The CATESOL Journal

Success in higher education requires a functional proficiency in academic literacy and the concomitant motivation to further develop one’s linguistic abilities. For underserved populations, service-learning may provide a conduit for increasing the matriculation of diverse communities at the college as well as university level. Studies of community literacy practices have traditionally focused on monolingual populations. Moreover, the notion of literacy as a tool for creating positive social change is certainly not a novel idea; however, as the higher education population becomes increasingly diverse, there is a pressing need for increased research on the interactions between the first and second languages in higher educational settings. The fundamental principle operative in this tutoring program is that projects are designed and implemented exclusively by adult education students in their second language. The secondary discourses that evolve from these activities become instrumental in facilitating vocational goals and proficiencies that are taught in academic course work at the college level. Finally, the motivation to become an active participant in service-learning projects derives from the ability to successfully employ second language literacy in social action.