New Approaches in English Language and Literature Studies
The emergence of the work-integrated learning (WIL) agenda as a new mission in English language education focuses on life where social transformation happens through hands-on experience. Education as a dynamic integrated system is responsible for the development of the whole human personality and also for self-reliance which can be acquired through a gradual growth of learning English through WIL. This paper would focus on how the WIL as an agenda targets the dynamic and progressive process of learning the English language in the future.
And the paper traces the construction of Service-learning and Experiential learning which has been a platform to practice WIL in the sphere of Education. The paper also focuses on the seven key dimensions of WIL and the models of designing incorporated in the current scenario for learning the English Language.
This paper concludes with a note of how WIL would be into practice in Higher Education of English Language. Integration is the process of making whole or complete.
It evolves to construct one system that uses all available knowledge or the “multiple intelligences” from several separate sources. Integrated learning is incorporated through the synthesis of experiences, theory and practice. In this agenda of WIL, integration brings together formal learning and productive work to give students fruitful learning and a knowledgeable experience to lead a prosperous future.
The Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is a learning process that integrates academic learning of discipline with its practical application in the workplace. The aim is to ensure that students develop the ability to integrate their learning through a combination of academic and work-related activities.
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Work-integrated learning programs are becoming popular with students, the government, employers, and universities. A major benefit of a WIL program is the increased employability of students, and this matches well with the present trend whereby students expect a pay-off from their investment in education.
Although WIL programs are more common in some profession-based undergraduate courses than others, they have not been frequently discussed in relation to accounting in the Indian context. The importance of WIL programs, in general, is followed by a discussion on how WIL, work, and knowledge are related to each other. The types of available WIL programs are discussed in relation to their applicability to an accounting program. Issues relating to designing a successful WIL program are discussed by its accounting faculty, academics, employers, professional accounting bodies and the government as stakeholders in the program. The WIL program’s implications for the accounting curriculum are also discussed further.
In the beginning years, WIL has been processed and progressed as a cottage industry as stated by Orrell in his opening address at Work-Integrated Learning Symposium held at Griffith University, Australia in November 2005. The WIL was largely under-resourced, under-researched and under-theorized which was practiced at a considerable personal and professional expense to an individual’s academics responsible for managing it. It has been an approach working on the principle of ‘Learning to work’, the students were the workers and the observers.
The approach was only through volunteering which creates a sphere of atomistic, individualistic and isolated. The students were forced to learn for the sake of getting a job. Thus, the old paradigm or the old culture of WIL faced its end as the students started to lose hope and interest in learning since they were forced to do things that they never desired to do. It made the life difficult and mechanical where the students forgot their own happiness, which lies in what they do. This end traced a new path to the birth of WIL as a new paradigm, which has been approached as a dynamic and progressive process.
The reason for the fabrication of WIL as a new paradigm was to develop a build a new culture of learning among the students of higher education. The new culture made students come up with their creative, vital, active, energetic, and effective thoughts and ideas needed for the transformation of society for its betterment. The new paradigm worked on the principle that “Working to learn” shared many goals and created records of mutual benefits where students had the role of participants and they were the learners. This approach was driven by so many factors such as professional accreditation, learning enhancement, career selection, confirmation and development, social service, workforce development, knowledge transfer, enhancement of university/industry/ society’s support and partnerships. The new paradigm of WIL had a positive and high-spirited powerful impact on creating a society of education for life.
Education in this sense is far more than an institutional framework that has been rooted in India. Since there are so many educational institutions sprouting up all over the country and the unemployment rate has been increased, we must ask: what kind of education is being offered to us? In most of cases, teacher-driven classroom environments are not the representation of the true and lively culture of fruitful learning rather they are the appalling environments for total learning. Creativity in the classroom is stifled or completely lacking nowadays as there is hardly any positive interaction between the teacher and the student. Most interventions and discussions are disciplinary and damaging above all there is a resistance to change.
The WIL as an old paradigm made education commercialized and job oriented but the dynamic and progressive approach to WIL is considered to be a holistic synergy. The holistic or holism comes from the Greek word ‘holos” meaning whole and Greek work “synergy” meaning joint or cooperative action. Education as a dynamic and continuous process tends to create a whole human personality with more than the sum of the parts of nature by ordered grouping his multiple intelligences. Within holistic education, Holistic synergy brings together various faculties working together and discovering that there is greater effectiveness in fulfilling our learning goals and outcomes together, which lead to the establishment of the current trending student-centered pedagogies: Service learning and experiential learning.
Service-learning is an educational approach that combines learning objectives with community service in order to provide a pragmatic, progressive learning experience while meeting societal needs. It involves students in service projects to apply classroom learning for local agencies that exist to effect positive change in the community. The National Youth Leadership Council defines service-learning as “a philosophy, pedagogy, and model for community development that is used as an instructional strategy to meet learning goals and/or content standards”. Author Barbara Jacoby defines service-learning as “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve desired learning outcomes”.
