Service-Learning in the Ecuadorian Andes through Spanish, English and Kichwa Voicing

Abstract

Community engagement projects create an avenue for university students and faculty to interact with local communities. These endeavors place together groups with different worldviews, cultures, and languages. Service-Learning (sl) has acquired novelty in academic circles; however, there has been limited research analyzing what happens with intercultural communication. This article attempts to fill this gap by asking how intercultural communication is shaped through sl. Research was conducted on a community engagement project in the Andean paramo of Chugchilán, Ecuador involving faculty, students, and members of the indigenous community. For the analysis, a blended design of transcendental phenomenology and sl methodology was used to analyze how participants perceive and make sense of their experience. From a linguistic perspective, we used both bilingualism and diglossia to analyze intercultural communication during the sl experience. The findings show that sl is a valid methodology that can increase intercultural communication while developing cultural competency between participants of the project. Finally, the study considers the revitalization of indigenous languages to be a fundamental step for a global intercultural world.