Personal Growth Foreign Language Homework : An Experiential Task in the Local Community

This paper discusses the design of foreign language homework involving student interaction with the local community It attempts to show this can lead to both effective language learning and personal growth. The paper begins with a short description of the humanistic education movement and its influence on foreign language teaching The concepts of personal growth (Moskowitz 1978), interactive language teaching(Rivers 1987) and experiential language learning(Jerald and Clark 1983)are then discussed To show how these concepts can be integrated into educational tasks, a classroom activity framework known as the S I- S-F model(Timmerman and Ballard 1975) is introduced. To illustrate this model, an English language homework task called 'Conversation with a Stranger' is described. For this task, university students had to go into the local community, talk to a stranger in English or Japanese, and then write an English report about their experience. After an analysis of the task using excerpts from student reports, features and criticisms of the approach are discussed. It is concluded that interactive, experiential foreign language homework can promote linguistic and social skills, stimulate student initiative, motivation and enjoyment, and foster good interpersonal and international attitudes.