Within this student-centered pedagogy of dynamic and progressive approach, involves the emergence of Problem-based and Project-based learning processes. The PBLs processes involve a dynamic and an active classroom outlook which is believed to be that the students will be able to acquire a deeper knowledge of real-world challenges and problems. It does not focus on problem-solving with a defined solution, but it allows for the development of other desirable skills and attributes. This includes knowledge acquisition, enhanced group collaboration and communication. The process allows the learners to develop skills needed for their future practice.
It enhances critical appraisal, literature retrieval and encourages ongoing learning within a team environment. It also involves students learning about a subject by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, challenge, or problem. It is a style of active learning and inquiry-based learning. PBLs processes contrast with paper-based, rote memorization, or teacher-led instruction that presents established facts or portrays a smooth path to knowledge by instead posing questions, problems, or scenarios. It is focused on the student’s reflection and reasoning to construct their own learning.
John Dewey initially promoted the idea of ‘learning by doing. In My Pedagogical Creed Dewey enumerated his beliefs regarding education: ‘The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these…….I believe, therefore, in the so-called expressive or constructive activities as the center of correlation.’ Service-learning has been currently included in the curriculum and has been trending in practice. But the growth and development of it are inert and immobile when compared to other educational approaches. It is considered to be one of the course-based programs but not a WIL. The ways to execute its hands-on-learning method are as follows:
Volunteerism is acts of service performed out of free will without expectation of recompense and is generally altruistic in nature; the main beneficiaries, at least in a visible sense are generally those served by the student. Practicum – practical section of solving a problem in the society through study work. Internships – work in a societal organization for gaining work experience or satisfy requirements for qualification, sometimes without pay as it provides students with experience in various fields of work.
Fieldwork and Field education – working for a community without pay as to observe and participate, a professional education to bring a change in the society. It is generally more materially beneficial to the student. Field education involves programs that, ‘provide students with co‐curricular service opportunities that are related, but not fully integrated, with their formal academic studies.’ Community Service is quite similar to volunteerism, the main difference being that it is said to ‘involve more structure and student commitment than do volunteer programs.’ Sandwich Course – paid employment in which students are placed in a business or non-governmental or governmental organizations to gain work experience and to apply knowledge from the classroom into the real world and also provide with the societal needs.
Cooperative Education – Work experience aligned to develop the student as a responsible citizen and transform society through educating the society’s needs for future betterment. Thus, service-learning helps to find the students to find the problem in society and work on them as a project to ensure that there is a social transformation happening. Service-learning combines both experiential learning and community service. Experiential learning is a process of learning through experience which benefits the real world or society as the students have the opportunity for their creativity. There is always more than one solution to a problem in the real world. Students will have a better chance to learn that lesson when they get to interact with real-life experiences.
The Work Integrated learning which incorporates here is where when they try to become teachers for their fellow people who are in need of education as they are denied for any reason may be. The WIL as a dynamic and progressive approach traces to build the educational processes such as service learning and experiential learning in the curriculum as a beneficial method of learning for both the students and the society. The statics in India tells that there is a lot of students who involve themselves more in learning and gives attention to learning when the process is lively and active which states that 90% of learners expect to learn to be an innovative, active and energetic way of interesting them. Educationalists in India prove that students deny education when they find it more theorized and rote memorized, where they say that the largest population of teachers and parents prefer their children to lead a life of self-reliance and also expect that the students can manage, lead and serve a nation with their knowledge.
And thus, this can be practical into the reality by incorporating WIL as a part of the curriculum enhancing to teach the English language through hands-on-learning methods. Though there is a long gap in executing the service-learning and experiential learning as a course-based program in teaching the English Language. There are many practical measures to solve this issue as they can introduce a course ‘Action Research in English/Functional English’ for the higher education classes.
This course has an inclusion of service-learning or experiential learning programs where students involve themselves into addressing society’s needs and problems and will be able to find a solution for it through the PBL processes. In the course of time, they would be able to overcome their fear of communication in English and will also train themselves in research on their particular topic based on the WIL process. The students come up with ideas and thoughts and present them in the English language where the WIL helps them train their listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW) skills of English Language.
Conclusion
Finally, the paper concludes with that the Work Integrated Learning as a dynamic and a progressive approach will be able to construct service-learning and experiential learning as a beneficial process for the society by benefitting with the needs and for the students to incorporate English Language education for life. The few methods of hands-on learning provide the practical knowledge of student-centered pedagogies which be brought into practice widely in India. Thus, the paper provides an overview of the establishment of WIL in the curriculum framework for higher education which would help the students in English language education.
Works cited:
- Cooper, Lesley, et al. Work Integrated Learning: A Guide to Effective Practice. Routledge, 2010.
- Gnanakan, Ken. Integrated Learning. Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Bringle, Robert G., et al. Service Learning in Psychology: Enhancing Undergraduate Education for the Public Good. The American Psychological Association, 2016.
- Bhanoṭa Sumana. English Language Teaching: Approaches and Techniques. Kanishka Publishers, Distributors, 2013.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/24641959
New Approaches in English Language and Literature Studies. (2021, Dec 13). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/new-approaches-in-english-language-and-literature-studies/
