Publication Date
Summer 2020
First Advisor
Dr. Leslie Turpin
Abstract
This paper explores principles shared by outdoor education and language education that make for meaningful, engaged learning experiences, as well as what educators and learners are doing at the merger of these two fields. Its primary goal is to address how ESL/ELL teachers might draw on the values and practices illustrated in these examples to promote active, student-driven learning in their own contexts both indoors and outdoors. Through personal history, the author explains how he arrived at this inquiry and lays out the questions that guided this thesis. A two-part literature review examines examples of general outdoor education models and their overlap in values with language education, as well as how examples of ESL programs that incorporate outdoor learning into their classes benefit from the merger. The author then discusses ways ESL/ELL teachers can adapt ideas from these examples to fit their own contexts.
Recommended Citation
Oates, Andrew, "Natural Resources: The Confluence of ESL/ELL and Outdoor Education" (2020). MA TESOL Collection. 749.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/ipp_collection/749