A five-stage framework to guide language teachers

Fredricka L. Stoller and CeAnn Chandel Myers

Chapter 3: A theoretical approach to project-based learning in community-based settings

Emily Skalet

PART II

Teaching and Learning

Chapter 4: Community bridges and interdisciplinary language learning projects: stepping out of comfort zones and building ways to grow

Susan G. Polansky

Chapter 5: Project-based & ELF-aware pre-service teacher education in Turkey: sample cases of discovery, creativity, interaction and multilingual and multicultural diversity

Elif Kemaloglu-Er and Yasemin Bayyurt

PART III

Immersion and the International

Chapter 6: Social activism Italian style: building a community of practice through language immersion and civic engagement while studying abroad

Bruno Grazioli

Chapter 7: Investigating environmental sustainability in an English writing course for international students. PBL as an on-ramp to academic belonging

Susan Huss-Lederman, Prajukti (juk) Bhattacharyya, and Brianna Deering

PART IV

Heritage Learning and Language

Chapter 8: Project-based learning in the context of teaching heritage language learners

Maria Carreira, Claire Hitchins Chik, and Shushan Karapetian

Chapter 9: Círculo Juvenil de Cultura: A ten-year experiment in service learning and community engagement

Mariana Achugar, Felipe Gómez, and Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez

PART V

Civic Partnerships

Chapter 10: Multilingual justice in the streets and in the classroom: translating a digital timeline of US domestic worker organizing

Michelle Joffroy

Chapter 11: Language acquisition through service learning and community engagement: critical reflection, intercultural competence and action agency

Alison Maginn

PART VI

Case Studies in Creative Communications

Chapter 12: ¿Y tú quién eres? Interviews as project-based learning at a multicultural college community

Adrián Gras-Velázquez, Julia Chindemi-Vila, and Ah-Young Song

Chapter 13: Every poem matters: world language acquisition and community building through spoken-word poetry

Inés Arribas

Chapter 14: Films for inclusion: LGBT+ perspectives in the French language classroom

Aurélie Chevant-Aksoy and Ericka Knudson

Adrian Gras-Velázquez is a Lecturer and Language Coordinator in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Smith College, USA.