Abstract

The clichés "it's a small world" and "the world is our classroom" are becoming practical realities for many educators. Increasingly accessible transnational contexts for English language teaching and learning offer new opportunities for local-global learning. This article reflects on a content-based online English course focused on community youth leadership that was offered for Brazilian teens by U.S. instructors and graduate students. The researchers used the backdrop of English learning focused on key concepts to engage students in critical self-reflection, collaborative discussion with peers, and civic engagement with their home communities. This course focused on communication skills, content knowledge, and technology practices needed for young adults to engage each other as emerging global citizens. Students wrote reflections on identity, planned and reflected on community interviews, and designed community-based service projects. The authors describe how students and instructors used a variety of formal and informal communication platforms to experiment with the language and communication strategies students needed to get beyond simple vocabulary practice and into meaningful discourse about contested concepts such as identity, community, social responsibility, social hope, leadership, and beliefs. The authors discuss how students creatively used English across multiple online platforms and geographic borders to reimagine and project themselves as agents of positive social change and emerging community leaders.

Citation

Bickel, B., Shin, J.K., Taylor, J., Faust, H. & Penniston, T. Learning English Internationally While Engaging Communities Locally: Online EFL Supporting Community Learning for Young Leaders. TESOL Journal, 4(3), 439-462. Retrieved August 6, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/154578/.

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Keywords

• Citizenship Responsibility
• Communication Strategies
• Course Descriptions
• creativity
• discussion
• English (Second Language)
• Foreign Countries
• Graduate students
• Interviews
• Language Teachers
• online courses
• Peer Groups
• reflection
• Second Language Instruction
• second language learning
• Secondary School Students
• Self Concept
• Service Learning
• Social Responsibility
• student attitudes
• teaching methods