Using Service-Learning as Experiential Learning in EFL Classrooms: Fostering Global Citizenship in the Thai Context
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Abstract
This study explores how service-learning, conceptualised as an experiential learning approach, fosters global citizenship among students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in Thailand. Guided by Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory and UNESCO’s (2015) Global Citizenship Education (GCED) framework, the study adopted a qualitative design to analyse students’ reflections, interviews, and artefacts from two course-based service-learning projects: the Kids Asa Project and the GC-based Mini English Lesson for the Blind. The latter required students to collaboratively design inclusive English lessons for visually impaired learners by integrating GCED principles such as empathy, inclusion, and respect for diversity into their pedagogical decisions. Findings reveal that service-learning fostered students’ development across the cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioural dimensions of GCED. Cognitively, students reconceptualised English as an inclusive communicative practice rather than a system focused solely on linguistic accuracy. Socio-emotionally, sustained interaction with blind learners promoted empathy, respect, and heightened self–other awareness. Behaviourally, students enacted these understandings through inclusive pedagogical design and expressed a growing sense of responsibility and civic engagement. Overall, the study illustrates how global citizenship was experienced not as an abstract or idealised concept but as a lived and locally grounded practice enacted through small-scale actions. By highlighting both the pedagogical possibilities and practical constraints of service-learning in EFL contexts, this study offers a nuanced and attainable conceptualisation of GCED in language education.
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