Project-Based Learning in Second Language Acquisition: Building Communities of Practice in Higher Education

This book showcases pedagogical tools for learning languages through interdisciplinary project-based learning (PBL). Chapters demonstrate a diverse range of PBL activities that help students build communities of practice within classroom settings, and across local and global communities.

Too often, learning a language can become a static endeavor, confined to a classroom and a singular discipline. But language is dynamic and fluid no matter the setting in which learning takes place. In acknowledging this, this volume explores how PBL and community-engagement pedagogies serve to combine learning goals and community service in ways that enhance student growth and facilitate second language development in an interdisciplinary, multilingual, and multicultural higher education learning environment. Chapters touch on activities and approaches including spoken-word poetry, environmental projects, social activism, study abroad, and in-service learning.

This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of language education, second language acquisition, higher education, and comparative and international education.

Adrian Gras-Velázquez is a Lecturer and Language Coordinator in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Smith College, USA.