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  • Essay / Service Learning and ESL Students - 719

    School, when some people hear the word, they usually think of school as learning new things in a room. However, this is something that cannot be described in the manual alone. Service learning is “a union of community service and formal learning.” This involves students going out into their community and using what they learned in the classroom to help others, then bringing what they learned back to the classroom through their community service 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 Hawaii Internal College Grade 4 (college preparatory) students a chance to serve learning at Queen Ka'ahumanu Elementary School. Service learning is a good way to experience new cultures and also communicate with local people for ESL students. Studying abroad is a wonderful opportunity, but spending time in a new culture is not easy and communicating with people is difficult. Natalie M. Russell is an ESL teacher at Omaha South High School and realized that when she taught ESL students, they often felt distant from their school and communities . Therefore, they tended to only make friends at school and therefore 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 classroom communication with ordinary people, and she decided that service learning was a good way to communicate with ordinary people because she said, "Students learn not only during service-learning activities, but they also reflect on their service and its value to the community. This reflection helps develop a sense of civic responsibility and concern for others. » (Natalie M. Russell, 2007, para 3). In Natalie M. Russell's case, she said, "the student population at the high school I taught at was about 60 percent Hispanic, and my ESL classes this year- there were 100% Hispanic. In deciding what our service project would be, my students concluded that the community's main problem was the language barrier that separated immigrants from the local population. (Natalie M. Russell, 2007, paragraph 4) In town, Spanish/English dictionaries were available for purchase, but Spanish/English phrasebooks were not. So she and her students decided to create Spanish/English phrasebooks and distribute them for free in the community...