Acculturation and an ESL Program: A Service Learning Project

The author describes and evaluates her experience participating in a service-learning project in a Human Diversity course designed to foster multicultural competence in clinical psychology doctoral trainees. The project took place at an English as a Second Language (ESL) program that offered an array of services, including ESL courses and individual tutors. The author had the opportunity to examine the workings of a successful multicultural organization, engage in an individual cross-cultural relationship, and examine her own cultural identity, biases, beliefs and attitudes within the framework of an ongoing relationship. Utilizing John Berry's (2001) theory of acculturation, the author evaluates the workings of the ESL program, as well as her own work as a tutor, acknowledging integration and multiculturalism as the ideal outcomes of cross-cultural contact.[author]