Central Michigan University offers a TESOL service learning course that provides pre-service teachers the opportunity to apply their understanding of course content while addressing the needs of school-aged and adult emergent multilinguals. An innovative aspect of the course is that it provides clinical experiences, prior to student teaching, at the university’s English Language Institute and at multiple sites within a rural K-12 school district. To contribute to an understanding of how to prepare pre-service teachers while supporting emergent multilinguals in rural communities, the authors describe the development and research basis of the course, discuss the benefits of the course and how they overcame various challenges, and offer advice for developing similar programs. The authors contend that service learning models can provide unique educational experiences by providing meaningful interactions between diverse student populations and call for additional research on TESOL service learning models in rural contexts
