Outdoor ESL Education

  ESL (English as a second language) learning can benefit from outdoor education principles and activities. Luckily 75 Avventura is nestled deep in a very natural setting in the valley next to the Tuscan village of Montieri in the province of Grosseto and our after-school English program uses that nature to our advantage in order to stimulate and nurture the students as they explore not only the intracacies of the English language but also the complexity of the natural world.

Our students range from 7 to 12 years old and together they develop their capacity and confidence to comprehend and communicate in English using experiences and activities based in a natural setting that help build their vocabulary and increase their exposure to practical English use.  The focus at the moment is "birdwatching" and students learned to identify the basic parts of a bird, talk about variations to those body features (e.g a long/short/curved/sharp beak), they listened to and followed English instructions for how to construct their own binoculars and they then used those binoculars to seek out bird life on a nature walk. We counted birds nests, discovered a nest of spiders (potential bird food), stumbled across an owl pellet with visible mouse bones and sat quietly to listen to (and try to imitate) bird songs.  Unfortunately the group is a bit noisy so actual bird spotting was difficult as they had all flown a safe distance away, but it was such a joy to hear the students chatting in a mix of Italian and English, laughing with delight at discovering holes made by woodpeckers and eagerly spelling out the new English words in their notebooks that gave their surroundings a new layer of depth.