Student Voice in a Second Language

Student voice and meaningful student involvement are important elements of Community Service Learning projects.  Student voice happens when there is a process for engaging students as partners in school improvement for the sake of education, community, and democracy.   

Madame Desjardins, a French teacher at Laurier Macdonald CLC created a space for her secondary five students to address a community and school need.  Students worked out solutions to an authentic environmental problem, all the time communicating in their second language.

Students first became aware of the problem of the urban heat island or in French, « îlots de chaleur urbains » during a presentation by the local Écoquatier.

When the students understood that an under utilized asphalt section of their schoolyard was an example of an urban heat island, an idea developed to create a student initiated green space called “Eco-Laurier”.

Every 2-3 weeks, Madame Desjardins invited community partners from Écoquartier, a youth entrepreneurship counsellor from Horizon Carrière and a local landscape architect.

The students were split into 4 different committees – Marketing, Finance, Production and Human Resources.  The students had to communicate and coordinate with each other in French.   As the space came together, the students researched the appropriate flowers and vegetation to plant and built benches.  The space was promoted with the slogan – “chill in the back of LMAC to eat your snack and just relax”.

It is not always easy for teachers to make space for students to have voice.  I asked Madame Desjardins what she learned from the experience and she replied, “I learned to let go and work without a net”.

I applaud her attitude, especially when it results in young people having a chance to gain self-confidence and address an authentic need in their community, especially while using their second language.