tailieunhanh - Integrating service learning activities into the english major undergraduate curriculum at Hue university of foreign languages

This paper seeks to depict an overview of these service learning endeavours illustrated by examples of implementation at Hue University of foreign languages and then makes recommendations as to the embeddment of service learning in English programs in Vietnam. | INTEGRATING SERVICE LEARNING ACTIVITIES INTO THE ENGLISH MAJOR UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM AT HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRUONG BACH LE DANG THI CAM TU, HO THI THUY TRANG Faculty of English, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University Email: tbachle@, mtletruong@ Abstract: With an effort to promote closer links between school and community throughout university training programs, service learning (SL) activities have recently been tried out in the English major undergradue curriculum at the Faculty of English, Hue University of Foreign Languages (HUFL). This paper seeks to depict an overview of these SL endeavours illustrated by examples of implementation at HUFL and then makes recommendations as to the embeddment of service learning in English programs in Vietnam. Keywords: service learning, English Language Teaching, community engaged learning 1. INTRODUCTION In times of globalization and integration, the role of tertiary education is absolutely crucial as it contributes directly to the quality of labor force in society as well as interrelations between different countries (Marginson & Wende, [9]). In Vietnam, enormous efforts have been made in order to carry out reforms for the tertiary education; yet there are challenges to be tackled. One of these challenges concerns the practicability of learning at university and applying knowledge in real life after graduation. As Nguyen and Vu [12] put it, the curricular in many universities across Vietnam are laden with theories and learning does not go closely with practice. Thus, bridging the gap between students’ academic knowledge and real-life application has become an issue of great importance for university teachers, curriculum designers and policy makers. As a liberal arts and humanities institution, Hue University of Foreign Languages (HUFL) has been seeking to advance the ultimate goal of serving the population in the Central region of Vietnam through foreign language instruction