Examining Performance and Attitudes of TESOL Preservice Teachers and Their English Learners in a Service-Learning Project

Service-learning has increasingly been implemented to enhance teacher education coursework in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Service-learning engages preservice teachers in activities or projects that benefit a particular community of stakeholders with ties to English as an additional language learning while simultaneously improving preservice teachers' skills, typically in the form of increased opportunities to practice and reflect on teaching, cultural issues, materials development, and/or advocacy. This article reports on a service-learning project that brought together preservice TESOL teachers and English learners from a local, low-income elementary school in a literacy-focused after-school program. The dual goals of the program were to help improve the literacy skills and foster positive attitudes of young English learners, while simultaneously helping to develop the preservice teachers' professional skills as educators.