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What is this all about? Laurie Wayne is a teacher of English as a second or other language and an organic farmer. As part of her MA project at Portland State University, she put together something that helps people working as coordinators and educators in school, community, and other gardens integrate teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) into what they do. It's a workshop, four hours long (delivered in one session or two), that covers things like language acquisition, adult learning, language teaching methods, working with multilevel, multigenerational, and multicultural groups, content-based learning, and creating garden-based ESL lessons. Now the workshop materials are available to others who would like to deliver it and help garden-based educators integrate language learning into their work. Wow, isn't that kind of a new idea? Not really. Before modern schools became common, people learned almost everything outdoors. Garden-based learning in schools is already used to teach everything from math to art. For vulnerable adult populations like immigrants and refugees, gardens represent the perfect learning environment because they address issues of food security and cultural exchange, and provide relevant, usable content in an unintimidating and very practical way. Garden-based ESL has been proven to be successful in the right situation. If you are a garden educator or volunteer interested in learning how to bring ESL into the garden, please use the workshop materials as an individual, a workshop participant, or a workshop facilitator to get ideas for how to approach it. You CAN teach ESL in the garden! For questions, suggestions, kudos, or virtual pies-in-the-face, please contact Laurie. |