Teaching in the Garden: School Gardens as a Space for Environmental and English Learning

Abstract

School gardens as settings for learning outside the classroom are becoming increasingly popular. They allow students to learn in an authentic way as they engage in a variety of activities and materials. More importantly, they also represent a powerful place and tool for environmental education as students are not only exposed to nature but also gain positive environmental experiences. This paper examines school gardens as a place for both enhancing students’ English language competences and fostering critical environmental literacy. The first section of the paper focuses on garden-based education as a type of learning outside the classroom. The ensuing section then provides a brief discussion of school gardens as learning spaces across the curriculum, arguing that school gardens are far more than places for learning about nutrition and healthy living. Following this, the next section then argues for using school gardens also for learning English as a foreign language. Here Gardner’s multiple intelligences model serves to illustrate the potential of school gardens for differentiated instruction regarding content, processes, and products in today’s increasingly diverse learning groups. The main part of the paper then concentrates on garden-based education in the context of EFL teacher training. At the University of Education Karlsruhe (Germany) students have the opportunity to attend a school garden-based seminar which allows them to experience first hand the benefits of learning English as a foreign language in the school garden. The paper concludes by taking a glimpse into the future of school garden learning by reporting on the authors’ experiences with using technology in the context of garden-based education.