Since the initial application of the 'affordances' concept to the context of language learning by van Lier, relatively few studies have continued to explore its implications for second language (L2) learning. This study examines from an emic perspective the affordances that 13 Spanish learners in a study abroad context perceived in their…

This study explores transformative learning (TL) in community-based language learning experiences. The fall 2019 study, conducted with 25 undergraduate students enrolled in two advanced language courses with a service-learning component, was designed to identify if TL is occurring, which classroom and community-based activities lead to TL, and…

Imagine producing curricula to teach a new language to an audience in a different country that has never had access to computers or the Internet. How will instructional designers and teachers communicate when worlds are so vastly different? Before reading, writing, or speaking, images and movement facilitate communication. This article describes a…

The article discusses a year-long outreach activity, "Sparking interest in German." Five University of Utah German students engaged in the AATG/Goethe-Institut-sponsored SPARK program and taught German to local middle schoolers. At the heart of this outreach project were questions such as whether student-run outreach programs could truly…

The global economy and COVID created an interdependency where managers work in multiple countries, requiring cultural awareness. Cultural Intelligent (CQ) is a recent concept described as predictor of cultural adaptation. We studied 188 international business university students in terms of gender, language, major, financial need, and study…

Universities across the U.S. have increasingly emphasized internationalization, leading to rising numbers of international students attending U.S. institutions of higher education. However, these students tend to gravitate toward larger research-intensive universities with many other institutions seeing no increase in international student…

This investigation explores oral proficiency outcomes in short-term study abroad programs, as well as the interaction of those outcomes with the type of second language (L2) courses involved. For three years, speaking ability gains were measured in a study abroad setting among intermediate learners of Spanish under two different course conditions:…

Students in interpreting courses often learn following a very practical approach. These types of courses usually utilize role-plays to perfect students' interpreting skills and develop the necessary terminology needed during interpreted-mediated events. Adding service-learning components to these types of courses, can provide students with…

Community engagement through service-learning has been a mainstay of higher education for the past 20 years and has increasingly proven successful in grounding academic knowledge in community experience. This article explores how service-learning programs designed to shape students' sense of responsibility for the common good can also foster their…

This dissertation explores community-based learning (CBL) in university Spanish education. Although Spanish education continues to construct Spanish as a foreign language (Leeman, 2014), recent trends such as changing demographics in the US have led to calls for Spanish education to focus more on US Latinx communities (e.g., Torres, Pascual y…

Although service-learning, as a language teaching strategy, is considered important for developing the college students' academic and soft skills, or personal attributes that people need in order to work with others, including communication skills, empathy, social skills, listening skills and attitudes, it is still a neglected area in the Libyan…

Byram's (2008) intercultural citizenship framework includes the following orientations: cognitive, evaluative, comparative, action, and communicative. Using this framework as a theoretical basis, this study explored the international service-learning (ISL) experiences of four Taiwanese non-native English speakers (NNES) during a two-week trip to a…

Integrating service-learning into content courses is a growing pedagogical model expanding in higher education institutes in many countries. To examine the application of this approach in English L2 writing classes, this study embarked on a tutor-tutee mentoring project at a Taiwanese university. The participants in this study served as writing…

English learners in EFL contexts where grammar-based instruction is still dominant often lack opportunities to use the target language both within and outside the classroom. In 2010, we initiated a club-based approach to facilitate students' learning beyond the classroom. It focused on meaningful communication, authentic tasks, student agency,…

Service-Learning (SL) has been defined as an experiential teaching methodology. Through SL, students participate in activities that benefit their community and enhance their learning experience. In the current study, Spanish as a second language (L2) and heritage language learners (HLLs) engaged in a SL project in which they translated English…