Outdoor Education and Emotions in Second Language Learning
Abstract
This paper examines outdoor language learning as an emotionally complex and pedagogically conditional environment for second and foreign language education. It argues that learning beyond the classroom should not be understood merely as a spatial relocation of instruction, but as a didactic situation shaped by the interaction between task design, learner readiness, spatial context, social exposure, and communicative safety. Drawing on experiential pedagogy, place-based education, environmental psychology, research on emotions in second language acquisition, flow theory, and task-based language teaching, the paper discusses the potential of field-based communicative tasks to support lexical, pragmatic, interactional, cultural, social, and mediation competences. At the same time, it emphasizes that outdoor learning environments are not inherently positive or motivating for all learners. Natural and social spaces may foster curiosity, agency, enjoyment, and willingness to communicate, but they may also generate anxiety, discomfort, uncertainty, or avoidance.
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