The Impact of Service-Learning on English Education. A Socio-Cultural Project as an Attempt to Increase Cultural Awareness

Abstract

There is a constantly growing need for implementing new pedagogical approaches to the classroom environment. Approaches aiming at the collaboration of students, teachers, and the community are desired as they create a perfect area for the teaching process and acquiring new knowledge within the specific subject field. The Service-Learning (SL) approach focuses on addressing students’ needs efficiently and effectively, ensuring active student involvement in all stages of the lesson unit, and intentionally linking to a learning context. The aim of the paper is to answer the question about the added value of SL for university students in the process of integrating theoretical knowledge and its practical application. The article presents the benefits and drawbacks of incorporating SL into the curriculum of English lessons. The collected results prove that a SL approach and the knowledge of how to apply it in the academic process remain vital and constitute a significantly useful element in increasing cultural awareness of students and the training of future English teachers.