Fear turned to laughter : l2 development and speaking anxiety in adventure education

Adventure Education (AE), a manifestation of experiential education (EE), does not appear in second language (L2) pedagogy research. Although the benefits of AE are reliably clear and researchers claim that its methods are applicable in broader education (Prouty, 2007, p. 13), the approach has not yet made an appearance in language classrooms. Therefore, I conducted a study of language learners participating in AE activities, and I hypothesized that they would enjoy AE and that over time, perceive language development, and see a decrease in their speaking anxiety levels. The seven participants were English learners who were enrolled in Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD programs at Michigan State University. To answer the research questions, I facilitated three AE sessions and administered a background survey, pre-interview, post-survey, and post-interview. I analyzed the data from the surveys and interviews quantitatively and qualitatively. The results signify that a strong connection between AE and language development cannot yet be made; however, they also imply that learners enjoyed and engaged with AE and felt very comfortable speaking with their groupmates, which may cultivate an environment conducive to decreased speaking anxiety and more language production in the classroom.