SERVICE LEARNING INTEGRATED WITH FOREIGN LANGUAGES LEARNING: PROMOTING TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCIES
In this article, the author will present an innovative way how to develop students' foreign language communicative and intercultural competence alongside with a whole set of transversal competencies via an innovated version of foreign language courses. They may be attended by both university students or secondary school students. The basic idea of such a course, in our case called "Global Encounters in Local Settings", is giving students space to create a service-learning project for a community. Students have to work in linguistically and ethnically mixed groups. Each group decides to about the focus of their project and the procedures of its implementation. Via these cooperative projects accomplished while using various foreign languages - suitable also for online learning space, the students can develop various transversal competencies, such as critical and reflective thinking, plurilingual and intercultural competence, problem-solving, team-work skills, interpersonal and other social competencies, willingness to take risks and seek challenges, leadership development skills, time management and planning skills, inclusive approach, and active citizenship. The first version of such course was tested on several groups of university students in Slovakia (in 2020). The post-tests and reflections after accomplishing this course showed evident growth in the above-mentioned competencies.