Event

"Integrating Academically Based Community Service into Language Teaching and Learning"
Jami N. Fisher, Ed.D, ASL Program Coordinator

As world language instructors, we strive to expose our students to authentic, real-world language experiences and contexts to increase their cultural and linguistic competencies. Many students get these experiences through study abroad. But not everyone has the ability to study abroad nor does every program have a faraway place to send their language-learning students. In fact, most, if not all, of us have are able to give our students these real-world language experiences right here in Philadelphia through the communities of speakers and signers of the languages we teach. This workshop aims to explore the ways in which we can integrate community-based activity into our language classrooms.  Using American Sign Language (ASL) and local Deaf communities as a model, we will better understand Academically Based Community Service at Penn and how we can use such opportunities and institutional support to infuse ABCS into our own language classrooms and curricula. In the end, workshop participants will develop ideas and plans on how to integrate ABCS and local community engagement into their own language courses.