Abstract:

Problem Statement:
This paper is a theoretical and methodological approach regarding the foreign students’ cultural and linguistic integration. For students who choose to learn in a foreign country it is important to know more about its cultural and social symbols, values, traditions, thinking and feeling. But, the academic learning is often ineffective; speaking a foreign language doesn’t mean having a good communication with people who provide from different cultural spaces.

Purpose of Study:
This study starts from the premise that it is necessary, to better understand and collaborate with people from different social and cultural space, a good connection with “the real world”. As a consequence, we propose using the Service Learning as a form of experiential education which allows combining learning goals, personal development, social interaction and community service. Having the community partners, the students are helped to achieve better cultural and living integration.
This learning modality gives students experiential opportunities to learn in real world contexts, and develop active social abilities needed to communicate and interact with people in a different cultural space. Addition, the study offers a theoretical and practical perspective of them.

Results of Study:
This study argues that the service learning is one of the very good modalities to develop the communication between people from different cultural space. In this respect, the study presents some practical activities connected to service learning and some ways to integrate community engagement into existing academic courses. Our noticed were verified working with incoming students.

Keywords:

Communication, learning competences, cultural integration, community.